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Each day Trump takes his tag along's to a new level of joy. The more delusional the better; anything flies as long as it is Trump saying it. The subject matter, the words, the ideas? They are all flexible, literally open ended. Trump takes his tag along's anywhere he wants. You are with him or not, that's it. Nothing else, silly stuff like reality, matters. He's been successful at this for 60 years. And he sells like hot cakes to all media. Glory be to The Donald!

In any part of the world if you save and invest well you'll do great... The typical U.S. household holds a median of $8,000 in savings and checking accounts. However, about 24% of adults have zero emergency savings...

Thank you. It is a bit of a mystery. Putting aside the fact that it was still behind France, UK ,Italy, Spain etc...it is a too much big step... In theory: According to the UBS Global Wealth Report, the decrease in U.S. median wealth was driven by a methodology shift adjusting for cumulative inflation, combined with an intensifying K-shaped economic divide. While surging asset prices increased wealth for the top tier, the median household's net worth compressed due to inflation and a lack of significant stock market exposure. Not a satisfying explanation...I am reading to figure it out...a major data correction and methodology update...(...it was adjusted for a cumulative 20% inflation from 2020 to 2025...still doesn't add up...)

Thank you, Sanjeev [ @Parsad ], HaHa, - Jon Stewart is just awesome! - I get good laugh every time and I see and listen to him!

Actually, the biggest leech in NATO isn't any single country...it's DJT! Crook, leech, criminal, sex pervert, narcissist, liar...you name it, he sucks it! Cheers!

Cubs will have an excuse for everything mentioned in here! Cheers! Trump's Meritocracy:

Thanks for this, seems a very full price on recent numbers. So one can only conclude they see a path to $150m +in EBITDA. COVID obviously compressed sales, so in recent years they will have been suffering through a “COVID hangover.” Through cycle I am sure Schaeffer will make it work (quick and dirty IRR based on 55% FCF conversion, exit multiple 6x’s EBITDA) Sales & EBITDA over the last 7 years.

To evaluate Fairfax’s performance today, I like to use 5 years. Because I think we now have 5 years of relatively ‘clean’ results/history. The challenge is a fair bit of stuff is happening under the hood and is not captured in the accounting results. Some of it gets picked up by excess of FV over CV. But there is more than that. On leverage, I think the preferred shares are mostly gone, replaced with debt. Their bond portfolio is very conservative… mostly government debt (85%?). No private credit at all. Very different from P/C insurance peers.

Where on bloody earth do you get that most Americans are not doing well? If you exclude those who either became seriously ill or had someone in their immediate family become seriously ill, what % of people who acquired useful skills, worked hard, lived within their means and invested their savings did poorly? And no, someone who went to Columbia and got a degree in gender studies and now can't get a job does not qualify.

Anyone buying or currently have a position in a company that Is trading at <6x FCF or Earnings? Thanks

What timeframe do you guys view as the best to assess Fairfax performance. I agree quarter to quarter or even year to year is difficult. Because for many reasons their earnings are lumpy. I was thinking five years but wanted to see what others think. On leverage, Fairfax tilts towards the higher side, compared to most insurers. They not only hold float leverage, but also debt leverage and even preferred shares. If you consider minority shareholding and pref equity as a form of leverage, that's additional on top of that. Perhaps as a result of this, they also are the most careful towards how they invest and hedge on interest, rate swings, etc. So they are approached towards leverage is perhaps the most complex one of all P&C insurers. The role of redundancy in reserves. I think this is like 20 out of the past 21 years or so. And on average it's around 2% of underwritten premiums. I think there's a small tax advantage, and also allows for some flexibility in maintaining a more smooth doubt, Insurance operations.

Now the second largest sleep retailer in the world apparently. I’m curious how they financed the deal. They levered up a bit on the acquisition but it’s a strong FCF business so might be financed by debt.

The current inefficient market is a great hunting ground for them. When they do acquisitions most investors don’t like them because they don’t screen well. I think any concerns around insurance are more short term in nature. The longer the outlook the less it matters. In the short term if the market hardens that would accelerate multiple expansion which will otherwise trend towards whatever Fairfax’s limit is on the NCIB for open market purchases. That should more than offset any slow down in BVPS growth from a higher combined ratio in the short term.

Cpac reported post close. Despite no price increase, volumes up 15.5 percent, revenues up 15.4 percent, ebitda up 34.3 percent and net income up 61.5 percent

Why Soccer Is Boring The Better Team Loses Almost Half the Time One of the best ways to determine how much luck is involved in a sport is to measure how often the worse team beats the better one. If the favourite wins 80 per cent of the time, that’s a high-skill sport: the better side reliably prevails, and the remaining 20 per cent is luck. If the favourite wins 55 per cent of the time, you’re watching something closer to a coin flip. https://archive.ph/vSNN3#selection-1033.9-1033.29

I really hope, bullet point 3 and 4 will last. If they don't do any major blunders, the compounding goal of 15% on the average looks more than achievable. The outcome could be much higher. But then again, it's insurance and there are unknown unknows in the risks they cover.

It is certainly ironic. Given that Spain is the biggest leech in NATO - it's really Europe that should be pissed and not the USA!

@djokovic1, I think what makes today unique is a number of things have converged: Higher interest rates, which you mention. Higher quality insurance business Higher quality equity holdings Better capital allocation (matured?) The 4 have come together at the same time. Bodes well for future returns. The good news is that it appears little of that is priced into the stock today.

Yes you are right. But I still think the leverage increases, not for the reason I said but just because an equal decrease in investments and equity will make the ratio higher. For instance, with $74.9b invested and $26.3b in equity at the end of 2025, for a 2.85 ratio, buying a million shares this year might cost about $1.6b, bringing the ratio to 73.3/24.7=2.97. Pretty big improvement.

Doesn’t it reduce book value by the same as a $ of repurchasing? That’s the accounting entry. BVPS doesn’t go down as much because the denominator goes down too.

Sleep Country has bought Sleep Number assets from bankruptcy after increasing their offer to $700M during the auction. https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/mattress-company-sleep-number-sells-assets-700-million-bankruptcy-2026-07-20/

@Viking I love the flywheel especially because it's true! A lot of other insurance companies operate at a similar leverage, I would argue thats not what makes Fairfax special. What makes them special is they operate at that leverage with 30% in equities whereas most other insurers only have 5% in equities. So the other insurers have much lower ROE. Markel and Berkshire used to operate at much higher leverage when they had a lower amount of equity investment % in the book, not dissimilar to Fairfax today. So I don't think the leverage is an outlier / risky. What makes today unique is a healthy return on the FI book which allows Fairfax to have an exceptional ROE in most circumstances.

Repurchases are good for increasing value per share, but they are even better for maintaining the leverage. It would be interesting to see how the last few years of repurchases have changed the leverage, but without access to the numbers (long drive home) I suspect it will have increased. $1 of repurchasing obviously decreases cash by $1 but at a P/B of 1.4, it decreases book value by only 70c. So the ratio of investments to equity should increase.

@73 Reds, I think Buffett's view was (is?) that high quality float is better than equity - the key is the quality of the insurance operations. This is one of the reasons I am so happy with what Andy Barnard has done with Fairfax's insurance operations over the past 15 years (they are much higher quality today). This means Fairfax is a much more valuable company today - one of a couple of reasons why it should trade at a higher multiple today than it did 15 years ago. Fairfax's leverage is similar to what is was 15 years ago (if memory serves me correct). It's not like Fairfax has been aggressively levering up the business. Instead, spiking earnings (and shareholders' equity) is not driving leverage lower. At least not right now. (Having a low share price is a big deal - for management teams focussed on per share value creation over the long term). ---------- Another angle to the leverage discussion is size, sources and diversity of earnings. Fairfax is in a very strong position today - much stronger than at any time in its history. It really is remarkable what Fairfax has accomplished over the past 10 years. And how the stars have aligned - insurance, investments, capital allocation etc.

It’s a bit of a philosophical question. For the benefit of others, the base assumptions are that over the long term for a high quality insurance business, the combined ratio will average below 100 and that premiums will grow. If accepted that means float is always growing albeit on a revolving basis. Under these conditions, the float is the equivalent of owning a growing income stream that never has to be paid back. Those are the characteristics of an asset not a liability. The insurance subsidiaries themselves are not that levered and in fact carry extra capital. The additional leverage at the holdco and it’s structured very intelligently with no near term maturities and long duration issues. The leverage at the non-insurance subsidiaries is not relevant as they are non-recourse to the insurance subsidiaries that are mainly the shareholders. Slide from @djokovic1