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Ref. the discussion upstream about Warren Buffetts donations to the Gates Foundation : CNBC [July 14th 2026] : Warren Buffett excludes Gates Foundation from his annual donations of Berkshire stock. - - - o 0 o - - - Edit : Berkshire Hathaway - Press Release [July 14th 2026]. -Ohh well!

Inflation heated up directly because of Covid. It would not have mattered who was President at the time.

The IDBI Bank divestment seems to be moving again. New sealed bids are now being reviewed by the government with a possible decision in August. https://www.ndtvprofit.com/markets/idbi-bank-shares-jump-over-3-percent-as-government-receives-revised-bids-for-stake-sale-11768041/amp/1 Shares of IDBI Bank rose as much as 4.08% to an intraday high of Rs 87.50 on Tuesday after the government received revised financial bids from two foreign bidders for its stake sale in the lender, according to official sources familiar with the matter. Fairfax Holdings and Emirates NBD remain in the race to acquire the government's stake in IDBI Bank. Sources told NDTV Profit that Fairfax Holdings' revised bid is closer to the government's reserve price, with the Centre targeting around Rs 50,000 crore from the strategic disinvestment. The winning bidder has not yet been finalised, with a decision likely over the next month, sources said. According to Bloomberg, the government is close to accepting Fairfax Financial Holdings' offer after the Canadian insurer reportedly raised its bid by a few rupees per share following the rejection of its earlier offer, which was below the reserve price. The report added that the transaction will require approvals from the Union Cabinet and the Reserve Bank of India before it can be completed.

If so, isn't the obvious answer to earn more? We can talk about housing supply vs. demand all day long but the fact is useful jobs and degrees will go a long way to resolve that issue for homebuyers. People who are gainfully employed to their capabilities tend to have less problems affording a house. Apologists tend to be from one political party and support many of the same issues that contribute to high housing costs. And there is always the option to move somewhere that is more affordable. Yet there are people who will complain no matter what. Like most things, the longer term solution to high housing prices is high housing prices. But don't tell that to folks who don't understand fundamental economics.

One of the advantages of a concentrated portfolio is that you also develop a pretty good sense as to when the stock is over and under priced. Upcoming earnings announcements, dividend ex dates, changes in the underlying commodity price (affecting price), etc. First time out, look at RSI as a guideline. As you gain confidence and trust in your assessments ... switch over to judgement. If you are going to rely on stop loss thresholds, you are building an algorithm .... bots can do it a lot better than you. Most often you will make your money from change in the price of the goods the company sells, versus change in the company technicals or financials. It will bias you towards commodities. Good luck. SD

Sold NQ futures from yesterday

Global insurance market according to SwissRe. 44% of global premium comes from US ($3.7T). China is #2 with 10% global share. Can not shake thought.....GEEZE, the US loves buying insurance!! Or brokers are really good at selling to US buyers of insurance. Old timer told me once, "Insurance is never bought, it's sold". As world economies mature, expect a global lift in premiums. Hence brokers looking internationally for growth. Strikes me how low the base is for some very mature economies. WOWZERS, 31% growth in Hong Kong?!? Other note, there is 1 market in the top 20 with decline, Brazil. Not picking on Brazil, just sticks out globally there is 1 market with a decline and all 19 markets (and global sum) are growing. Relative GDP's, Canada & Brazil are similar however Canada buys 2X+ amount of insurance than Brazil. Mature economies demand insurance to mitigate risk, its a natural progression. Developer want to build a data center on cheap land with access to cheap power? Capital markets will provide investment capital to build however demand their investment is insured. Just another item for attorneys to fight over. Brokers coin it when capital markets demand contractual insurance cover. 2026-07-sri-world-insurance-sigma.pdf

Thanks @frommi for the pointers. I will experiment with put options (may be 1%) and see how it goes. @SharperDingaan I have a concentrated portfolio. Next time market falls, I will try your suggestion. Does it need setting up pre-planned stop-loss orders? Otherwise, it might be hard to execute

John Cleese entainment isen't too shabby either [ ] : J.D. Vance explaining what is different this time [ ]:

Hilarious and accurate Jon Stewart on the outdated and aged membership of the U.S. Congress and Senate. Cheers!

what's the total revenue from AI supporting all this capex? Anthropic + Gemini + OpenAI + optimization from AI for ad revenue maybe somewhere between 150-300 billion dollars? And the Capex is set to surpass 700 billion this year. I guess AI could become a somewhat decent margin business someday but Chinese models are already catching up and 10-30% of the token costs. Is there a trillion dollar business here just based on LLMs?

Thanks LC! Clearly looks like there has been enough of a structural/economic change at Fairfax where buying back their own shares up to 1.3 times book value generates an after-tax return equivalent to or better than their target return for shareholders. Cheers!

I think like Berkshire, for a long time Fairfax taught their shareholders to consider book value when evaluating the share price. I think the gap between intrinsic value and book value has diverged significantly overtime. In both of their cases and probably more so in the case of Fairfax. Considering Mr Market was assigning values as low as 0.6 BV in the past. 1.25 may appear like more reasonable. But in an environment where the insurance segment is much improved, interest rates are likely to stay materially higher for longer, and where excess fair value over carrying value is 4B+, and with where recent ROE numbers have been ie high teens compared to mid teens previously, I believe that is not much of a rerating. My view is at the recent average of 18% ROE, even accounting for the volatility and inherent risks of an insurance company, an adequately capitalized, well managed company that's been around nearly 50yrs should merit 1.8x BV in this very expensive stock market. I'm happy for them to keep buying at these levels. ,

Another important ‘bucket’ is the annual change in excess of FV over CV for market traded non-insurance associate and consolidated companies. It was a loss of $660 million in 2020. And at June 30, 2026 it is likely +$4.1 billion. The ‘swing’ over the past 6.5 years is about $730 million per year pre-tax or about $620 million after-tax (assuming 15% tax rate on capital gains). That is a material amount per year - too big to ignore. We know Fairfax includes this metric in their analysis. When we include this metric, Fairfax’s buybacks make even more sense - they look even better.

Teddy-boy, I don't really care what you think. Spek keeps ignoring the facts, solely because he can't stand Trump. It's not the first time and certainly won't be the last time. Take a chill pill already.

I think the key metric in assessing intrinsic value—while admittedly imperfect and particularly volatile in Fairfax’s case—is net earnings. Ultimately, a business’s intrinsic value is determined by its ability to generate earnings over time. With that in mind, it may be informative to look at the trend in annual net earnings alongside earnings per share (EPS). Since Fairfax has also been aggressively repurchasing shares, the EPS trend provides additional insight into the value accruing to each remaining shareholder. I also thought it would be useful to include return on equity (ROE). Although ROE is also subject to significant year-to-year volatility and accounting noise at Fairfax, it remains a helpful measure of how effectively the company has been compounding shareholders’ capital over time. Year Total Revenue (US$B) Net Earnings (US$B) Diluted EPS (US$) ROE 2017 16.2 1.74 64.98 15.0% 2018 15.6 0.38 14.08 3.2% 2019 19.1 1.65 62.45 13.3% 2020 20.0 2.06 80.76 15.6% 2021 27.0 3.18 123.61 20.2% 2022 29.0 3.38 129.23 18.6% 2023 31.8 4.38 173.24 20.2% 2024 35.2 3.87 160.56 16.0% 2025 38.3 4.77 213.78 18.1%

PBAM files to uplist to Nasdaq https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1705284/000119312526302001/d924865d1012b.htm

Could also add the impact to BVPS as Viking calculated. Just need the effective shares outstanding at the end of 2024 and 2025. I don’t think the accretion to BVPS from buybacks at a discount are relevant.

May be he didn’t take his meds today. I would not worry to much, tomorrow is Taco Don Tuesday.

Chatgpt: Year Shares Repurchased (millions) Total Cost (US$ millions) Avg. Purchase Price Year-end Book Value/Share Avg. Purchase Price as % of BV Estimated % of Shares Retired 2017 ~0.35 ~150 ~$430 ~$450 96% ~1.4% 2018 ~0.55 ~250 ~$455 ~$455 100% ~2.2% 2019 ~0.38 ~170 ~$447 ~$484 92% ~1.5% 2020 ~0.56 ~215 ~$385 ~$525 73% ~2.2% 2021 ~2.31 ~1,240 ~$537 ~$674 80% ~9.3% 2022 ~0.61 ~398 ~$652 ~$752 87% ~2.7% 2023 ~0.31 ~276 ~$890 ~$940 95% ~1.4% 2024 1.347 1,588 $1,179 $1,060 111% ~6.3% 2025 1.007 1,625 $1,614 $1,260 128% ~5.0%

The inflation was an own goal. Trump shut things down did a little stimmy, bad but made more sense when apparently people thought there were so many unknows, and politically because he would be the only who didn't. Then biden, when the coast was clear, loaded up lots of stimmy, unnecessarily and without a meritable argument at the time. Also, in general lefty states wanted to stay closed vs rightie, counterfactually if trump won, would things of opened up sooner if most of his base wanted it? Yes, question is how quickly, would that have reduced inflation, having companies open? I don't know a single righty who didn't say they wanted things opened. 78 year olds with 2.5 co morbities/similar could have been taken care of cheaply.

Return of the King- what a book ! .took me 2 months to digest it all..great author ! thank you linking the podcast

Cubs, no one on this board, save you, thinks the economy runs on the election calendar. Inflation created by the Biden administration flowed into Trump's second term, just as it flowed into Biden from Trump's first. Also, your syntax makes your posts read like you are an asshat. And I don't think you are! Why would you address Spek with an opening sentence like that?? I love the exchange of ideas and the vastly differing opinions. The message would be better received if toned down a bit.

Bought small position in NQ cuz if it feels good, why not