UK

Europe is very different, country by country, also if you buy particullar company, you look mainly at the company, not at the country (well if it is not some uninvestable place) or region. But perhaps you should somewhat consider all regionwide issues while investing in the broad ETF (like Stoxx 600) or some regulated sectors or financial institutions. E.g. major French bank and major US bank perhaps is different, at least in my view, but business such as LVMH? I personally am somewhat interested in Europe and its macro/future trajectory because as a EUR based person, but investing mostly in North America or globally, I have very large and permanent currency missmatch, more so, if I at times use some leverage, which is cheaper in EUR, or was otherwise obtain in EUR in the first place. For all this I have stopped worrying about the longer term demise of the USD long ago (the hardest period was just after GFC, perhaps just until EUR debt crisis, a few years later), especially on relative basis, but still yearly fluctuations of EUR/USD up to some 10 percent are sometimes irritating..but that is what I have to live with. Also, and this is somewhat more of a wishfull thinking, but in my position I naturally would not mind at all EUR maybe taking path of JPY in the longer term, hence my bias/interest for future of Europe, its macro and EUR. Confessions of a eurofunded capital junkie:))

I believe it will be the case also. Insurance is just too complex and dealing with several contacts every time you need something is very inconvienent and time consuming. They also are better experts for the details. All brokers have to do to provide the value is to serve their clients a tad better than insurers themselves, which in my expierence is not a very hard thing to do. In my mind the main problem for the aspiring owners of brokerage companies is how to buy them more cheaply though:)

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-09-11/draghi-s-love-letter-to-eu-industrial-strategy-risks-heartbreak?srnd=homepage-europe Introducing industrial strategy is difficult enough in nation-states with long traditions of collective action and popular consent. Draghi’s plans face more formidable problems. The EU decision-making process is glacial, subject to innumerable veto points and dominated by a bureaucratic class that lives in a world as different from the quicksilver world of the internet economy as it is possible to be. The EU is still divided between an EU quasi-government, which pushes for ever more centralization, and national governments that pay the bills, and the politics in both realms is increasingly polarized. Just three hours after Draghi’s speech unveiling the report, Germany’s Finance Minister Christian Lindner declared that Germany “will not agree” to one of Draghi’s central ideas, joint borrowing. That position reflects Germany’s abiding opposition to writing out a blank check to more indebted European governments. The danger is that Draghi’s central idea (collective investment) will be frustrated by Germany, even as his subordinate ideas become twisted into an excuse for protecting incumbents (particularly the car industry), subsidizing struggling companies and fencing out superior rivals. Draghi’s shiny new industrial strategy might look attractive to a Europe fearful of its fast-deteriorating competitive position relative to China and the US. But the Old Continent is more likely to end up with something different: a hodgepodge of old industrial strategies, some national, some Europe-wide, all of them distorted by vested interests, propping up Europe’s fading economies rather than producing the next Apples or Googles.

This is a great post, thank you!

Viking, thank you very much for your elaborate response. It answers my question more than enough and it also resonates with me personally very well, perhaps maybe except for the part of being 100 percent in cash or one position, but also never say never:) And btw, despite me being a very stubborn and slow learner, it was mostly yours (and also Parsad's and other members) material and posts, that finally had awakened me to the FFH opportunity in 2022 in the first place! And I has followed and owned FFH on/off (but never as very large position) since 2012, the year I had also joined this board:) I usually cape my largest positions at 20-25 percent and I usually own 4-6, so that was also a start with FFH initially in 2022, but later, mostly after selling some of the M7 positions in 2023, I kept adding to FFH right until this MW situation and basically made this into 2x limit position in 2023. I also want to disclaim, that this might change tomorrow etc, but as I see situation today, I think for me this will oscillate between 30 and 40 percent for a while. I think I will cape my largest positions somewhere in the 20-30 range in the future more strictly though, or depending on the circumstances (e.g. perhaps I would like to be able to have total attention for my portfolio, if being concentrated more than this, while this could change in the future). Thanks again and looking forward for your future input on FFH appreciatively!

I am glad I can report that my gut is very comfortable with FFH since I made it into a big position in second half of 2022 and sometimes it is almost ahead of itself (I added to FFH during MW attack without even finishing reading all the report:)). But I still feel and think there has to be a limit somewhere and today I see it at ~40 percent (was above this in the early Summer, currently a tad below). What would be your ideas about this?

It is very nice to see these continuing buybacks YTD. Makes sense and also supports/confirms a lot of things too: 1. Seems Prem really does walk his Singletone talk 2. They still think stock is of good value (to which I wholeheartedly agree, despite the sometimes scary looking stock price chart) 3. This is a 'safety valve' against the soft market/nothing to do market/etc in slow action and kind of preview of the possible future or not so pretty times in the market. I think at this valuation levels shareholders of FFH still have not much to fear about and I continue to be very exited about the situation:)

It was a while ago, so maybe not true anymore, but while researching TEVA and KRKA some 10 years ago, I think I came to understanding, that 'pirated medicine' is basically what lots of emerging countries (some with a huge populations) were allowing and doing on an industrial scale. Something like like: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/patent-wars-india-takes-on-big-pharma.

I am sure Dinar has his own ideas, but: https://www.amazon.com/Putins-People-Took-Back-Russia/dp/0374238715 https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2020/12/03/our-books-of-the-year Many books have tried to explain the rise and ruthlessness of Vladimir Putin; this one is the closest yet to a definitive account. It draws on extensive interviews and archival sleuthing to tell a vivid story of cynicism and violence. On this view, a massive concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few is used to quash dissent and project force abroad. This one I think also is good: https://www.amazon.com/Man-Without-Face-Unlikely-Vladimir/dp/1594486514/

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-09-09/ai-started-as-a-dream-to-save-humanity-then-big-tech-took-over?srnd=homepage-europe

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-09/china-s-deflationary-spiral-is-now-entering-dangerous-new-stage?srnd=homepage-europe

And even central planning is very hard to implement:)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-09/esg-rules-draw-backlash-from-unilever-totalenergies-and-other-eu-businesses?srnd=homepage-europe

Calsberg's Baltika (Russian subsidiary) was once one of their best and most profitable division accounting for some 40 percent of total EBIT (>10 years ago). And now it is zero, but this was already of lesser importance for them lately. IIRC they still own Slavutych, their Ukrainian subsidiary, though. Btw today this preparedness material was also announced here. At first I thought this maybe happened because of the upcoming elections:), but it seems this is some kind of EU wide mater:)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-09/draghi-says-eu-in-danger-without-massive-spending-and-joint-debt?srnd=homepage-europe

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/romania-searching-possible-drone-fragments-after-russian-attack-ukraine-2024-09-08/ https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/drone-sightings-prompt-temporary-air-traffic-halt-stockholm-arlanda-airport-2024-09-09/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-denies-reports-missile-transfer-russia-2024-09-09/ Same direction.

Some of the lines sound like almost a disapointment that this season may be major event free:)

https://davisfunds.com/funds/nyventure-fund/pm-review Pessimism Never Goes Out of Fashion Recently our friend and author Shane Parrish shared a striking quote that seems to capture the current mood of our country: “It is a gloomy moment in the history of our country. Not in the lifetime of most men has there been so much grave and deep apprehension; never has the future seemed so incalculable as at this time. The domestic economic situation is in chaos…Prices are so high as to be utterly impossible. The political cauldron seethes and bubbles with uncertainly. Russia hangs, as usual, like a cloud, dark and silent, upon the horizon. It is a solemn moment. Of our troubles, no man can see the end.” What makes this description so striking is that it was written in Harper’s Weekly in 1857. Pessimism, fear and uncertainty are nothing new. And yet we live far better lives today than ever before. For long-term investors, it has always been a mistake to bet against humanity in general and the United States in particular. While it is true that we currently face significant challenges, it is equally true that we are living through a period of enormous global progress. Technology and innovation have contributed enormously to human progress, and with breakthroughs like GenAI, genomics and alternative energy (including compact nuclear reactors) still in their infancy, we see no reason to believe that the record of the last 2,000 years should not continue. At a time when many feel the world has been getting worse, the data tells a different story (see Figures 7 and 8).

Very good post! Nothing to add:)

For what it is worth, I like him doing a reasonably good and detailed estimate of BRK earnings power (or look throught earnings), which you can find every year by searching this 100+ pages document (searh for 'Net Income Basis'). You can then adjust it if you wish and use for PE calculation, instead of this nonsensical gaap only PE, used by some. It seems it is ~17x for BRK vs ~23 for the market as of today on a F24 basis.

Unbelievable, but perhaps still some time to go.

Thanks for sharing!

Thanks!

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-09-05/china-s-banks-build-100-billion-short-on-us-dollar-to-prop-up-yuan-cny-usd?srnd=homepage-europe

I just hope FFH will have opportunity to participate in the next Kestenbaum's venture:)