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Looting has an all time leader Cubs; that's your man! No one compares.

Mike [ @cubsfan ], I know, as also discussed recently among you and @Spekulatius above, ... on which I read here you two to agree, on which the second package considered unnecessary.

There were 2 separate trillion dollar stimulus packages in the USA - one entirely necessary, the second one an utter disaster. How soon we forget.

I'm sure he had his flaws. At least he didn't use his position to loot the country like the Biden, Clintons and Pelosi. He certainly loved the country far more than the money.

Should be one of the biggest deals Fairfax has ever done. I expect FIH to get partners including FFH to get the deal done. It will be interesting how much of the ~$5b is owned by Fairfax companies vs outside investors. My guess is more than half. I’m also curious how the accounting will be done. FIH usually marks to market its positions that are listed but FFH might be deemed to have significant influence or control.

Yeah, @Pellom, I think and speculate the same. The Squawk Box interview with Becky Quick tomorrow will be interesting to experience. I also share your thoughts about Warren Buffetts relationship with Melinda Gates. - - - o 0 o - - - Furthermore, I looked up the 2025 Donation Press Release on the Berkshire website, to compare : 2025 : So the '5 percent of the remaining shares each year gifted' system and pattern appears this to be broken, after now 19 years, apart from the gift allocation changed. 'Wool in mounth' message about the next eight years donations.

Lindsey Graham was a man with zero courage who was obsessed with his own relevance and preservation. His public behavior outside of politics was disgusting. His response to the Jan 6th killings make me puke.

He should gift her the shares for her charitable work, if you ask me.

Hard to know if he thinks Gates did anything wrong (i.e., terminated the personal friendship/relationship) or whether he knows it wouldn't look good politically to give money to the foundation any longer. An underrated part is I think he had a lot of respect for Melinda.

@DooDiligence. This post reflects badly only you. You may disagree with the man (as do others here) but this doesn’t mean one should spit on his grave figuratively speaking. I always try to keep in mind that how you talk about another person says more about you than the person you are talking about.

From Bloomberg News - India is close to accepting an offer from Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. for IDBI Bank Ltd., possibly at a slightly higher price, according to people with knowledge of the matter, in what could potentially be the biggest foreign investment in the country’s banking sector. …. Fairfax’s purchase of a 60.7% stake in IDBI would be worth around $5.7 billion, at current prices

Exactly the same observation here in Northern Europe, as already mentioned by @Spekulatius and @73 Reds just above here.

Ref. the discussion upstream about Warren Buffetts donations to the Gates Foundation : CNBC [July 14th 2026] : Warren Buffett excludes Gates Foundation from his annual donations of Berkshire stock. <Edit 2> : From the CNBC article, lower part : </Edit 2> - - - o 0 o - - - <Edit 1>: Berkshire Hathaway - Press Release [July 14th 2026]. -Ohh well! </Edit 1>

Inflation heated up directly because of Covid. It would not have mattered who was President at the time.

The IDBI Bank divestment seems to be moving again. New sealed bids are now being reviewed by the government with a possible decision in August. https://www.ndtvprofit.com/markets/idbi-bank-shares-jump-over-3-percent-as-government-receives-revised-bids-for-stake-sale-11768041/amp/1 Shares of IDBI Bank rose as much as 4.08% to an intraday high of Rs 87.50 on Tuesday after the government received revised financial bids from two foreign bidders for its stake sale in the lender, according to official sources familiar with the matter. Fairfax Holdings and Emirates NBD remain in the race to acquire the government's stake in IDBI Bank. Sources told NDTV Profit that Fairfax Holdings' revised bid is closer to the government's reserve price, with the Centre targeting around Rs 50,000 crore from the strategic disinvestment. The winning bidder has not yet been finalised, with a decision likely over the next month, sources said. According to Bloomberg, the government is close to accepting Fairfax Financial Holdings' offer after the Canadian insurer reportedly raised its bid by a few rupees per share following the rejection of its earlier offer, which was below the reserve price. The report added that the transaction will require approvals from the Union Cabinet and the Reserve Bank of India before it can be completed.

If so, isn't the obvious answer to earn more? We can talk about housing supply vs. demand all day long but the fact is useful jobs and degrees will go a long way to resolve that issue for homebuyers. People who are gainfully employed to their capabilities tend to have less problems affording a house. Apologists tend to be from one political party and support many of the same issues that contribute to high housing costs. And there is always the option to move somewhere that is more affordable. Yet there are people who will complain no matter what. Like most things, the longer term solution to high housing prices is high housing prices. But don't tell that to folks who don't understand fundamental economics.

One of the advantages of a concentrated portfolio is that you also develop a pretty good sense as to when the stock is over and under priced. Upcoming earnings announcements, dividend ex dates, changes in the underlying commodity price (affecting price), etc. First time out, look at RSI as a guideline. As you gain confidence and trust in your assessments ... switch over to judgement. If you are going to rely on stop loss thresholds, you are building an algorithm .... bots can do it a lot better than you. Most often you will make your money from change in the price of the goods the company sells, versus change in the company technicals or financials. It will bias you towards commodities. Good luck. SD

Sold NQ futures from yesterday

Global insurance market according to SwissRe. 44% of global premium comes from US ($3.7T). China is #2 with 10% global share. Can not shake thought.....GEEZE, the US loves buying insurance!! Or brokers are really good at selling to US buyers of insurance. Old timer told me once, "Insurance is never bought, it's sold". As world economies mature, expect a global lift in premiums. Hence brokers looking internationally for growth. Strikes me how low the base is for some very mature economies. WOWZERS, 31% growth in Hong Kong?!? Other note, there is 1 market in the top 20 with decline, Brazil. Not picking on Brazil, just sticks out globally there is 1 market with a decline and all 19 markets (and global sum) are growing. Relative GDP's, Canada & Brazil are similar however Canada buys 2X+ amount of insurance than Brazil. Mature economies demand insurance to mitigate risk, its a natural progression. Developer want to build a data center on cheap land with access to cheap power? Capital markets will provide investment capital to build however demand their investment is insured. Just another item for attorneys to fight over. Brokers coin it when capital markets demand contractual insurance cover. 2026-07-sri-world-insurance-sigma.pdf

Thanks @frommi for the pointers. I will experiment with put options (may be 1%) and see how it goes. @SharperDingaan I have a concentrated portfolio. Next time market falls, I will try your suggestion. Does it need setting up pre-planned stop-loss orders? Otherwise, it might be hard to execute

John Cleese entainment isen't too shabby either [ ] : J.D. Vance explaining what is different this time [ ]:

Hilarious and accurate Jon Stewart on the outdated and aged membership of the U.S. Congress and Senate. Cheers!

what's the total revenue from AI supporting all this capex? Anthropic + Gemini + OpenAI + optimization from AI for ad revenue maybe somewhere between 150-300 billion dollars? And the Capex is set to surpass 700 billion this year. I guess AI could become a somewhat decent margin business someday but Chinese models are already catching up and 10-30% of the token costs. Is there a trillion dollar business here just based on LLMs?

Thanks LC! Clearly looks like there has been enough of a structural/economic change at Fairfax where buying back their own shares up to 1.3 times book value generates an after-tax return equivalent to or better than their target return for shareholders. Cheers!

I think like Berkshire, for a long time Fairfax taught their shareholders to consider book value when evaluating the share price. I think the gap between intrinsic value and book value has diverged significantly overtime. In both of their cases and probably more so in the case of Fairfax. Considering Mr Market was assigning values as low as 0.6 BV in the past. 1.25 may appear like more reasonable. But in an environment where the insurance segment is much improved, interest rates are likely to stay materially higher for longer, and where excess fair value over carrying value is 4B+, and with where recent ROE numbers have been ie high teens compared to mid teens previously, I believe that is not much of a rerating. My view is at the recent average of 18% ROE, even accounting for the volatility and inherent risks of an insurance company, an adequately capitalized, well managed company that's been around nearly 50yrs should merit 1.8x BV in this very expensive stock market. I'm happy for them to keep buying at these levels. ,