Who can explain BRK.A ripping to the upside this quarter?

Overnight said:
Because when was the last time a $500,000 stock was suddenly available to Reddit users on the cheap? Imagine the volatility and the volume boost. And the whole IV thing! Just wow.
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It seems there is already a cheap version available to all, it is called BRKB, the B Shares, the ratio is 1:1500.

Current prices is $340

It has less voting rights (relative to its size), but otherwise it just seems to be a smaller version of the A shares.
 
I'm starting to understand now. BRK is worth $750B, which includes class A+B shares. His Apple stock, which they say is half of his stock portfolio, is worth $150B. So his entire stock portfolio is $300B. He also has $125B in cash.

So stocks and cash combined is $425B.

So the company is valued at $325B over and above its stock and cash holdings.

This is the result of investors bidding up the stock. We still have to figure out why they are bidding up the stock in the most recent quarter.

I don't think the performance of his stock portfolio was any cause for investor excitement. Remember that half of his stock portfolio (AAPL) crashed 10% this quarter. And another 30% of his portfolio (BAC, AXP, KHC, and KO) kind of languished overall, or perhaps went up a few percent.

So it must be BRK's private company portfolio that has been exciting investors and causing them to bid up the stock price. A couple of posters here have already alluded to this, but I'm finally catching on.

So let's take a look at BRK's private company portfolio, which was recently linked to [Thanks to Superstar2317 for this link]
 
newwurldmn said:
funds are flowing from tech stocks to value stocks and cyclicals.

brk/a has a massive private company portfolio which earns as well.

railroads, housing sales are doing really well. Brk/a owns the one of the largest railroads and owns the largest real estate broker. They also own tons of car dealerships.
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I think newwurldmn kind of nailed it here. Railroads and housing sales are doing really well, and BRK owns the largest ones in the field. Car dealerships too.

Also on the list (at the link) is other real estate companies, electric companies (electricity prices are skyrocketing), other oil and energy companies, insurance companies, a $40 billion investment in Precision Castparts which is a Defense company which probably doubled in value since his purchase in 2016 (just look at LMT since 2016, it more than doubled).

Anyways, I'm starting to understand now. Thanks everyone!
 
Math_Wiz said:
So his entire stock portfolio is $300B.
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That's only for publicly traded companies that issued stock right? What about privately held companies that make up big part of Berkshire, how are you valuing them without any stock price for them?
 
guru said:
That's only for publicly traded companies that issued stock right? What about privately held companies that make up big part of Berkshire, how are you valuing them without any stock price for them?
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Ahh, that is the question for investors! Haha. Since BRKA is valued at $750B and their stock holdings are $300B and their cash is I think $150B, that pretty much means that investors are valuing BRKA's private companies (those companies that don't trade publicly) at around $300B (coincidentally the same valuation as their publicly traded companies).

It's such a huge conglomerate, with so many moving parts and so many unknowns, I don't know how any investor can work through all the numbers and come up with a "reasonable" valuation, lol.
 
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