Thanks for a very nice spreadsheet, with a consistent message that the threshold price for repurchases is 1.50xBV. Above that, BRK closes its wallet; below that, purchases resume.

This is exactly the sort of simple formula that simple-minded people like me enjoy, because I can act without thinking too deeply. It is certainly a useful metric for those studying Berkshire. But the nagging doubt is that the safe-to-repurchase ratio will probably fluctuate over time. If you think about the whole kit - operating companies, listed stocks, T-bills - you can imagine that there are a lot of factors that would nudge the ratio one way or another: interest rates, insurance rates, legislative developments, and so on.

Maybe I am overthinking this, since with Berkshire's great diversity there are probably a lot of offsetting factors. But the parlor game I like to play is to think about why this number might change in response to certain developments, whether gradual, or dramatic. One obvious case would be a market crash, when Berkshire might decline to repurchase at say 1.2xBV when they could buy other stuff at half off. I suspect that at such a moment, cheers would go up from this board, while almost every other financial board would be drowning in shrieks consisting of all-caps messages with dozens of exclamation marks.