Post #7905 by mungofitch on the Berkshire Hathaway board

Stocks A to Z / Stocks B / Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A)

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I searched and could not find historical data for FCF margins. Does anyone happen to have long term data for FCF?

No, but...
In general it will track profits extremely closely through the cycles, one main difference being tax rates, since FCF will be pre-tax.

This is a handy graph
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=cSh

It's pretty cool that the number exceeded 8.5% only a single quarter in the half century from 1953 to 2004.
Yet has been below that number only 3 quarters since then, all in the credit crunch. What used to be record breaking high is now record breaking low.

The old normal was maybe 6.5%, and the new normal seems to be above 10%, so each dollar of sales has been producing half again as much profit as it used to. Less going to labour and taxes and individual lenders (and foreign suppliers), the other main competitors for a share of the money.

Jim

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