All Activity

Yea i was deep in micron with cost basis less that $50. I felt good about my triple never dreamed it woulda been a 1T+ company. I even beleived the argument that all the AI would fill up all the storage but didnt think it would have a backlog driving them anywhere near what we are seeing now. I still have a very small position that Ill probably just let ride and see what happens.

Yes, when I was younger. As I grew older periodic returns became less meaningful. Today, most of my assets are privately held so there would be little to no point in even trying.

I track my net worth and my spending. I spend <50% of what I earn and invest the rest in real estate and investments, I have done this for several decades. I personally don't see the point in knowing the exact percentage of my investment gains year. I am unsure how I would use that information, if I didn't beat the S&P for several years, should I just move it all to an index? If I consistently beat the index or should I add leverage? I don't have interest in being fully invested in index and I don't want leverage.

Micron going parabolic is more luck than anything even if they held. The shortages didn't really start until fairly recently and before that the industry for DRAM wasn't really the best in terms of economics. No one even 3 years ago would have predicted that DRAM would still be sold out at prices multiple of the prior ATH

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/obituaries/alan-greenspan-economist-longtime-head-federal-reserve-dies-100-rcna42286 I remember when this guy did a surprise interest rate cut in Jan 2001 Marsh McLennan, which used to be MMC, went vertical for like 15 points and I got a good chunk of it Those were da days

More weird action on Fairfax and Fairfax India near the open

Likely a question for some of the wealthier folk on the board but I’m curious if you tracked your returns and CAGR etc during the earlier part of your wealth building but then when wealth got to a certain size it kind of became pointless. Obviously that number would be different for everybody depending on where they live and their lifestyle but if you are a good investor over time you will eventually get to a point where your net worth is large and whether you end up getting 5%, 10% or 20% return on that it mostly becomes meaningless. Do you still like to track it to compare yourself to others or see if you still got it, or do you now just check your net worth every now and then, and as long as it’s not dropping all is good. Maybe some people never tracked their returns, nothing wrong with that either. For me I track things quite diligently but sometimes wonder should I bother.

Change, you may call Iran's behavior rational but when your ideology is death and destruction to those you don't agree with, your definition of rational needs some serious adjustment. We all have to share the same World. It is really no more complicated than that. Trying to "rationalize" any definition of "rational" beyond that is truly irrational.

Yeah Lukaku was a bit aloof

I agree, Belgium looked weak here. Their whole game was odd and played without soul. Belgium used to play decent soccer with a solid defense and fast counters. The coach does not seem to use the talent he has available effectively.

I've been buying Adobe. Adobe sells tools to professionals, and I only think AI is gonna make those tools more powerful (they already have launched some very neat features saving professionals a lot of time). Prompting might work for some crude instructions. But translating the imagination of a creative into something tangible is probably easier by hand (mouse+keyboard) than by prompting. It's not like people are already particularly good at articulating their (creative) visions. There is competition at the edges, but I think it's a bit overblown. Adobe could buy Figma with one years' worth of free cash flow (and probably should pay for a new ballroom to make it happen)...). With all the AI slop being generated, trust is only becoming more important. I think strong software vendors with good customer relations will do fine, as long as they keep up with competition and improve their offerings. Adobe might've gotten a bit arrogant, so I don't mind if they lay off the price hikes for a bit and increase freemium offering.

Great game? It was fucking disgraceful. Never been more ashamed of my country's football until now. They have two draws in the weakest group of the entire world cup... Still don't understand what Lukaku is still doing on that pitch... can barely hold a ball let alone properly pass or dribble. We have little to no dribbling skills except for Lukebakio and for some reason he doesn't even get to start. I would still give the advantage to Egypt here based on the past two games.

He is gone. Cheers!

Again, I have to correct your representation of facts. It's true, the billboards are in Lebanon but they are in a very specific part of Lebanon. They are in southern suburb of Beirut - Dahiyeh - which is a Hezbollah stronghold. And what do they show? They show an Iranian leader Iran couldn't protect, and another leader currently in hiding. You are also wetted to Hezb and not Lebanon. This is what Lebanon stands for doing https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1506737/lebanon-submits-official-complaint-against-iran-to-unsc-for-first-time.html Lebanon as a country doesn't stand for Hezb or Iran. The majority detests both. Iranians might be principled individuals but the regime is not. The regime understands that they caught the US flat-footed unless the US is really willing to escalate adn the Iranian regime is trying to milk it for all it can. They are trying to get the most out of the US adn also show their proxies that they will stand by them...all this after Israel embarrassed Iran on the international stage with the elmination of Ali Khamenei, Nassralah, countless others. Let us not forget Ismail Haniyeh who was assassinated in Tehran. Also, what partial withdrawal? Israel is operating in Southern Lebanon and just captured a massive Hezb tunnel that included a drone factory. You've made your anti-Israel stance very clear. Fascinting how you are actually on the side of pro-terror organizations and a regime that is flat poison. But so it goes.

I have a few of these of my own.

I've seen a fair amount of people being called Nazis on the Internet, but for me, this post is the thing that feels the most Nazi-like of anything I've ever seen on the Internet. I think it's to do with that visceral imagery--dehumanization like "bloodthirsty animals" and demonization like "experts at killing women and children", mixed with "they play the victim". I think maybe the only way to make it a tiny bit closer is to add the word "vermin" somewhere in there. Neat that I've been surfing the internet for 30 years, and still managed to see a new extreme today.

It will be interesting how the export controls on AI products will impact the valuation and revenue trajectory of the LLM companies OpenAI and Anthropic . To me, it looks unlikely that the export control will be limited to Anthrophic since other LLM’s have similar capabilities , if not now, with a small time lag.

Sure. In my opinion, you can measure it two ways: a) every equity investment made, including control/take private positions, as well as CDS & equity hedges, or as in a) but exclude CDS & equity hedges. I am not counting TRS since in my opinion it is a share buy-back.

John, very simple thesis: over the next forty or fifty years, annual volume growth of 3-5%, pricing ahead of inflation, EBIT margin goes from 25% to something closer to Transdigm's 50%.

@changegonnacome, USSR was in no position to help Iran in 1979 since it invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Don't forget USSR fought a border war with China in the 1970s. USSR sure as hell would not and could not help Iran - already fighting a war in Afghanistan, anticipating a possible Chinese invasion in the Far East, and now fighting the US? If Khomeini was worried about a coup originating from the US embassy, he could have just demanded that the embassy personnel leave in 48 hours or 72 hours. Taking an embassy hostage is an act of war and had either Carter or Reagan had guts, Qum and Iranian regime would have ceased to exist. You refer to the old Bismarck saying - nations have no permanent allies, just permanent interests. Sure, but where is the sense of creating enemies? Why turn two nuclear powers into enemies? Given Iran's interference in its neighbors affairs for 2,500 years, it can hardly object or be surprised that other countries will interfere in its affairs! You contradict yourself. In one sentence you say that those who believe in benign intentions cease to exist, in the next sentence you state that claims death to Israel and US are rhetorical flourishes. So which is it? Using your logic, US and Israel should have each wiped Iran of the face of the earth given Iran's post 1979 behavior. You talk about deterrence as Iranian strategy, but again, Iran's strategy is not deterrence but aggression that is guaranteed to result in massive retaliation. Neither country, to my knowledge, expressed a desire to attack Iran before Iranians fired the first shot (Embassy occupation and funding Hezbollah.). You also conveniently ignore Hezbollah and Hamas attacks on Israel, since they are the opposite of deterrence. It is one thing to keep guard dogs, it is another to sic them on your neighbor. The former deters burglars, the latter invited shooting the dogs and the owner. Irans's actions have been since 1979 been the opposite of deterrence. They have been begging for a war.

Return on carrying value is useful but it has a limit, no? At some point if we are branded as an investment outfit meant to generate alpha, we really should be relying on market value, not benefiting from low carrying values that is only available due to unique factors that may or may not be repeatable. Really I just take a look at their equity investments and think, all-else-equal and in a vacuum, would I have invested in the same company at the same valuation? I ignore any complimentary debt investments being made, and I ignore most of any proposed 'synergies' or stuff like that. So I know for that reason alone I won't align with a lot of stuff Fairfax invests in. Frankly to me that is a bit of a bonus- I as an individual cannot make control investments, I cannot simultaneously finance an upstream bond offering at 10x the equity value, I do not have an ecosystem of other controlled businesses to cross-sell and such...all these factors that Fairfax and other conglomerates can benefit from...so if 30-40% of my portfolio has that type of exposure, and I self manage the remaining 60%, it seems like a reasonable approach to me.

100%! Ourkid8...you purposely like the author of that post, said "genocide" instead of "ruins". Why is that? Cheers!

IRGC calling Trump's bluff in Switzerland. Should be an interesting week with Iran. FAFO.

They all did great !! Hopefully they sent Egypt packing this coming Friday.

I agree with most here (strongly so) that the beauty of investing in Fairfax today is that you don't need to rely on above average equity returns for realising great ROE and compounding given that other income streams are locked in and the inherent investment leverage in the business model. For me that point is moot. I still find it a useful and interesting exercise to separate out the source of the returns as the data is there. At a high level, figuring out fixed income returns vs everything else. The everything else comprises of equity returns including TRS (positive), CDS (positive), hedging (big negative) + realised gains on assets held on book value which are worth more. The below analysis obviously doesn't incorporate the potential future returns from assets for example Poseidon and BIAL held at Book value which will show up sometime in the future when realised at market value. @Marco Van Basten Dude ...if you like to be called that I have to thank you for your push back because you are right, I was being approximate in my calculations for efficiency and you pushed me to be more specific. I still think you are very wrong in assuming Fairfax's non fixed income investments have underperformed the S&P over the long term, hopefully the below will help. I was able to go back to 1996 using CapIQ and Claude, so 30 years to calculate specific FI returns by year to 2025. I also have the total investment returns from 1996 to 2025. Using those pieces in the puzzle you can approximate the returns from everything that can't be attributed to fixed income for the 30 year period. Here are the results: 1996-2025 (30 year period) geometric annualised returns Total investment return: 7.0% Fixed income return: 3.9% Average 5 year fixed income US treasury yield: 3.2% Equity return + everything else (TRS, hedging, CDS): 16.6% S&P Return including dividends: 10.3% Note: this is assuming 75% / 25% fixed income equity split which I think is accurate. If you want to be conservative and use a 70%/30% split, the equity + other bucket return goes to 14.4%, still well well above the S&P return. The fixed income returns are higher than the average 5 year fixed income yields for reasons pointed out by Marco ie higher yielding FI, but not by much and the overall conclusion remains the same as my initial intuition with rougher assumptions. For anyone who says Fairfax is mediocre investor, these long term results should provide further evidence over and above the stock price performance that they know what they are doing (clearly a lot of people still don't get it! as they judge Fairfax based on the lost decade and don't realise the handbrake of hedging is gone). Additionally these stellar returns are after the impact of the lost decade and hedging in there. I too find investments like UA and KW questionable today. But in a similar vein there is also zero probability I would have invested in Eurobank 10+ years ago or Poseidon or Orla Mining and missed big gains. The best non biased evaluation of an investor is their long term track record. The above is further evidence for trusting in their process for value creation and compounding.