Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK-A) — Valuation Snapshot

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK-A) is a bank, insurer or other financial, and a free-cash-flow discounted-cash-flow (DCF) model is structurally the wrong lens for it: for these businesses debt and float are raw material, not financing. So we value it the way a bank is valued — on the return it earns on its book equity. Our bank model (justified price-to-book) puts it at about $569,961 a share, between $499,281 and $663,952 for a cost of equity one point either side of 9.6%, against $853,500 today. Every input is listed with its source. It is a model estimate, not a price target, and not investment advice.

On the numbers we do have, BRK-A trades at a recent price of $853,500, a market capitalisation of about $1,218,064,023,552, sitting 86% of the way up its 52-week range ($698,000–$878,328), on the NYSE.

The standard alternative to a DCF is relative valuation — comparing BRK-A's trading multiples against a sector benchmark. Here that gives P/E of 14.4× (in line with the peer median of 14.0×); Fwd P/E of 26.2× (richer than the peer median of 13.4×); P/B of 1.7× (cheaper than the peer median of 2.6×); P/S of 3.1× (cheaper than the peer median of 4.8×). A cheaper multiple than peers can flag a discount or a market that expects weaker growth; it is a comparison, not a recommendation.

The asset, or book-value, lens is the classic tool for asset-heavy businesses and financials. BRK-A shows a price-to-book (P/B) of 1.71 and book value of $498,663 per share. Price-to-book compares the market price to the accounting net-asset value per share; below 1.0 can mean a discount to net assets or that the market is pricing in trouble — descriptive either way, never a buy signal on its own.

Finally, a price-based read — explicitly not a valuation. BRK-A is in an up-trend (price above both its 50- and 200-day averages), trading -2.8% from its 52-week high. Over the past year the stock is +15.1%. Moving-average trend and 52-week position describe where the stock has traded; they say nothing about what it is worth.

To be exact about what this page is not: we are not saying the numbers for BRK-A are unavailable. They are, and they are above. We are saying a discounted-cash-flow model is the wrong instrument for this kind of business, and publishing one anyway — because the inputs happen to exist — would be a precise answer to the wrong question. It trades thinly (low average volume), so quoted prices and any derived metrics should be treated with extra caution. Refusing is the more useful answer, and it is the same rule we apply to every name in this category.