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Lmfao I wasn’t kidding. Weren’t you bragging about sleeping with homeless people at a No Kings Protest? Talk about taking shit too serious and letting folks get in your head. Maybe stick to body painting with hippies

Looking at the form 4 filing, seems likely Berkshire has repurchased $9bn so far since 1q26. It is an estimate and might vary between $12bn and $4bn given decimals. But good news.

LOL, another delusional douche pops his head up. Don't project your grand old pervy shit on me.

Does American cheerfulness and optimism include systematic reviling against Europe on internet forums?

I've already done that but you seem incapable of seeing reality. Seek professional help. While we're at it, would you care to regale us with the story of how you went from being a birther to a ladder puller?

Wow they are good at the end! Hopefully Spain can stop a repeat of this guy.

My problem with using earnings as my main valuation method is that for all intents and purposes it requires an assumption on ROE. If I’m going to use ROE anyway, then P/B seems like a better measure as it’s less variable than earnings. The accounting rules for significant influence and control positions also understate earnings (and BV) while my expected ROE can smooth that out by having an expected return for the equity portfolio. EPS is used by most investors and analysts provide easily accessible (albeit conservative annual estimates) so it has to be part of the conversation. Float + Book Value or Total Investments per share are ways to eliminate needing to estimate earnings or ROE so arguably more objective. Of course, we never plan to buy shares at intrinsic value but presumably margin of safety is higher when the discount is big. This would be a tougher bet to make if I was worried about reserving but I actually think they are over reserved.

Didn’t you travel to Chicago to rub and tug homeless people and eat pizza to prove to Trump that it wasn’t an unsafe shithole lmfao?

Sorry @John Hjorth. Good to have a laugh every now and then

All out of cartoons?? Try a logical argument for once, it will help exercise your brain.

“5th? hold on, it’s 3rd largest” Come on Becky would it hurt to read a letter or two since interviewing him is your whole career? At this point aren’t they just friends? Why does she do the fake hardball stuff? WB likes her and I guess that’s what matters. WB was almost unbelievably great. Very touching when he was explaining his leg and just said I’m happy I was born. Reminds me of my grandparents at the end. Every time you turn around they break something and it’s just frustrating.

Dude's glued to his delusions. THC gummies would probably tip him over into a full blown psychotic episode.

Ok - forget about Trump and Bibi. Everyone is sick of the IRGC, even the Chinese who told the Iranians to knock it off with the ship attacks and get back to negotiating. Iran is losing all their friends and leverage. The IRGC may remain, but their destruction is pretty much assured. And the oil markets are yawning.

Becky asked the question (I thought she was excellent in this visit), but Warren didn't answer (Will all the funds be spent within 12 months of receipt, or something like that).

Hopefully the SOH opens soon, and the Bab-el-Mandeb (Red Sea) remains open; while views may differ as to mechanics, we have a market for that. We just don't have confidence in the dysfunctional Whitehouse, or the abilities of two old men to remain calm and collected, while under immense pressure. C'est la vie. SD

Yea definitely seems like a lotta tatted up thugs on Argentina. Very physical game

The only new thing I learnt from the interview was that Alphabet purchase was Buffett's, not Greg's investment. It's clear that Warren's Berkshire stock will go to the four foundations run by his three children. What's not clear to me is if the foundations will continue to be big shareholders of Berkshire or not.

Add to PGR

Personally, as sort of an armchair novice investor, I have often focused in a first pass view of investments, on multiples of earnings per share, the P/E ratio. That works fairly well for investments that have relatively stable, predictable earnings, similar to interest paying bonds, and is less valuable when earnings are volatile, and occasionally even negative, or when earnings growth prospects are extremely difficult to estimate. But for a mature insurance company, or even a conglomerate like Berkshire, it can be a helpful starting point. For example, a hybrid view of valuing Berkshire might look at the market value of the equity portfolio, the cash, and then add to those two pieces a multiple of normalized earnings. Say that equities are worth $300 billion, cash is at $380 billion, and the normalized projected operating earnings of all of the subsidiaries are estimated as $48 billion per year, or $4 billion per month. What multiple would you be willing to pay for those earnings is something you have to determine individually. Compared to risk free bond rates of say 5%, you’d typically want something higher than that, perhaps 8%, for a PE multiplier of the inverse, or 12.5. That would value the operating subs at $600 billion, and added to the equity and cash, you’d get an estimated total intrinsic value of $1.28 trillion compared to a recent market cap of $1.06 trillion. So a bit of a margin of safety at current prices. Of course you might divide the operating subs into categories, and assign typical PE multipliers used by the market for similar industries…say about 30 for the railroad and something less than 10 for the electric utilities, but that’s too far into the weeds for me personally on a quick first pass. Looking at the history of earnings per share for Fairfax prior to about 2018, this was all over the place, with not a very predictable pattern. But since then, we’ve had a good track record of earnings per share well above $100, and my own expectation would be closer to the $200 level and above going forward, particularly in light of the impact of share buybacks on the earnings per share going forward and the interest rates locked in for the bond portfolio. Ignoring the cash and market value of equity piece of the Berkshire approach, and using the same 12.5 multiplier for an estimated earnings per share value of $200 gives me an intrinsic value per share of $2500 US. If we were to add in cash and equity, I would not be at all surprised to see a result closer to $3,000 per share US, similar to @SafetyinNumbers preference for using a 15 multiplier to an estimated EPS of $200. With management retiring shares at less than US $1700 a share recently, I am confident that they are buying back well below any reasonable estimate of intrinsic value.

That’s football nowadays, trying their best for fouls and getting the opposition sent off. It should be another level again with England vs Argentina, the latter completely loathes England.

Let me clarify: There have been 90 days of negotiations during a CEASEFIRE, along with, perhaps 40 days of actual fighting by the USA. Imagine the sustained damage with just another 40 days of fighting, where Iran cannot touch the USA. Bill Clinton brought Serbia to surrender with an 70 day bombing campaign, taking out power plants, electric grid, all the bridges and communication assets - once the Serbs showed they were not serious about peace with NATO. Barrack Obama brought Libya to surrender with a non-stop 7 month bombing campaign - at the insistence of France and the Europeans. You are now almost 30 years later - where the American military has "eyes in the sky" showing every single movement of assets in the IRGC. Furthermore, the precision weapons employed by the USA dwarf anything imaginable in the 1990's. Notice that the IRCG has not touched Israel for months. Telling, that IRGC understands, unlike Trump, if they dare to launch missiles into Israel - Netanyahu knows where all their leaders/families live. Trump will be far kinder to Iran's leadership than Bibi - while the Donald fights to restrain Bibi. The momentum on controlling the SOH has shifted dramatically. Time is not on the side of the IRGC, just like Libya and Serbia.

It’s possible Fairfax has shortened the duration of its reserves which would dampen the impact of higher rates on discounting. Perhaps another way to defer earnings.

Maybe! BVPS growing again and a 100% increase in sequential earnings might offset the sellers though.

Interesting. I'm speaking in generalizations of raw interest rate moves, but the generalization didn't seem to hold true for that quarter (when it has been true in others). There's probably some component of what credit and mortgage spreads did too since Fairfax doesn't just own straight treasuries and that may explain the difference in Q1. But as a ballpark, if they're under in duration, they'll outperform their liability when rates rise.

I wouldn't complain about that, although I do think our government needs to be funded somehow, I'd love to see reduced government spending, but it's pretty obvious that's not going to happen. I feel like we should avoid incentivizing bad behavior (government handouts / a tax system that encourages under the table work) and try to incentivize good behavior (saving/investing/earning more money). Our progressive tax system/income based safety nets create a lot of moral hazard. If I were king, I'd try to create a more balanced tax system. Tax all investment income at the same rate, so lower taxes on cap gains/dividends/interest while increasing the tax on stock buybacks to the same rate. Lower the higher income tax brackets, or just use a flat tax rate. Incorporate a VAT tax (and maybe exclude essential goods/services). Reform entitlement programs so that they serve to help bring people out of poverty instead of keeping them there. Close the huge endowment loophole for avoiding taxation on unrealized capital gains/estate tax (no need for a wealth tax).