racemize

Do they start to lose significant amounts of money of heavy inflation starts happening (as suggested by other camps)? It seems like there isn't protection from that outcome.

Hi JEast--I went and looked at the accident year reserve triangles for C&F (looks like it is on page 164 for 2011 and page 139 for 2009) and it seems as though their reserving was pretty decent in the 2000-2011 time range (looks to run a surplus on most years)--I guess the higher combined ratio is coming from expenses in that case.

lol, close the thread--this is the best comment, and we should go out on a bang.

even so, I'm not sure I'd sell it at 2x book, assuming it still had a 15% expected growth going forward indefinitely.

Reading this thread over the last year has been like watching a soap opera. I hope ABH works out for you guys as well as Prem thinks (or at least indicated).

is it not a free 8% arbitrage at this point then?

I've developed a pretty in-depth spreadsheet for doing reserve triangle analysis. Here's the link: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14968/reserve%20triangle%20analysis.xls After talking with several people at the FFH meeting, it seemed like folks might be interested. In the triangle, you just have to type in the first year (top left) and the reserve data in the first two triangles. The spreadsheet then uses that data to create a ton of other triangles that are useful. One of the most important ones is generated right below the first two on the first sheet, which is the reserve development triangle by accident year. The second sheet derives the remaining reserves per accident year. The third sheet derives accident year development, both cumulative changes and incremental changes (these are actually used to generate the one on the first sheet). Finally, the third is used to determine tail. This particular sheet is for AIG using the reserve triangles for 2011. From my discussions at the pre-meeting, it seemed like some people missed it when I posted it in the AIG thread a few months back, so I thought I'd leave that data in.

At the dinner, Sandridge CEO provided his outlook for Natural Gas: 1) current 2 dollar prices were due to outlier winter (he may have said it was a 4 sigma winter or even higher, can't remember) expected to get to 4ish dollars after that glut is off, e.g., in the fall 2) longer term (e.g., next several years), didn't think it would get above 6, I think due to the number of players/new entrants in the last few years He qualified that this was just his opinion, and clearly he's bearish on nat gas given their switch from 95% gas -> 95% oil. Norm will probably have much better notes, but thought I would get this part out.

yeah, that one doesn't show up for me =/. The "analysis" section is labeled as new for me, but that's it.

I just got around to this book and found it amazing. On the other hand, it was pretty much exactly what I was thinking when I posted my essay on risk (though I'm not sure anyone bothered with that)--apparently was recreating the wheel, though mine perhaps was a bit lumpy in comparison.

mine still isn't available--is it in some obscure place?

Shouldn't that be a "Buffett" menu? ;) it hurts...

I tend to agree--if they had to buy them for competitive reasons, that's not much of a moat...

I personally hate facebook and use G+. My main reasons for this is the required symmetry of facebook (you have to mutually agree to be friends) versus the asymmetry of G+ (you follow and share to whoever you want). Also, G+ has a lot more of my tech friends whose posts are actually useful versus friends/family on Facebook, who largely post things I don't care about. That being said, there aren't that many active users on it...

In fact, I've heard it often isnt worth treating (I believe the board has recommended not checking anymore).

This doesn't have all the big cases, but instead summarizes those around the FRAND standard (from a good patent blog). Includes cases involving Microsoft, Motorola, Samsung: http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2012/04/the-frand-wars-whos-on-first.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PatentlyO+%28Dennis+Crouch%27s+Patently-O%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

interesting take on how to solve the crisis. However, I've been thinking the difference between the UK/US and Eurozone was the ability to print... http://ineteconomics.org/sites/inet.civicactions.net/files/koo-richard-berlin-paper.pdf

we still get three more years!

I'm mostly displeased with the complications it ensures--now we have to keep track of two different types of shares. If they had just used it for employee compensation, then at least we could ignore it.

I'm the only one at home during the day (other than my dog), so I don't have much distractions (though she pretty much stares at me all day wondering how I could possibly be so boring). I've actually found that my days at home are at least 1.5x more productive than my day in the office (currently doing 4x10 hour days, 3 at home, 1 at work, +friday for stocks). I'm also terrible at coffee shops, so its my only real option.

My two cents on working from home (I do this 4 days a week for my job): 1) have a decent set up that you can sit and be happy with for hours. 2) always wear pajamas! (but be sure you are dedicated to work, if you need regular clothes for it, then do that, but I never have any issues with getting things done) 3) take naps in the afternoon (amazing).

Oh, I think Nokia and Microsoft is fine, but AT&T blocking upgrades is a killer.

Looks like AT&T is screwing it up--way to negotiate MSFT! http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2012/04/the-nokia-lumia-900-a-good-phone-at-a-great-price-that-you-probably-shouldnt-buy.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

As of late, I've been taking the time to catch up on a lot of investment reading (e.g., various investment books, finishing reading old Buffett/Marks/Watsa/LUK letters, etc.). That doesn't stop me from doing some poking around though.

As a patent agent, I can speak with some confidence in this area--patents are incredibly hard to value. While patents have been fetching very high prices as of late, we are currently in very patent-active time, particularly in the mobile space. If these patent portfolios have fundamental patents in the Internet/mobile space, then they are worth a ton. However, to really find out if any particular patent portfolio has a patent (and particularly a valid patent) in that space takes an incredible amount of time. So, in conclusion, it's way too hard--I'd rather value companies than patents honestly.