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I doubt there was much of an uptick in oil getting out of the strait, with the mines still in place. It found it interesting to see oil drop below $80 without much changing in the flow of oil shipments. I think we will see another 2 months of little oil movement, with oil reserves continuing to drop.

Yes and no. Yes, you cannot eat relative returns, but if the S&P returns 15% per annum for 15 years while your equity portfolio returns 10% per year for 15 years, then clearly the people running the equity book are incompetent. As markets change, your investment style has to change. With all due respect, you could have bought plenty of incredible business at low multiple of earnings - ASR in 2004 is a good example (airport concessions in Mexico at 5x free cash flow.). If you need leverage to make your equity portfolio match the S&P then why not just be long S&P and avoid the issues that come with leverage?

The SOH is now closed but good deal for you my friend. We are in the bargaining stage where every barrel of oil comes with unlimited middle eastern haggling. The rug merchants are now in charge.

Sure, that is even better. What is the company's 40 year track record when it comes to its equity book?

How about 40 years?

I agree with you that 5 years is enough, but the longer the time period, the more accurate is the evaluation. An organization that beats the S&P over five years but trails over 20 is not very good. This is why I chose 15, you are free to choose 20 or 25.

Don't confuse them with history. Nor with sensible questions.

My cognitive dissonance, LOL? The thread that just keeps on giving.

Are any of my fellow CofB&F members considering ordering [by now : preordering, [until 23th June 2026]] this book : Regime Change - Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Swan ?

The goal isn’t to outperform the S&P, it’s to generate absolute returns. Over time the process should outperform the S&P especially when the leverage is included. This most recent 15 year period the backdrop was particularly difficult for this investment style because of the change in market structure. Further, the decision by Fairfax to accumulate more significant influence and control positions ensures that the accounting returns lagged economic returns since 2012. While the lag continues, the gains are coming pretty regularly now as the strategy has matured.

When they announced the deal in December 2016, the stock was trading closer to 1.3x BV. That’s when the Allied World BOD signed the definitive agreement. In March 2016, they also issued equity for closer to 1.4x BV. This was in a backdrop of low interest rates so ROE was structurally lower.

And Trump does what Trump does, there's 55 plus years of it laid open for view. He creates total chaos, his tag along's elope into some bizarre claims of success while others gape at what is complete failure, failure, and more failure. Trump sneaks in his paychecks, one after another, always plain out in the open corruption. 2nd grade special needs kids can make that determination but the tag along's choose not to. Why? You got it! Trump looks the part. He's got the John Wayne thing. It takes 1 and 1/2 hours of makeup, hair preparation, and massive body enhancements within the black suit, but we get there. Different voices, unique childlike facial expressions, it all sells and sells to the tag along crowd. All these years for Trump and there's no legitimate business for his "wealth" only scam bezel fake shit. Yet it works, and works, and works, the more stretch his followers do to legitimize - the more committed they are to believe. Bookmark this if you are young because this is the craziest garbage you will ever see in your lifetime. The next person who tries this shit won't have success such as this. Trump owns the world...for now. My extended family of businessmen, some fabulously wealthy remind me that I'm not coming up with the main theme that allows all this to happen. They tell me it is fear, that no matter how much wealth or power anyone has today they all fall in line with this fruitcake goofball because of fear.

In the past few days i am thinking about how the digital euro (not wero) will change payments in europe and i can't see how MA&V +european banks aren't the losers of this. Why is this not priced into these companies today? Every merchant will try to get customers with bonus systems to switch over like it worked in Brazil and India and every merchant+bank will be forced to use/offer it. The merchant payment processors doesn't seem to be impacted because they can still earn their fees. Just Ayden will lose its interchange fee because it is also the bank, so overall i think that Ayden will probably lose the most of all the merchant payment processors in europe because for a merchant than the fees aren't material different to other payment processors?

CNN - Politics [June 19th 2026] : Italian foreign minister cancels trip to US over Trump’s comments about Meloni - - - o 0 o - - - -And the temperamental Italian blonde - most of the time dressed in white - gets all worked up of the eigthy years old pro, experienced womanizers comments about her! - So much for that good personal relationship! International Politics anno 2026! - You can't make this up! - - - o 0 o - - - In politics, there are things you just don't engage in, especially towards women!

About what you would expect from a Trump friend and donor...literally looks like the profile pick for any Trump "organization"/mafia associate! No bid friend/donor who destroyed the reflecting pool! Cheers! https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/company-owned-by-trump-donor-won-17-million-no-bid-reflecting-pool-contract-000248757.html

KW is an interesting company. I totally agree with you - retail shareholders in KW got taken out behind the woodshed owning the stock. But my read is Fairfax did ok. The stock they owned was table-stakes (as Jamie Dimon would say). It got Fairfax access to Kennedy Wilson’s deal flow. Real estate partnerships. Mortgage loans. ThePacWest deal was an absolute home run for Fairfax (still is). And in the end, it also allowed Fairfax to take KW out on the cheap (at least that is my initial uneducated read). Real estate is deeply out of favour - this is likely an ideal time to buy something like KW. Now having said all that… KW is a bit of a complex beast… so I could be completely off base in terms of how it works out for Fairfax. We will see. It reminds me a little of when Fairfax took Recipe private when Covid was still a thing here in Canada - Fairfax got it cheap (in terms of buying when there was a lot of pessimism).

Can you explain to me what the financials look like for each investment? What was the money Fairfax put in? (That is not the reported deal price.) What is the (likely) return they are going to generate off it in the coming years? Bottom line, I am being open minded with their new purchases. One reason is I haven’t spent a lot of time trying to understand them. I will get around to it. Another reason is Fairfax has been hitting the ball out of the park - as a result, I am giving them the benefit of the doubt. i don’t expect them to be perfect. Some investments will look like clunkers. Lynch said if you are right 6 times out of 10 you will do well in this business. I am not worried when it comes to Fairfax’s equity portfolio these days.

Well, it's also important to consider where they are currently allocating capital. -KW, is questionable for me based on said company's own shareholder returns last 5, 10 or 15yrs. But we will remain curious. -UA a classic dumpster diving investment down 90% from its peak. -Sleep county remains to be seen. -Andrew Peller which also don't seem particularly cheap or particularly high moat businesses. Whilst I acknowledge they have had a good 5yr run, that was after a long drought and it's by no means certain to me that they have had some sort of eureka moment and this will continue. For that reason, I'm generally a bigger fan of share repurchases than most of the above acquisitions. However only time will tell. Despite all that, I remain invested because of what I said previously, the better mouse trap that they have. And that helps enormously over the long term. I definitely do believe the insurance companies have turned a corner. They are much larger, more diversified across both lines of insurance, and geographically, and have better underwriting standards. Their float is now in excess of $40B and I think interest rates are going to be persistently higher for longer than people are currently expecting just as a function of global sovereign debt levels and inflation risks. Thats powerful with their total investment portfolio 3:1 leveraged. I do generally trust their prudent overall risk management as they have a lot of skin in the game.

Ah yes how conveniently you forget how the Shah got into power. It was the US and UK that orchestrated a coup that destroyed democracy in Iran to bring a dictator to power and so he could give 40% of Irans oil to western companies. The Shah was a US/UK puppet who was terrorizing Iranians. Also read up on the atrocities that followed the coup and understand the reason why the revolution took place.

No, i dont think thats likely. But its still cheap and the EPS will expand this year because the USD weakness has hidden some of the operational power (25% operating income growth this year). And 10-20% growth with a 3.4% dividend yield is always nice to have. Theres a thread about it.

Is there a reason you use 15 years as the benchmark? Buffett has said that 5 years is a good timeframe to use to evaluate a management team. That is my preferred measure. Does year 6 to 10 performance matter? A little, but much less IMHO. What about year 11 to 15? Interesting… but too long ago to matter much IMHO. For instance… back in 2013, I did not use a 10 or 15 year timeframe to evaluate Fairfax’s management team at the time (their investment returns). That would have been pretty dumb, given the CDS and equity hedge positions (that worked fabulously well from 2007-2009) would have completely skewed results. The best way to evaluate Fairfax in 2013 was to look primarily at what they owned at the time, how the positions had performed recently (prior 5 years), and what their prospects were (next 5 years). (I did that and then sold all my shares in Fairfax.) Imagine using a 15 year timeframe to evaluate management at BlackBerry back in 2013? It would have told an investor to back up the truck… Really? One of the benefits of using 5 years is it makes calculating rate of return easier. Fairfax has a very concentrated portfolio: Eurobank FFH-TRS Poseidon Fairfax India - primarily BIAL Orla Mining Do I care today that Eurobank was a terrible business in 2014? Nope. What I care deeply about is what kind of business Eurobank is today - and it is a very good business. Could that change? Of course… that is why I listen to every quarterly call). Holdings get much smaller after the big 5. But there are a bunch of stars in there as well. Fairfax’s hit rate the past 5 years is nuts. To this, add the returns on the holdings they sold in the last 5 years: Resolute Forest Products Stelco Sigma Orla (part) Poseidon (part) All were massive home runs (5-year returns). And then, of course, we should also add the gains on the insurance businesses they IPO’d/sold in the last 5 years… this needs to get counted somewhere… Digit Pet insurance Ambridge Euolife’s life insurance business More massive gains… After all, at the end of the day, we are trying to evaluate a management team on their capital allocation skills. It should be fair and balanced and look at all the important pieces. How has Fairfax performed over the past 5 years? They have smoked - absolute and relative to the S&P500. Especially if you use the correct cost basis: FFH-TRS cost basis is not the starting value of Fairfax’s share price. It is much less. Interestingly, the last 5 years had two bear markets: 2022 and 2025 (I think just qualified). There was also a historic bear market in bonds. Yes, the starting point (Dec 31, 2020) was very favourable. But that is when you look at performance vs the S&P500. For the past 5 years, Fairfax’s capital allocation has been best-in-class and it is not close. The fact that people don’t get it is not surprising - this is Fairfax after all.

What you fail to realize is that the Iranian behavior over the past 47 years has never been rational. Iran was not at war with the US at the time of the revolution, instead Iran chose to take Americans hostage - an action that would have caused the Soviets to nuke them. Iran chose to fund Hezbollah which bombed Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. Iran chose war against the US, it was not forced into it. Similarly with Israel, Iran was not a war with Israel in 1979, as a matter of fact, Israeli engineers built the Teheran water system. Iran chose to start a war against Israel via proxy. As a matter of fact, is it rational to fund Hamas and Hezbollah which are dedicated to the destruction of Israel? If one country is dedicated to wiping out the other, the logical conclusion is that it risk being wiped out itself! Is it rational to attack a country that is not at war with you, let alone a country that is armed with nukes? Iran chose to attack two countries - US and Israel. If you think that is rational, what is not rational in your opinion?

Sorry I think your cognitive dissonance is leading you to rationalize what he said as if he meant someone else other than the Iranian regime currently running Iran that negotiated and signed the MOU. I get it, it must be jarring to vote for a guy thinking he'd be aligned with your views on Iran and to now find him inverting the standard talking points so violently. Trump, as many have said about him personally, will eventually always screw you over somehow. The GOP/DNC party line forever (essentially the Israeli self -serving caricature) is that Iran is an irrational, suicidal death cult.........Trump in one fell swoop re-characterizes them as rational, pleasant to deal with and only looking out for their people....he's also recently said that you know maybe they can keep their civilian nuclear enrichment as others have one and as regards ballistic missiles....more or less "why wouldn't they want to keep what others in the region have!" He's something else. I'm sure Miriam Adelson is wondering if $250m in political donations are refundable right now as she listens to this administration flip the Israeli talking points on Iran. I've always seen through the Iran caricature as just that (but at the same time recognizing the repression there) but I'm as shocked as anyone to hear a US President invert that caricature so publicly and forcefully! Crazy times.....Trump's great legacy was the switch in posture he instituted re: China.....a China engagement strategy was dogma in D.C. when he arrived, when he left in 2021 that had switched to containment......I wonder if this time around the dogma he'll dismantle before he leaves is D.C's unquestioning consumption of Israeli talking points as American foreign policy and move towards looking at Israel as just another ally and M.E. as a region that is better left to self-stablize after decades of the US/Israel attempting to 'fix' it.

Sure, when you line up their accomplishments side-by-side of course it's going to look like Obama is 100x the POTUS that Stumpy is...but what you don't realize is that Obama was black and that makes people uNcOmFoRtAbLe!

With all due respect, has the equity book outperformed the S&P over the last 15 years? By the way, there have been plenty of incredible opportunities in both US and non-US. Why buy Eurobank when you could have bought Aena, Halma, Diploma, Asml, Hermes, Sartorius Stadim Biotech, Safran? Why buy Blackberry, et all when Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia, Micron, Moody's, S&P Global, Idexx, Heico, Transdigm, GE, RSG & WM, and the list goes on were available? Why are we so proud of buying crappy businesses at 50 cents on the dollar when Nvidia was trading at 5 cents on the dollar 5 years ago?