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I hope you enjoyed the MOU in which Iran/US determined Israel’s faith. Please stop thinking Israel is anything more than the sugar baby in the relationship with US. (Welfare recipient is too strong and I agree)

Thats what I was saying about being invested in the model than the stock/equity picking acumen of HWIC. If they manage to do that, it would be icing on the cake. Even a mere 5% annual gain on the equity book get you to double digit equity returns. And we already currently have billions in unrealized gains in the trunk(almost worth around 15% of total equity worth).

Thanks for proving my point about your absolute lack of understanding of this situation. You think you got something here? You are dropping a clip of DJT, the same DJT who is famous for his hypoerbole and claiming credit for sunrise and you are taking it this pitch as a Pentagon debrief? He is feeding his own brand and not arguing that Hamas, Hezb, or Iran are millitary masterminds. Thanks for confirming your entire worldview is built on 15-second social media clips.

“If it weren’t for the United States of America, with me … Israel wouldn’t exist right now. Israel would have been blown off the face of the earth 100% and every smart person in Israel knows that” -DJT https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2066828883295371641/video/1?s=46

I think it is pretty much impossible to determine a rate of return on Fairfax’s equity book over the past 40 years. What do you include? CDS? Equity hedges? TRS? Some of these were risk management positions, others were investments? But we do know with certainty one thing: Fairfax’s share price compounded at 19% for the past 40 years (US$; dividends reinvested). That is elite performance. Clearly, Fairfax is doing a number of things exceptionally well. Fairfax has two businesses: Insurance Investments. We also know returns from the insurance business were weak pre-2010. As a result, I suspect investments have been an important driver of long term results. What did they return each year? No idea. And I don’t need to know… All I have to do is look at the stock price to know what I need to know. (Fairfax’s total performance has been elite.) I am a quickly becoming a Thordike desciple…. Capital allocation is the most important thing over the long term for a company like Fairfax. Capital allocation drives per share results over the long term more than anything. But assessing capital allocation is not easy - so most investors/analysts ignore it. Instead they focus on other things that are easier.

Well yes the mechanics of an issuer turning on the ability to 'BNPL' something after purchase is relatively easy, and has been done by issuers for many years (I think Amex, Citi, Chase all have had offerings live for years) but they have not made a dent into the integrated at checkout BNPL players. The interesting question is not whether they can create their own offering post checkout, it's WHY these offerings have basically been a 0 while the core BNPL players continue growing at 20%+ annually. A few reasons: (1) The offer AT POINT OF SALE is the product!! You need to offer this while someone is checking out for conversion to be impacted. It's a much harder change in behavior to say to someone "buy it like normal and then split it in our app". An installment plan activated in a banking app after you already bought the thing does none the conversion work. ... whether you think it should is beside the point. It's just clearly not a viable offer based on the fact that these products haven't worked. (2) The economics are all wrong. What makes the BNPL at checkout model work is that the merchant is willing to pay fees because BNPL increases conversion and basket sizes. They're willing to pay ~4% on a pay in four txn vs. 2-2.5% on a normal cc txn. If you are Chase and offering an installment plan post checkout, you are taking on the same amount of risk as a BNPL provider, but not getting paid anything by the merchant to do so. For the group of consumers that would want to use this product, it becomes uneconomic (can you really compete with Klarna or Affirm when they get 4% from the merchant and you don't??) ... further, the lifeblood of the subprime issuers is the revolving interest on balances. Why would you transition someone from that highly profitable product to a much less profitable offering (installment loans). And if the issuers decided to charge substantial interest on the installment loans, why would a consumer use the product when they could get the same loan from Klarna or Affirm at a much better price because the merchant is paying a large chunk (or all) of the fee? (3) Because you are underwriting every transaction, Klarna and Affirm can reach consumers the credit card companies can't. For example, a thin-file consumer can get accepted for a $200 bnpl loan but would never be accepted for a $5k line of credit. Therefore, if a cc company can't bring in a customer on a normal LOC, they won't be able to offer them this post purchase installment product either. The beauty of the BNPL model is the reunderwriting of every transaction. the moat is that the loans are (a) merchant-funded (b) at point-of-sale (c) each txn is reunderwritten (d) signing agreements with all the merchants who have specific / custom terms that work for them and their customer base (e) the model puts Affirm and Klarna in front of consumers who have traditionally been excluded from the credit card ecosystem so there's a legitimate case that these consumers are incremental to merchants and improve conversion.

More of the same from the International Politics kindergarden sandbox [ ] : - - - o 0 o - - - One would think the two were married, ripe for diworse! [ ]

Sure. It's a risk (that Israel and US will take the high road) Iran took and it paid off. Again, we agree on the outcome but I think Iran is shrewed when it takes risks and up to this point it has been paying off. More so in the last round with Trump.

I think picking a fight with two nuclear capable adversaries and stating that your goal is destroying two nuclear armed states is asking to be nuked into Stone Age. How that is rational is beyond me. Had USA in 1979 or Israel since been run by anyone with guts, Iran and its great civilization (I truly believe that Iranian civilization is a great one and I am not being ironic) would have been wiped off the face of the earth.

It is genuinely embarrassing how much loud, confident ignorance you manage to cram into a single post. You aren't analyzing Middle East politics. You are typing out a fever dream of fiction fueled by TikTok algorithms with zero historical literacy. Let's ground your post a bit. First, your delusion that Iran and its proxies could "eliminate Israel at any moment" if the US steps away is mathematically and militarily brain-dead. Iran couldn't even protect its own proxy leadership from being systematically turned into statistics over a single weekend, and Hamas is trapped in a blockaded strip, having lost nearly 50% of the land from beforec Oct 7th. Believing they pose an existential threat to a nuclear-armed state with one of the most tech advanced militaries on Earth shows you are absolutely no grasp on conventional warfare. Nevermind that Israel won its most decisive victories of '48 and '67 without massive US aid alignment. Second, calling a collection of religious extemeist loons who have economically gutted Lebanon, ruined Gaza, and hidden in tunnels while their chivilians take the hit "discipline and restraint" is a peak Stockholm syndrome. If watching your entire command structure get obliterated by exploding pagesr and airstrikes is your definition of "defeating a superpower", then please, keep on winning. Third, falling for fake internet quotes in 2026 is pathetic. The "gaza holocaust" quote you attributed to May Golan is widely exposed, illiterate mistranslation of a Hebrew interview, where she said she was proud of "ruins of Hamas infrastructure." Seriously, go listen to it and use Google Translate. If you have to invent fake quotes ot make your point, you already admitting your actual argument is a loser. And by the way, this isn't the first time I caught you falling for fake Internet memes from propaganda accounts. You can scroll back many pages back and it's all there. Maybe it's time to reconsider what echo chamber you are in? Finally, trying to use JD to imply US is cutting Israel loose completely exposes your political illeteracy. Vance's entire stance is to cut through the red tape and let israel finish the job faster and harder. JD knows that this particular excursion by Trump was a huge miscalculation and as an American, I do too. I have no clue what Trump was thinking about here and in Trump's fashion, he is trying to bull his way into a deal and disengage, even if it means bullying Israel into stopping its activities. But to think JD or anyone sane thinks that Hamas/Hezb are good guys and the US is going to throw Israel to the wolves is just naive. You lack the basic factual baseline required to have this conversation. Seriously, pick up a history book. It is fascinating how much pro-pal and anti-israel folk just refuse to help themselves and continuoully humiliate themselves. Oh and do consider changing up your X/TikTok algo. I suspect you are getting fed a healthy diet of propaganda.

@skanjete - I visited Prague and it is magical. But, can one get a good enough job there like NYC, Silicon Valley? My son and I saw the Prague Astronomical Clock (The Orloj) in Old Town Square is widely considered one of the city's most underwhelming tourist experiences. lol. But, the people were nice.

If it's not a sneakhead finish eating the tadpoles, it's another invasive specie that ravishes an eco-system. Laws of the jungle.

There are no hurt feelings. The Iranians and their allies can eliminate the Israelis at any moment if US ever steps away. That so-called “unbreakable friendship” between Trump and Netanyahu is already fractured — and this is an exciting time for the region. If Trump ever tells Israel “you’re on your own,” - they would be in big trouble! He speaks the language that Israel’s genocidal animals truly understand. (Please see another Israeli minister spewing hate below) The difference — which puzzles me how you don’t see it — is that he is a publicly elected official representing the will of Israeli voters. Compare him to the Iranians: one side acts like bloodthirsty animals, slaughtering women and children, the other shows true discipline and resistance and just defeated the worlds super power. Even Trump admitted it when he told Netanyahu to stop blowing up entire buildings in Lebanon. Israelis are experts at killing women and children as we have seen in Palestine and now Lebanon, but the moment they get hit back, they beg for American help and play the victim - it’s exactly what they did during the 12 day war. Remember: Israel only exists because of the United States allows them to exist. as per JD Vance, “Israel needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that country is in.” JD Vance giving Israelis a reality check: https://x.com/nicksortor/status/2067642712560689401/video/1?s=46 Another Israeli publically elected cabinet member: “I am personally proud of the holocaust of Gaza, and that 80 years from now, they will tell their grandchildren what the Jews did,” —The Israeli Minister of Social Equality.

Do you have a more accurate number? Where does the 6% come from precisely? Even if 5 year bond yields average 4.5% over the last 40 years, Fairfax has always run much shorter duration than that. How do you factor that in to your analysis? Btw, even with your 6% assumption the equity returns are 12%+ which beats the S&P over 40 years.....can't argue with that? Why didn't Buffett do this?

I tend to agree with your asessment though I think our conclusions are a tad differnet. I think Iran was acting rationally. What is being conflated is moral/conventional rationality with strategic rationality. While Iran's actions are highly destructive and confrontational, they followed a calculated, logical framework aimed at regime survival, regional influnce, and assymetric deterrence. It did take a terrible move by the current president to really reward them handsomely.

If we assume that those returns are indeed correct, then why didn't Fairfax raised a twenty billion or forty billion hedge fund from endowments and ran it with the incentive and management fee going to the company?

LOL...it hurts your feeligns that Itamar speaks the language that really resonates with the neighbors up north? Honestly, how is this different than Rabih Banat, Walid Jumblatt, Ossama Saad or even Wiam Wahhab? It's not. Do you go around calling them genocidal animals? You probably don't even though Hizb shoots indescriminantly into Israel (remember those druze soccer boys that got killed) while Israel takes precautions with Lebanese civilians at the cost of IDF soldier lives.civilians at the cost of IDF soldier lives. Good for Israel obliterating Hizballah. I only wish Israel could turn to be more effective diplomat and capitalize on tactical wins like the pager attack with the main Lebanon and get a peace going. Other than that, good on Israel for continiously pounding the life out of Hizballah.

Where are you getting average annual fixed income return = 4.2% over the past 40 years? That seems extraordinarily low. Even AI claims it averaged 4.61% for a 5 year treasury. Given that Fairfax seems to have bought corporate debt and mortgages, my guess is that the return on the fixed income portfolio was north of 6% per annum over the past 40 years.

@Blake Hampton you need to stop whining all the time. I’m sorry, but if you are like this in real life, no one will want to hang around you. I hope you have close family and friends who are able to tell you to shut up - if you lack close relationships maybe look inwards. Even if you are right, sometimes it’s just better to say nothing and muddle on through.

I agree I am a big fan of buybacks too given where the share price is. The good news is assuming a 10% forward equity return you can estimate a ~15% forward ROE, assuming a 15% forward equity return you can estimate a ~19% forward ROE. And this is before any additional unlock of latent value eg. Bangalore airport and situations like Poseidon where book value << market value.

An additional factor to consider is they were working with millions and hundreds of millions early on, now it's Billions, I believe around $28B, and size is a headwind. Though certainly not as much of one as for Berkshire. Yet another reason I'm a huge fan of their buybacks.

God bless AI!

Btw @Maverick47 I just had Claude estimate the Geometric return based on the AGM chart, and historical annual reports and given the low volatility in returns (due to high FI %), it calculated the Geometric return is 7.5%, not far off from the average.

Agreed.

Yes I agree @Maverick47 good point, I had thought about that and yes its only a rough approximation. For example, on the other hand, their fixed income return in the calculation is likely overstated as i) the realised fixed income yield would be less than the approximated 5 years Fixed income yield given short duration cash held will reduce the overall yield. ii) There have been times when they have been significantly short duration relative to their liabilities (i.e assuming the 5 year yield is overstated for those periods). That would imply an equity return higher than I calculated above. In aggregate, their equity returns may be somewhere 15-20% annually over 40 years but I am quite confident to say they have trounced the S&P500 over that period.