The problem is what it leaves out. These days, the value of a firm lies as much in its reputation, its processes,the know-how of staff and relationships with customers and suppliers as in tangible assets.Putting an accounting value on these intangibles is notoriously tricky. By their nature, they have unclear boundaries.Not every dollar of R&D or advertising spending can be ascribed to a well-defined asset, such as a brand or patent.That is in large part why, with a few exceptions, such spending is treated as a running cost, like rent or electricity.Increasingly price is detached from book value. The median price-to-book of S&P 500 stocks is 3.0.But plenty of well-known companies, whose competitive edge rests on brands or patents, have much higher ratios or even negative book values.

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问题是它遗漏了什么。如今，一家公司的价值取决于其公司名誉、进程、员工的专业技能以及客户和供应商之间的关系以及其有形资产。给这些无形资产定一个帐面价值很难。就其本质而言，它们的界限并不明确。不是每一分花在调研或广告上的钱都可以被归为有明确定义的资产，如一个品牌或专利。这就是为什么（也有少数例外）这类开支被当做一种经营成本，如房租或电费。价格逐渐被脱离账面价值。S&P 500的中间股价与账面价值是3.0。但是很多竞争优势依赖于品牌或专利的知名公司比率更高，甚至账面价值是负值。

McDonald's has considerable brand value, which is not on its balance-sheet. It also has property assets that have been fully depreciated.The effect of mergers is to make things murkier.If, say, one firm pays $100m for another that has $30m of tangible assets, the residual $70m is counted as an intangible asset—either as brand value, if that can be gauged, or as "goodwill". That distorts comparisons.A firm that has acquired brands by merger will have those reflected in its book value, says Simon Harris, of GMO, a fund-management firm;a firm that has developed its own brands will not. Share buy-backs make things murkier still. For any firm with a price-to-book greater than one,a buy-back will diminish book by proportionately more than it lowers the value of outstanding stock. So price-to-book rises further.Some have called for accounting rules to change. But the more leeway a company has to turn day-to-day costs into capital assets,the more scope there is to fiddle with reported earnings. Better to spur the disclosure of spending that adds to intangible value.Analysts can then make their own judgments. Mr Harris finds that adjusting book value to reflect past R&D and advertising spending makes for more useful comparisons across stocks.It is not a perfect gauge. But no single measure—whether price-to-book or billions of customers served— can ever tell the whole story.

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麦当劳品牌价值巨大，但这种价值没有体现在其资产负债表中。它也有已被完全折旧的不动产。企业合并的效果是让事情变得更加模糊。如果假设一家公司出资一亿美元收购另一家拥有3千万美元有形资产的公司，剩余的7千万将算作是无形资产—要么是品牌价值（如果这个可以被测量的话），要么是“商誉”。这就扭曲了比较。对于通过合并收购品牌的公司而言，这些将会反应在其账面价值上，基金管理公司GMO的西蒙·哈里斯说到；而发展自己品牌的公司则不会。股票回购还是会让事情更加模糊。对于任何一家股价与账面价值大于一的公司而言，回购会减少账面价值，其差值多于其降低的已发行股份的价值。所以股价与账面价值会进一步增加。一些人呼吁改变会计规则。但是一家公司需要将日常成本转化为固定资产的回旋余地越多，在收入报告中弄虚作假的范围就越大。最好是鼓励披露添加至无形资产中的开支。那么分析师就可以做出自己的判断。哈里斯发现调整账面价值以反映过去调研和广告开支有助于对股票进行更有效的比较。这并非是一种完美的测量方法。但是没有一种单一方法—不论是账面价值还是服务了数十亿客户—能够讲述整个故事。