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OK, I'll play along, but only for a bit as I should be outside enjoying the sunshine. I already listed "backed by the world's most powerful computer" and "being able to buy a mutl-million dollar house, half-way around the world, in a matter of minutes" as two "beneifts" that were promised. And now you need more? Why? Has the argument now changed to "no Bitcoin supporter ever promised any "benefits"? Ok, here's two more. How about "being able to quickly, cheaply and seamlessly move money around the world," even though you can already to this with PayPal, Venmo and Zelle. Or, "if you live in an underdeveloped country and are worried about blah, blah, blah..." yea, because most people here, invest to help out the citizens of underdeveloped counties. Good grief. And now apparently we can add "buying a Ferrari with your Bitcoin" as a "benefit." Because nothing says "wide-spread adoption" like being able to buy a Ferrari with your Bitcoin. And you think the assumption that Boomers, Millennials and GenX are into Bitcoin is funny? Ok, fine. So which generation would you say is most into Bitcoin? Maybe it's "The Greatest Generation"? Any chance you fit into any three of my mentioned generations? Because Saylor, The Winkelvi and the Mooch all seem to confirm that narrative. Finally, pointing to Elon Musk's lack of integrity as some proof that this is investment will work out great, seems like a real stretch, but you are certainly free to try to connect the dots.

curious why this vs shorting an unlevered ETF? or puts or something else. not straightforward at all to me to do it this way.

The 4 year cycle always seems like a load of nonsense to me. Doesn’t really make and logical sense and the sample size of 3 or 4 cycles is too short to draw any actionable conclusions. Although I’ve thought this for a long time and so far it seems to be following the cycle again. Maybe I’ll change my mind if it bottoms later this year and then proceeds to boom in 2027.

Bought a bunch of SSG. Seems pretty clear we re at the phase of the rally where “AIs gonna be big” is all the DD you need and any dumb bartender or grade school teacher is willing to give you that advice.

The other thing is the guy that is making millions on the chip stocks is also likely the guy who will lose 100k gambling on a football game or cheat on his wife and lose half of everything. Also, the guy that is dollar cost averaging the index is learning nothing about business and could sell out to pay off his mortgage or whatever Dave Ramsey tells him to do if SPY is down say 3 years in a row in the future. It’s a marathon.

Thanks for this. A short markdown note on FDS. Sanjay Tugnait is a super intriguing IT exec and I have always felt that FDS may prove to be a minor but material part of the Fairfax story. It’s an intriguing possibility that the work they are doing at Eurobank and the other subs may scale to larger ambitions. Fairfax Digital Services — Full Brief (Enhanced with IDBI Thesis).md

The 1997 letter has a similar explanation of insurance float, as do the 2007 and 2014 letters among the other years you noted like 1998 discussed by Viking in the part 1 article above. I only know this because I happen to have a document with some highlighted passages. "In those years when we have had an underwriting profit, such as the last five, our cost of float has been negative. In effect, we have been paid for holding money ... Since 1967, when we entered the insurance business, our float has grown at an annual compounded rate of 21.7%. Better yet, it has cost us nothing, and in fact has made us money. Therein lies an accounting irony: Though our float is shown on our balance sheet as a liability, it has had a value to Berkshire greater than an equal amount of net worth would have had." https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1997.html. Looking over the 1997 letter again, I love the implications of Buffett's simple but profound statement that "[u]nless you understand this subject [insurance float and how to measure its cost], it will be impossible for you to make an informed judgment about Berkshire's intrinsic value." At the time Buffett wrote that, Berkshire's insurance float was something like 7 billion and (very roughly) equivalent to something like 15% of Berkshire's market cap at the time. Contrast that with today, where Fairfax's insurance float exceeds its market cap.

With the note that I've been TOO bullish in thinking the 4-year cycle was broken.... I'm still not certain that this is the traditional bear market. Prior bears have taken us down 70-80+%. Here were sitting at ~55% with multiple sentiment, volume, and pre-based metrics flashing similar signals to prior major bottoms. It could be that this is a mid-cycle correction a-la 2019. Prior bull markets have had multiple 50+% pull backs, but were both more violent/fast to the upside and downside than this one has been. If it's true that secular adoption has broken the prior 4-year cycle and volatility continues to moderate, then an extended multi-year bull market with a handful of 40-50% pullbacks COULD be the path instead of the prior violent up/down BTC has previously done and this could simply be the first 50% correction in what is a longer term bull market with new highs to be expected in the next ~12-18 months.

Good stuff. Thanks. Ripping today

Depends on your age and marital status but moving to NY is like going to college. Your experience is what you make of it. You can embrace the chaos and energy and go with it or hunker down and ride it out. And you need to be a bit careful because anything and everything is available in abundance and its easy to get sucked in. Its crazy expensive but try and forget that if you can and take advantage of whats available since you probably won't be there for decades. Go out a lot.

I'm up 0.73 per cent 2026H1 [YTD] and it's awesome [- while pretty constantly reinvesting dividends], -at the end [late] of March I was down minus 9.61 per cent. All while none of these focal points matter at all, - long term.

Happy Canada Day! Get out there, enjoy, take some time out with family and friends, and enjoy some of that craft beer while catching the evenings concerts and fireworks. SD

If you think USD devalues 30% as reserve currency status is threatened, and that AI investment eventually turns into a dog .... it's more a matter of when, versus if. If it takes 3 years .... that 24%+ 3-yr CAGR (72/3) is not bad . SD

About : "You can't take the same actions as everyone else and expect to outperform." I have the impression that people mainly interpret that in picking obscure stock or unpopular stock.... You can buy very popular blue chip stocks that everybody and his mum have and outperform...most fund managers/investors are "too much" diversified and with short time horizon... How many people have outperformed owning the most popular stocks...?...just holding for a very long time... Underperforming is a problem only if you are an employee...of course you fell better when you overperform and print money (...even if rationally you should not be...but we are human...).

Our portfolio is almost certain to not resemble anyone else's, and we can attest that Marks is bang on the money . The problem is ability to hang onto the gains ... as you are the outlier, and there are no comparables. While there are techniques to getting around it, you need to invent/refine them yourself, and most often it's via systematic removal of chips on the table. There is also a need to remain flexible; successfully unwind a pair trade, and your portfolio will both look very different, and have spun off a significant block of cash. The resultant weightings may not be what you had in mind, and what happens with that cash matters. Fortunately, with Canada's infrastructure build out, we have one of the best places in the world to deploy it. Assuming continued infrastructure investment, over time we will essentially be building a Brookfield, that both pays a better dividend, and is more o/g versus real estate weighted; eventually, we will hold Brookfield directly. The solution to always 'drawing' in retirement, is 'building'. Good luck! SD

Totally echo the sentiment. Thank you all for generously sharing your knowledge of this industry.

I'm curious as to what 'benefits' you feel it's failed to deliver on? On why 2026 is different in this regard than say ~2021 when $60k was a euphoric bubble top ...but now is sign of death? I dunno about half way around the world - but I expect I may do something like this halfway across town in ~2-years. Ferrari started accepting it too - and it's not because nobody was asking. I think it's funny that you think there is an abundance of Boomers or Gen X in this trade It's been around for 15-years and I still have Boomers/GenX ask me what it is before dismissing the response 30 seconds later. Unsavory characters are everywhere. xAI/Musk don't strike me as bastions if integrity, but nobody is suggesting AI is a scam because of his involvement.

@Viking thanks for starting this thread and for all that you do! Feel free to ignore my request, but I would love it if you wrote an article for this thread expanding upon Buffett’s following quotes about how float can be worth more than book.

We are super fortunate. Happy Canada day!

I sometimes wonder if the 125k mark in Bitcoin will ever be seen again. Or, if that was the all-time top. We’ve had everything from “the most crypto friendly administration in the world,” where everyone and their son’s (and wife, #smelania), has pumped this turd through every means possible to Congress’ enacting of the “Genius” act, along with every Boomer brokerage house stuffing this poop pile into every crypto product/ETF they could conceive of, and 125k is all it could do? What’s going to take Bitcoin higher than that? Especially now, when everyone is competing for capital. It seems to me that AI is the “new cool thing” in town and is actually delivering on it’s promise, where as it’s becoming clear that Bitcoin will never offer any of the “benefits,” or live up to the hype that we were promised by the promoters. I remember being told that Bitcoin’s value was so great because it was “backed by the most powerful computer network in the world!” Welp, seems like some of these “computers” currently being developed by Anthropic, Gemini, OpenAI etc. may just be slightly more powerful than a computer network that does one thing…tracks the price of Bitcoin. I was also told that with Bitcoin, you could buy a multiple-million dollar house, half-way around the world, in a matter of minutes! Is anyone actually doing that!? No they are not and they never will. Gen Z and Gen Alpha are much too sharp to carry on the charade of acting like Bitcoin is anything other than a big, money-grabbing scam. They’ll let the Boomers, GenX and the Millenials waste all of their free-time trying to convince themselves, and others, of the “value.” When Michael Saylor, The Winklevoss Twins and Scarramucci are your industry’s biggest supporters, you may want to find another industry.

More gaps, just because it is interesting.

@Gamecock-YT, There are so many valid qualifications aginst the CofB&F 'What are your <last year> return, pre tax' topic, that I'll do my best to keep it alive, running and kicking! It is an - to me, at least - interesting exchange among CofF&B members of experiences had during the year that has passed.

This forum is fertile ground for imposter syndrome. I can't figure out if I suffer from Dunning-Kruger by thinking I have imposter syndrome.

I'll know it is time to start selling my stocks when they start getting popular with the 'in' crowd.

The idea that the consensus here is safe because the average member is 'above-average' is the ultimate behavioral trap. Look at the annual COBF returns thread, it’s a perfect bell curve every single year. Half the forum underperforms the other half, no matter how smart everyone is. A crowded trade is still a crowded trade, even if the crowd has a high IQ. Of course, that bell curve only captures the people who actually choose to post. The year-end thread always seems to be a lot quieter.