A balance sheet term. It's what things are worth at liquidation. If you own a company with stuff like machines, equipment, and inventory (stuff you sell), you'll figure out what things are worth now and how much they decline in value each year. Book value helps you understand how much everything is worth right now if you suddenly need to liquidate (or are just applying for a business loan).
Example
Caterpillar Tractor bought a smelting stove to melt iron at high temperatures. They paid $10 million for it. It should last 20 years and then they can sell it for scrap for $2 million. Using advanced calculus, we can ascertain that it will have depreciated $8 million in the 20 years that they use it. Using arithmetic depreciation, it will have declined in value $8 million / 20 = $400,000 per year in value. By year 10 of having owned the smelting stove, it will have depreciated $4 million. The book value of that stove will be held on the balance sheet of CAT as $6 million.
Related or Semi-related Video
Finance: What is Fair Market Value?3 Views
Finance a la shmoop what is fair market value? double bubble toil and trouble [Man casting a curse]
what is the fair price of this pile of rubble so this term revolves around the
notion of fair like what is fair and by the way who told you the world was fair
anyway all right but financially fair or at least fair market means what the
market will fairly and legally pay for an asset that's fair and so that means [Man discussing financial fair]
fair as in not cash from a Somalian warlords leather briefcase but rather
fair as in the legitimate selling price of this excellent two-bedroom three-bath
shoebox in Palo Alto selling for 3 million dollars today for something to
be "of fair market" the buyer has to be knowledgeable and
unpressured i.e the somalian warlord does not in fact have a gun aimed
at the buyers head or any other body part and generally speaking [Gun aims at buyers body parts]
the market itself has to be a legitimate market like real estate or jewelry or
stocks or bonds or whatever if it's an illegitimate market well it's a probably
wondering why it was born out of wedlock so you can't do that
when you assess fair market value things have to be legal and liquid and well
fair whatever the market will pay for it that's the fair value [Hand dealing out cash]
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