racemize

Eric, what were you doing in between FFH and BAC?

I was going to ask you--is it normally an early March deal? Seems like a week after Buffett's is normal?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/05/oaktree-marks-idUSL6N0BXLP520130305 Looks like he is mostly talking about high yield debt and private equity.

That was painful to watch--even if those two stocks worked out, I doubt they would stop until it all came crashing down...

Hi all, this is my first outing to the annual meeting, and I was hoping for some advice/pointers. I pretty much want to know everything that's worth knowing--so don't hold back! Some questions I particularly wouldn't mind info on: 1) I'd love to get my Security Analysis autographed by Buffett/Munger, but I doubt there's any way to get that to happen given the number of people. Is it pretty much just a pipe dream? 2) How soon do you get there and get into the seats? 3) Is there a corner of berkshire meet-up? Or is it so hectic with all the events that everyone just wonders around? 4) What's yellow berker, and is that worth going to (it seems like the answer is yes)? Thanks!

Hey Sanjeev, Is the reservation for Saturday or Sunday night ? Sunday. Buffett shows up at Piccolos on Sunday around 7:30-8:30pm. He's usually at Gorat's on Sunday around 6-6:30pm, but Gorat's is broken up into three rooms, so you don't know where you will be seated. Piccolos is really one big massive room for the most part, so it's likely you will get to see him. Cheers! Wait, he goes to both of them on Sunday?--does he do anything on Saturday night?

I respect these two a lot, though I'm not sure of Taleb's more recent writings/conclusions (though I loved Fooled by Randomness). In any event, here is a discussion between the two (mostly just Taleb): http://www.nypl.org/audiovideo/live-nypl-nassim-taleb-daniel-kahneman (over an hour long)

I think his deal works out to better than 6% for him, based on the structure, no?

I guess I forgot 0, but that seems really unlikely.

Given the probable tax events for adjustments on the A warrants and the fact that I have some B warrants as well, I agree wholeheartedly! The fed will also want to keep the dividends from going up too fast this year, since they can take away the buybacks as wanted, but I imagine there will be a token increase.

just for convenience, every 0.01 paid out is 100 million dollars from BAC. So an increase of 0.01 per quarter is 400 million annually (obviously).

How many billions in buyback for BAC for 2013 stress tests?

What do you think the quarterly dividend will be for BAC after 2013 stress tests?

didn't someone post a conversion of the rm files somewhere? Maybe that was on reddit...

My wife has been making fun of my anticipation for it.

I always interpreted this statement as Buffett could get 50% returns on a small amount of money now due to his increased ability/skill versus when he had the partnership (he has learned a lot since then!). I would think the 50's were better for investing than now, for him to get those returns, but he was saying "now" for the benefit of the audience. i.e., if he said he could do >50% in the 50's, the statement would not have much meaning for the audience listening to him. I'd never considered the alternative you just mentioned--perhaps he did mean that. Maybe because there are more opportunities/stocks to look at? Edit: mcliu pretty much just said the same thing... I'll leave mine since I typed it out.

This year I got hit with a withholding penalty, because of the following: I have a salary + variable bonus structure. In 2011, I worked a lot and got a nice bonus, but last year I did not work as much and so the bonus was lower. Accordingly, my witholding for 2012 was significantly less than in 2011 (33% less in fact). At the same time, I had a lot of long term gains that I realized, which made me owe ~15% more than I witheld for this year, resulting in a withholding penalty. I'm trying to figure out how to resolve this issue in the future as there is no way to withhold for taxes on cap gains through Fidelity. Should I just always withhold as much as I have in the last year or two? Does it matter when I get the taxes in as long as it is before the year end (e.g., if I do an estimation including cap gains and pull it out of my bonus so that the number is right, does that matter if I had the large cap gains at the beginning of the year versus the end)? It may be time to break down and get a CPA... Also, of course I understand that anything you guys say is not actual advice, etc. etc., just trying to see what folks who have already had this problem do.

Was merely illustrative. If it's worth $40 and you sell it at $40 waiting for it to get back down to $20, that's not timing....which was my point. I think we all agree on the micro on this point; the issue is applying it to macro (at least if I understand what you are talking about well enough). From my point of view, it is hard enough to figure out IV for an individual company--attempting to know IV on a market level seems very hard, and I certainly don't think I could profit from my own market calls very well (e.g., you can be wrong for a long time before the market corrects). If your system works at a macro level, then I'm glad for you! (As a side question, haven't you been concerned at the macro level for more than a year at this point? Did this cost you gains in the short term that you are hoping to recoup if/when a market correction happens? Basically, is your system yielding you more gains than you otherwise would have?) As to calling it "timing", I think that just comes from a heavy skepticism about whether such macro calling systems are reliable and/or profitable. Micro calls are tricky enough as it is. My attraction to value investing is its simplicity in concept--making macro judgements takes me well out of the simple concept and into areas where we can be easily fooled by trends/models/etc., at least in my opinion.

latest update to Pabrai: http://www.dataroma.com/m/holdings.php?m=PI

Wow, that I did not know, thanks very much. I need to read more about the 20's--given that it was not wildly overpriced relative to earnings, were there any good warning signs?

Bill Gates did an AMA on reddit yesterday, I thought some folks might be interested. I'm linking to an individual comment that summarizes the questions and answers, but I'll also link the original:

Thanks, very nice!

I probably should have quoted Gio's post. Nobody is curious? I'm curious, but you were a bit too cryptic for me to figure out what you meant (perhaps I'm just dense). I read the DJCO meeting notes already as well, so is this something new or something that was in there already?

Although I have not enjoyed his latest writings, Taleb (via Marks and in Fooled by Randomness) did give me a nice perspective shift in thinking about investments/risk/results. I think his framework for risk is extremely valuable, although I'm not sure he draws the correct conclusions with that framework, e.g., with his recommended long vol and bond portfolio. Regardless, it is very disconcerting to believe that an individual investor won't know if he is good or merely fooling himself until a long period of time has lapsed, especially if the period of time required to know if you are good eclipses your required investment horizon (e.g., retirement). Every time I discuss this with people, they just don't seem to get it, and keep thinking good results necessarily means skill, even at 1-3 years. In any event, his message seems to have more to do with mainstream investment managers rather than individuals or small hedge funds with understanding partners, so, though his stance makes prima facie sense, I doubt it is all that pertinent to many of us on the board.

anything interesting from the meeting?