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It is always good to run the numbers. And size matters - focus on the largest holdings. Fairfax's largest holding by a country mile is Eurobank. How has it performed YTD? It is up $1.3 billion, or 25%. Outstanding. But that timeframe is too short. Five year return is better. How has it performed since Dec 31, 2020? It is up $6.0 billion, which is a compound rate of return of 45%. Investors? A big yawn. Let's expand the analysis. What is Fairfax's second largest holding? It is FFH-TRS. How has it performed over the past 5 years? Despite being flat year over year, it has been outstanding. What is Fairfax's third largest holding? Poseidon. How has it performed over the past 5 years? It has been outstanding. BIAL? Orla? I could go on and on... Fairfax's equity investment have been having an epic run over the past 5 years. And investors? They aren't happy...

https://babylonbee.com/news/oh-no-trump-negotiates-deal-with-england-and-now-they-have-the-colonies-back

I watch this in Peacock. Their Telemundo channel has all the games but commentators are speaking Spanish (which I don’t mind).

The protest were already over 2 month when the war started. the Iranian regime is very good st suppressing protest and they had similar ones several times before. Also, the regime had more popular support than most in the west believe. Even those that don’t exactly like the regime because of corruption likely want to keep an Islamic state rather rather than a western style secular democracy. You can see that on how people vote in surrounding states.

You have a point there!

Peller is one of the largest players in Canada. I suspect this is one of those Recipe type investments to consolidate the industry over time. The wine pays for the land...the land goes up over time in value. Cheers!

Like this guy? Kristi Noem's husband... Maybe she should shoot those puppies! Cheers!

Only thing missing was "YMCA" playing all night! We know that the GOP is made up of many closeted gay men and women...I think they may be the biggest supporters of LGBTQ+ rights...just from the closet! It's a shame they don't have the courage to come out. Cheers!

Abraham Lincoln, incidentally the first ever Republican, was a voracious reader. He had less than one year of formal education before reaching the age of 18. Most of what that great man knew came from a book. Of course some of our favorite heroes here, being both Buffett and Munger, essentially devoted their entire lives to reading. Has Donald Trump read a single book in his whole life? The same man who is making unilateral, world defining decisions near daily, has he ever read one book? One? Newspapers? Financial statements, periodicals, literally anything that would give him the knowledge required to make a good decision? Anything? Maybe he read The Cat in the Hat.

Tvk.to and ipco starter

You mean like this man's man: Cheers!

Probably prepping for the K shares redemption

Arguably the expected return for the equity portfolio to justify the stock price is under 5% given the leverage. I really don’t expect them to beat the S&P 500 in the equity portfolio but think they can over long periods of time. Currently the accounting returns are significantly lagging the economic returns so much I think over the next 5 years 15% for accounting returns is more likely than 5%. The last three years they have done 20% according to Wade on the most recent conference call. Fairfax is about generating absolute returns not relative returns. I think it’s similar to my own process. Beating the market over the long term is the output but it’s not a goal seeking exercise. Fairfax has the added benefit of the leverage due to float and borrowing at the holdco which can turn “pedestrian” equity portfolio returns into 15%+ BVPS growth.

The following chart is from the Consumer Expenditure Survey. This survey is used to create the basket for measuring CPI, which is interesting: Look at what comes in dead last as a share of household expenditures: reading. The average household spends six times more on tobacco products and alcohol than on reading. Nothing better in my mind explains the advent of Trump.

Fairfax announced new $300M Notes offering. https://www.fairfax.ca/press-releases/fairfax-launches-c300-million-senior-notes-offering/

Fox Sports https://www.youtube.com/@foxsports puts all games on YouTube in 2 versions: ~10 minute highlights, and ~20 minute extended highlights. Without putting the result in the video title, suspense not killed! And if you are strapped for time, there is also a recap of all matches of a day, mostly goals, in 10 minutes. If you are outside the U.S., you can use a VPN to put yourself in the U.S. Sometimes YouTube blocks VPNs, it helps to open in a private tab and go to a state with a lesser used VPN, not east or west coast.

Sure, but the US needs wars to keep money moving and people distracted.

You’re a smart guy whose opinions I respect, so let’s think this through. Why does Iran support these ‘resistance’ groups in the first place? They’re aimed at one specific country that has repeatedly attacked its neighbours, occupies and settles disputed territory (West Bank, Golan, etc.), and has been involved in or supported actions that led to hundreds of thousands or even a million + deaths in the region over decades (Iraq war influence, Gaza operations, Lebanon conflicts, Syria strikes) and have tried to derail every peace conversation. If that country stopped the occupations and military campaigns many in the region see as aggressive, Iran might not feel the need to fund freedom / resistance fighters. Prosperity and 21st-century integration sound great, but it’s hard to trust incentives when one side keeps expanding settlements and killing innocent individuals like they are playing call of duty. Why not maybe address the root occupation issue first? (I would love to get into use cases with you as well)

I think the fragility of the Iranian regime thesis that was out there turned out to be more Israeli propaganda than reality. Something that JD Vance, Rubio & the Director of the CIA told Trump prior to Epic Fury….i believe the word used by Trump’s senior most advisors on that idea was “bullshit”. At the time I remember being somewhat in your camp assuming that Trump must have been told by his own intelligence agencies that the regime was at a tipping point and just needed a nudge….in that world I had a “worth a shot” opinion too….the subsequent reporting however on the decision timeline for Epic Fury shows the lack of credible US intelligence, only overblown self serving Israeli Iran fragility stories, Bibi’s pitch book and a receptive President interested in glory hunting versus managing risk/reward. In short the judgement of Epic Fury as an ill advised boondoggle is not some after the fact exercise….there is extensive evidence now that prior to Epic Fury the President was ably advised about how ill advised it was and how likely to fail it was!

Sure, we would expect Fairfax's equity investments to outperform the S&P 500. Still do. All of us here share the same expectation (otherwise, the index is easy to buy and hold). But that doesn't really address the question. We often like to compare Fairfax to Berkshire; Buffett didn't shy away from investments just because they were popular or widely held, some of which have made for excellent long term holdings. Just don't see why some obvious (even to me) great companies from the last 20 or 30 years never crossed their radar screens.

Andrew Peller Ice Wine Portfolio imo is super under penetrated outside of Canada. I think India is going to be an amazing market for the company. My grandma loves wine (but adds sugar to it) so this time when I went to India took her a bottle of Ice Wine and she loved it, in fact all my cousins did too! This could potentially be the Moutai of India! (I know it is a long shot!, but we are not paying anything for it!)

Another important thing is the retail wine store licenses the company owns.

S&P500 total return has been ~12.7% since 2018. Fairfax’s equity portfolio has smoked that return over the same timeframe. Especially if you calculate Fairfax’s CAGR using carrying value (which is comically low) and include FFH-TRS (which has a very low cost basis). The problem is people do not appear to want to follow the math… (in fairness, it is complicated to calculate). PS: I am not trying to be punchy… I am in a good mood today (hate that when it happens) - I am trying to add some humour to my answers to make them more entertaining.

Yes, no argument. But to play devil's advocate, stock indices have done extraordinarily well since 2018 too. Not to suggest they invest in broad equity indices but there a lot of public companies that have done very well.

The construction project for a developer at Port Moody Winery would be in the range of $800- $900M CAD per John Peller (Prior CEO). See transcript from their 2023-11 call. Now, where Real Estate is currently in Canada it might not be Viable, but definitely worth a lot in the right hands over time.