Munger_Disciple:

Thanks for the kudos!

Just for my own clarification, I assume you converted each year's retained earnings into 2025 numbers by using a chained CPI from that year until 2025. Then you added these CPI adjusted retained earnings for 10 years. Please confirm my understanding.

I had a chained CPI from 9/30/2025 back to 9/30/2005. I had quarterly market cap numbers and quarterly total shareholder's equity numbers. I used the chained CPI to convert ALL of those numbers to their value in 2025 dollars.

I then did the 10 year differences to create the columns in my spreadsheet. One column was the amount of (inflation adjuated) market cap added in the previous 10 years, essentially MarketCap(9/30/2025) - MarketCap(9/30/2015) and then for retained earnings (minus buyback spending) ShareholderEquity(9/30/2025)-ShareholderEquity(9/30/2015).

I then got the market value associated with $1 of retained earnings:

[ MarketCap(9/30/2025) - MarketCap(9/30/2015) ] / [ ShareholderEquity(9/30/2025)-ShareholderEquity(9/30/2015) ] = DollarsofMarketCap arising from $1 of retained earnings.

Unless there is some flaw in my thinking, there is an amazing benefit to leaving earnings retained in Berskshire. Like $1.69 market value per $1 retained recently, $1.40 per $1 retained averaged over the last 10 years of endpoints checked.

Cheers,
R:)

Berkshire Hathaway FAQ

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