The mining group reported a 22% fall in first-half profit as metals prices fell and spoke of near-term uncertainty, but said it was confident about demand in the long run.
Last fall Berkshire announced that if the per-share book value fell below 110% of the stock price (1.1x the stock price) the company would step in and repurchase shares.
When Wall Street went into meltdown last fall, the bottom fell out of the exotic-instrument market, and many of Harvard's private-equity investments proved to be unsalable--that is, worthless, at least temporarily.