According to @QCompounding, Warren Buffett estimates intrinsic value by prioritizing owner’s earnings over GAAP EPS to capture the cash that can actually be distributed to shareholders, a metric that drives more reliable valuation decisions for traders, source: @QCompounding on X, Jan 10, 2026; source: Berkshire Hathaway 1986 Shareholder Letter. Owner’s earnings are calculated as net income plus non-cash charges minus average maintenance capital expenditures and required working-capital investments, which traders can convert into an owner’s earnings yield by dividing by market cap or enterprise value to screen for undervaluation, source: Berkshire Hathaway 1986 Shareholder Letter; source: Aswath Damodaran, NYU Stern, Corporate Finance notes on FCFF and cash flow yields. This cash-based lens is particularly useful for crypto-exposed equities where GAAP can be noisy, such as bitcoin miners with heavy depreciation and capex and MicroStrategy with digital-asset accounting impacts, so emphasizing maintenance capex and working-capital adjustments improves signal quality, source: Marathon Digital Holdings 2023 Form 10-K on mining capex and depreciation; source: MicroStrategy 2023 Form 10-K on digital asset accounting; source: Berkshire Hathaway 1986 Shareholder Letter. For trading, rank names like Coinbase COIN, MicroStrategy MSTR, and major miners by owner’s earnings yield versus sector WACC to identify potential long or short candidates, and track inflections in maintenance capex and working-capital turns around crypto-volatility driven volume cycles, source: Aswath Damodaran, NYU Stern, cost of capital and FCFF framework; source: Coinbase 2023 Form 10-K on revenue sensitivity to crypto price and volatility.

According to Compounding Quality, Warren Buffett determines the intrinsic value of a stock by focusing on Owner’s Earnings, which is calculated as reported net income plus depreciation and amortization, minus capital expenditures and additional working capital requirements (source: Compounding Quality on Twitter, May 12, 2025). Traders use this approach to assess whether a stock is undervalued or overvalued based on future cash flows, a strategy that can lead to better timing when entering or exiting positions. Understanding Owner’s Earnings is especially relevant for crypto market participants watching for institutional shifts towards value-based investment models.