No. of Recommendations: 7
First and definitely foremost, I believe that the chance of permanent capital loss for patient Berkshire
shareholders is as low as can be found among single-company investments. That’s because our per-share
intrinsic business value is almost certain to advance over time.
This cheery prediction comes, however, with an important caution: If an investor’s entry point into
Berkshire stock is unusually high – at a price, say, approaching double book value, which Berkshire shares
have occasionally reached – it may well be many years before the investor can realize a profit. In other
words, a sound investment can morph into a rash speculation if it is bought at an elevated price. Berkshire
is not exempt from this truth.
Purchases of Berkshire that investors make at a price modestly above the level at which the company
would repurchase its shares, however, should produce gains within a reasonable period of time. Berkshire’s
directors will only authorize repurchases at a price they believe to be well below intrinsic value.
This is from Buffett's 'The next 50 Years at Berkshire'- while we are not at double book value, and I recognize that book value is not what it used to be, we are above the midpoint at 1.63+/book, midpoint meaning back when Buffett wrote this the thinking was he would repurchase at 1.2x or less, of course now he has repurchased in the 1.4's- clearly he has not bought recently in size and sitting on tons of cash- so he is telling us that we are not at bargain prices.
Doesn't mean the stock goes down- he may repurchase at a higher nominal price actually
