Hektor

Good call

How do you see this combination having an impact, if any, on V/MA/AMX?

Capital One is Buying Discover Financial, Sources Say A deal could be announced as soon as Tuesday, according to people familiar with the matter. Discover has a market value of nearly $28 billion, and the takeover would be expected to value it at a premium to that. https://www.wsj.com/finance/capital-one-is-buying-discover-financial-sources-say-a7c43dd2?mod=mhp

I guess Berkshire mostly writes short tail insurance, while Fairfax tends to write more long tail insurance. Is this assumption true? If true, how, if at all, does this impact the quality of the float at either companies?

US Producer Prices Increased by More Than Forecast in January. Prices paid to US producers rose in January by more than forecast, fueled by a sizable jump in costs of services and highlighting the sticky nature of inflation. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-16/us-producer-prices-increased-by-more-than-forecast-in-january?srnd=premium

Interesting. This might be less complicated than the CDS or TRS, I guess.

My be AI generated

I guess this makes @Parsad happy. He has been calling for a $2B at the holding company

Thank you @StubbleJumper. Will this apply only if the rates remain at where they are today? Or will the unrealized gains increase if rates drop from here (and unrealized gains decrease or turn into unrealized loss if rates rise from here)?

I guess they can give up the nice interest stream and have the unrealized gains. Or, take the interest stream for as long as possible (either maturity or interest rates going down significantly), realize the (larger) gains and deploy it into a bigger income stream (hopefully)

Not sure how much of this is true. "China Revives Socialist Ideas to Fix Its Real-Estate Crisis. Xi Jinping aims to put the state back in charge of the crumbling property market, part of a push to rein in the private sector. Under the new strategy, the Communist Party would take over a larger share of the market, which for years has been dominated by the private sector. Underpinning it are two major programs, according to policy advisers involved in the discussions and recent government announcements. One involves the state buying up distressed private-market projects and converting them into homes that the government would rent out or, in some cases, sell. The other calls for the state itself to build more subsidized housing for low- and middle-income families. The goal, the policy advisers say, is to increase the share of housing built by the state for low-cost rental or sale under restricted conditions to at least 30% of China’s housing stock, from 5% or so today." https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-real-estate-crisis-state-housing-656c5093

Does anyone here know if TRS has a time bound expiration? I vaguely remember Prem saying FFH can renew TRS as long as they wish (or something similar). I wonder if the outflow due to a stock slump might be limited to a particular time window, and will not continue if they don't renew TRS.

I guess the whole world is partnering with CCP, unless one can buy products that has zero Chinese made components.

Giraffe and China. Interesting story. Here are some excerpts from the 2 articles (links below). On another note, it seems that money might flow from the Chinese markets to the US markets via ETFs. Giraffes might just be the next thing banned on China's social media. The animals became an overnight symbol of discontent with the Chinese economy when the US Embassy in Beijing's social media account uploaded a post on February 2 about the animals. The post doesn't mention China and instead promotes US efforts to track down endangered giraffes in Africa using GPS technology. As their losses pile up, Chinese investors are losing confidence not only in the stock market but in the government’s ability to turn the economy around. With their frustrations piling up, Chinese investors recently found a way to vent that wouldn’t be quickly censored. They started leaving comments on an innocuous post about giraffe conservation on the official Weibo social media account of the U.S. Embassy in China. The giraffe post has been liked nearly one million times since Feb. 2, much more than what the embassy’s Weibo posts usually get. Many of the comments also offered admiration for the United States, as well as unhappiness about their own country. "The US government, please help Chinese stock investors," said another, per CNN on Monday. "Arise! All giraffes who refuse to be slaves," another wrote, referencing the People's Republic of China's national anthem, CNN reported. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/15/business/china-stocks-a-shares.html https://www.businessinsider.com/giraffes-might-be-next-banned-thing-on-china-social-media-2024-2#

Looking up this info in publicly filed documents is too much work

+1 One could argue that this Prem and team would be aware of this risk, probably even better than anyone else. Could there be safeguards in place that would avoid an outflow of $0.5B?

They also exited StoneCo, which is (was?) a Todd Combs position. Earlier last year, he also exited One97, which own s Paytm in India. Both have similarities with Alipay/WeChatPay.

https://www.fairfax.ca/contact-us/

Good one.

Thanks @Viking I assume you have included any update and/or future plans for TRS under #10.