Post #18594 by mungofitch on the Berkshire Hathaway board

Stocks A to Z / Stocks B / Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A)

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Is there any significance to the fact that BRK's trailing PE is currently 15.6x and its forward PE is 22-23x? That seems like a notable gap for a stock like BRK, which is so predictable and has such solid earnings. What is the market telling us, if anything?

Berkshire's short term GAAP earnings are hugely volatile. Forward earnings estimates are probably (a) more stable, and (b) not particularly valuable.

So one possible explanation:
The trailing P/E figure may be using historical actual (volatile) number which can be very much different from any forward stable estimate.

You might actually end up in the situation that for Berkshire, always looking at forward estimates is more meaningful than trailing actual figures, the reverse of most companies.

There's a reason we talk about book so much : )
...and that Berkshire talks about operating earnings.

Jim

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