Value of Warren Buffet’s stock too high for the stock market

The Wall Street Journal had already warned days ago that there could be problems with the display of stock values. Now this has come true. The value of the A-share of Warren Buffet’s investment company Berkshire Hathaway currently amounts to more than 435,000 US dollars and exactly this cannot be displayed technically.

Display not technically feasible

The value of Warren Buffet’s stock is so high that it cannot be technically represented. There is a problem in the stock exchange system here. With a value of more than 435,000 US dollars, the 32-bit system simply cannot cope. Such a high price poses a problem for technical systems for trading and also for displaying the price. The stock of Warren Buffet’s investment company Berkshire Hathaway is simply worth more than 32 bits. The Wall Street Journal had already warned about this.

The most that can be represented with a 32-bit system is an unsigned integer of 4,294,967,295. Due to the use of four decimal places for shares on the stock exchange, the maximum representable value is limited to 429,496.7295 US dollars. It is precisely this representable limit that the A-share of Warren Buffet’s investment company has now broken.

Share value spills over

The Nasdaq stock exchange has now decided to suspend the price in its channels at 98 percent of the theoretical maximum value. Nasdaq now publishes only the value, but no longer a graphical representation of the price’s evolution. Other websites continued to display the price of the stock until the price overflowed. Problems then arose when the price then exceeded the mark of 429,496.7295 US dollars. Google is also having problems with the display and is unable to graphically reflect the trend.

Update mid-May

By May 17, 2021, there should now be an update of the software systems used, so that the existing error can be fixed. Until then, it will remain for the time being with the previous limitations of the representation.