UK

Maybe situation in the insurance market is still better than expected or could even further improve, depending on the expectations for (or results of) the upcoming hurricane season:)? El Nino, Gulf of Mexico is record hot etc.

I think that lower yielding bonds mostly are being held at insurance subsidiares and this the just the way most insurance companies operates (majority of the float will be invested in fixed income) and also is constrained by regulations. Meanwhile, at the company holding level, FFH is financed by debt and equity, which I guess is still much more expensive than the debt FFH just issued. So we can discuss how much of debt is to much or either FFH should use none at all, but I think, up to a certain / safe level, it just make sense for them to borrow at some 6 or so per cent long term in order to pursue investment opportunities at 10 ir 15 per cent returns and it seems that even FFHs own shares currently provides such opportunity. At least this is my understanding, maybe somebody can correct it, if it is wrong:)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-17/trump-security-adviser-urges-cutting-china-ties-resuming-nuclear-weapons-tests?embedded-ch

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-23/russia-central-banker-wanted-out-over-ukraine-but-putin-said-no?embedded-checkout=true

Great post!

https://steadycompounding.com/investing/brk-2024/ Re cash and market opportunities: We will have Apple as our largest investment, but I don’t mind at all, under current conditions, building the cash position. I think when I look at the alternative of what’s available, the equity markets, and I look at the composition of what’s going on in the world, we find it quite attractive. ... But if we had 10 billion, I wouldn’t basically see many more opportunities than we found now. It’s true that something like Japan, we could have done, if the company had had a 30 or 40 billion, and we’d make. We’d have had great returns on equity. But if I saw one of those now, I’d do it for Berkshire. It isn’t like I’ve got a hunger strike or something like that going on.

AAPL holdings reduced by ~13 per cent?

Thanks!

The Security I Like Best:). Nice!

Thank you very much!

Thanks!

BRKA @ ~15.5?

Is it fair to conclude that their duration of insurance liabilities decreased quite substantially in last six years, from this info bellow?

Thanks!

Thanks!

Nimble move:). Curious if you sold it all / for good or until somewhat lower valuation?

Plus: "When you put all of that together, we look at that operating income of $4 billion as a pretty conservative number."

"In the fourth quarter of ’23, the net earnings of $1.3 billion included pre-tax net expense of $781 million, and the net earnings in the full year of 2023 of $4.4 billion included a pre-tax net benefit of $210 million related to IFRS-17. The pre-tax amounts are reported within two financial statement lines in the consolidated statement of earnings." It seems that this item has reversed back quite a bit in q4?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampi I really liked this place and remember traveling to it via Bengaluru.

Second bullet: "The aggregate projected loss of the top three concentrated stocks (and their derivatives) will be compared to what would otherwise be the aggregate portfolio margin requirement, and the greater of the two will be the margin requirement for the portfolio." Does this mean that for an account, with a large position in FFH, margin requirement will be calculated as if it's top 3 positions were zero: at the extreme no margin, if an account has less than 3 positions, or a big reduction of it, by zeroing top 3 positions? Is this normal/common practice by IB?

Rotated some META into more FFH:)

Thanks for these snippets!

+1:)

Yes, but didn't they supposed to accumulate their position (short) before the publication? This seems plausible and maybe also would explain the quality of the work:)

So I was reading about this whole situation and allegations (which seems quite silly and bizarre, nothing to add, and many thanks everybody for discussion on it), but one thing, if true, I do not quite understand: "Block appeared on CNBC on before markets opened Thursday to reveal his short position. Data compiled by Bloomberg show that 0.7% of Fairfax’s float was shorted as of Thursday morning." "Fairfax currently has a short interest of 0.65% of free float worth C$203.81 million ($151.36 million), with short sellers having made over C$21 million in paper profits so far today, according to data from Ortex." How does this short selling operation even make any sense, If short interest is really so low?