Subject: Re: Brk up again, does anyone have a clue
Otherwise just continued buying from indexes as people are conditioned to buy the dip and the bigger BRK becomes (market cap) the greater the weighting it has?. This doesn't rely on an assessment of valuation.

Sounds right. I think that explains maybe 80%+ of the price moves in Berkshire this year: mainly index trackers and closet index trackers and the forces that drive them. Probably the best explanation most of the time, for that matter.

This year, the other 20% of the explanation was pretty obvious: a time limited flight to safety. (and as with any move, amplified by momentum players)

Around the third week of February, the broad US market started falling but Berkshire started rising, a spike in relative-to-market performance.

Then the panic then subsided in mid April and both trends reversed and completely unwound. The broad market did a bungee rebound, while Berkshire's price faded back again. That lasted till the first week of August.

Back where we started. Berkshire's price return is now the same as the S&P starting from Jan/Feb before the up-and-back-again.

Jim