racemize

Posting my own response, but in case anyone is interested, this isn't bad for mutual fund info: http://www.ici.org/pdf/2012_factbook.pdf

I'm working on an essay that delves into the effect of taxes on reported performance for mutual and hedge funds (e.g., to show after-tax results), but I need to get some reputable statistics to show the representative effect in the essay. Does anyone know of some good studies or papers that show average turn-over rates, long/short term holdings, etc. for mutual funds and hedge funds? Or perhaps there is already a good paper on this whole concept--that could be handy as well.

This is very cool. Please keep going in the coming quarters/years!

There's also some question of what we are picking. Are we picking what we would choose for our own portfolio if we only had 5 choices? Are we choosing what 5 choices will likely have the highest return? Are we trying to balance the risks in the 5? For example, I picked WFC among some others, which I would not do if I were going for highest returns (e.g., it was one of my conservative picks).

Yeah, there are a few wrong reports out; who checks these things!

Here's the response from dataroma (re Berkowitz and Pabrai), just for completion's sake: Thanks for the msg. We cover the Fairholme Fund as opposed to the asset management holding company. The fund actually has a quarter end date which is a month earlier (currently 31 May 2013). So there would be some differences there. With regards to warrants, we currently don't report them. We also don't report preferreds or options. We only report common stocks. Best regards, Sina, Dataroma.

although, whale wisdom is missing the Freddie/Fannie investments, which we know he has. They aren't listed in the SEC filings though, so now I'm more confused...

Hi all, I've been using dataroma for a while to keep track of positions of investors (e.g., if I want to look it up quickly). However, I've noticed that they don't appear to be all that accurate. For example, they typically don't show warrant positions or some of the smaller positions (e.g, missing GM warrants for Pabrai, or missing various bank warrants for Berkowitz). Here's two different websites for the same data: http://www.dataroma.com/m/holdings.php?m=fairx http://whalewisdom.com/filer/fairholme-capital-management-llc Anyone else notice this? I should probably just be emailing this to dataroma, but perhaps I'm missing something obvious...

Sorry, I didn't quite follow what you mean by "and its not even close"--would you mind clarifying?

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but it seems like the board (myself included) latched on to BAC rather than C, and I'm trying to figure out why exactly. If you look at the returns of the two companies over the investment time period, they are fairly similar, though BAC is sometimes higher, depending on when you got in. There were also value investors in C (though not Berkowitz) at the time. Some reasons I have thought of: 1) C had a lot more foreign exposure that many were concerned about (e.g., break-up of Euro, potential issues in China, etc.) 2) Low cost of deposits for BAC 3) Perhaps low opinion of Pandit, at the time 4) The BAC warrants were much more attractive In any event, I haven't spent a ton of time on C and, given the post count, neither have a lot of us. Perhaps we should be, though. E.g., Pabrai is equally weighted for both of them. Anyway, any thoughts?

Packer (and anyone else), is there a good place to find a history of the U.S. financial system, e.g., to read about these periods? I've been looking for a good book that has detailed information about the various financial events, just to have some history to be able to rely on. I'm fairly well-versed from 1923 on, but wouldn't mind beefing that up as well.

I recall that being true, but didn't his hedge fund do ok prior to the mutual fund?

I'm also curious as to thinking behind the deal. Scary to have a disagreement between Brindle and Buffett! twacowfca, any thoughts?

I find the best thing to do is to look up a SAYC (standard american yellow card) manual online (free) that explains the convention. Then, try to learn it with patient people, either in person or online. Most random online people (e.g., on bridgebase) do not allow you the time to figure out your bidding or plays if you are unfamiliar. If we're serious about it, we should just get four of us together and do some games together, in a real slow manner, so that everyone can understand how the bidding works. Playing is pretty typical card stuff, though you have to manage the board a bit.

looks like this one is in: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/sec-lifts-ban-hedge-fund-152302990.html so, pretty much free reign now?

I really think all three of you are saying the same thing, just in different manners. There is a range of possibilities, but only one outcome that ends up happening. You can say it is inevitable or not, depending on your preference, but even if it were, it still isn't predictable by us.

I think strictly it would be the first, but since that's impossible and we can only use the second, probably we should just stick with that. Or at least we should stick with that in our own models/thinking.

This was my understanding (although it is limited!)--Al, or anyone else, please correct this understanding if it is wrong.

Seemed pretty good, although I'm not as experienced in this area as others on the board: https://sumzero.com/sp/shaleassets

Where did you get the 10-11 year timeframe? In the annual report they say the lease was extended by 40 years in 2009. Why would they resign that lease--it seems like they would want to mine it by 2009, rather than go another 40 years without the right incentives?

Gio, I think you are right--I think I was wrong in comparing FFH to MKL. In retrospect, I'm pretty sure Monnish was referring to BRK rather than MKL. And BRK has a ton of cash/short-term stuff on hand, so that would make more sense.

isn't this showing the rates though? So we'd have to have corresponding deflation to offset the > 1% amounts for the last few years for them to work out? (I still do not thoroughly understand how these are set up).

Hi Joel, I wouldn’t be so sure… last time that I checked, MKL had substantially larger investments in stocks, as a percentage of equity, than FFH! giofranchi Hi Gio, I think he was not talking about the portion of equity in the portfolio, but instead the float / book value ratio for the company (i.e., that FFH had more float to shareholders equity of FFH than the corresponding ratio at BRK).

I overheard Monnish talking about fairfax and the hedges at the airport after the Berkshire meeting. He indicated the hedging / stance was largely due to the float / equity. I think he said ffh was at near 2:1 vs 1.3:1 for mkl or brk. Then I guess there is the deflation derivatives, but they aren't that expensive.

I don't know many people who love a certain brand of toilet paper over all others. I've never seen someone with a toilet paper branded t-shirt or hat, or toilet paper memorabilia as decoration in their homes. It would be hard to compare any toilet paper company to what Coke once was. Oh, I just meant it as an answer to what people continue to buy up to the last nickel--certainly not on par with coke or a brand. I don't think it would be a good investment, and perhaps it would be considered "essential" anyway.