Accounting consequences do not influence our operating or capital-allocation process.
Accounting reality was conservative, backward-looking, and governed by generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). Investment decisions, on the other hand, should be based on the economic reality of a business. In economic reality, intangible assets such as patents,trademarks, special managerial expertise, and reputation might be very valuable, yet under GAAP, they would be carried at little or no value. GAAP measured results in terms of net profit; in economic reality, the results of a business were its flows of cash.
A key feature to Buffett’s approach defined economic reality at the level of the business itself, not the market, the economy, or the security—he was a fundamental analyst of the business. His analysis sought to judge the simplicity of the business, the consistency of its operating history, the attractiveness of its long-term prospects, the quality of management, and the firm’s capacity to create value.