Adam Levy, The Motley Fool
5 min read
Greg Abel finally broke a 14-quarter streak for Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRKA) (NYSE: BRKB) last quarter, when he purchased more stocks for the company’s marketable equity portfolio than he sold. Before Abel took over as CEO, Warren Buffett spent the last three years trimming and selling off huge positions in Berkshire’s portfolio, ultimately leaving Abel with a record $369 billion in cash available to deploy.
There’s a good reason Buffett struggled to find good investments. There just wasn’t a lot of value in the market available to him. Even today, Abel struggles to find ways to deploy a significant portion of Berkshire’s cash. While he’s made a splash by adding tens of billions to the Alphabet position Buffett initiated last year, other investments have remained relatively small.
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A single table explains exactly why Berkshire has struggled to find attractive opportunities in today’s market, but it also highlights the opportunity for investors like you and me to find great value.
This table explains exactly where to find value in today’s market
The following table shows the P/E ratio of various segments of the market relative to their 20-year historic P/E ratios.
Data source: J.P.Morgan Asset Management.
The table above shows that large-cap stocks trade at an average premium of 10% to 19% relative to their historical valuations. Value stocks have become the most overvalued relative to their historic trading range. That’s a problem for a value investor like Buffett, Abel, or Berkshire Hathaway’s other investment manager, Ted Weschler. Large-cap stocks are practically the only way for Berkshire to deploy significant capital. And if the average stock is trading above its historic average, there aren’t going to be very many stocks trading at an attractive value.
Buffett summed up the problem in a single sentence in his 2023 letter to shareholders. “There remain only a handful of companies in this country capable of truly moving the needle at Berkshire, and they have been endlessly picked over by us and by others.” Not only is Berkshire’s investable universe small, but it’s also well-followed, which makes it less likely that Berkshire will discover anything the market has overlooked.
