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500 k to 290 Billion. Not at all bad, given two world wars, depressions, etc about 14%. Do you know what the inflation adjusted original stake was worth? The dollar has gone down by a factor of 22 or so, i.e. a dollar in 1916 bought the equivalent of $22 today, at least in potato chips not microchips.

Any suggestions as to why Zargon has traded down again?

John Malone on further consolidations in the industry. Here is the full interview:http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000567154 Here is a 'juicy tidbit' full interview:http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000568582 If this has already been posted, let me know and I will remove.

Indeed!! On the business side, there are idiots, as in the moderately to severe incompetents (perhaps the best we can hope for with Trump!) and then there are the stark raving mad variety: you can't, shall I say, publicly pee into the chocolate vats at Sees or Hershey or buy AOL at the top without severely damaging the company. (If See's were a stand alone company.) So with a mild incompetent in mind: Google (enough momentum and intelligence both real and artificial in the ranks below) Berkshire (enough momentum and integrity throughout) possibly Disney, the media landscape is changing a great deal though Obviously, then big companies with stable cashflows and some kind of moat around a castle. Great question by the way.

So what is the strategy guys. Stay liquid and wait for the trade war??

Remember all those 'pundits' who said that Buffett had lost it buying a railroad. hmm ;)

Let me help you with this. Electing an openly racist and sexist president matters. It changes the culture of the nation. That might not impact white males, but it can make a real difference in the day-to-day life of minorities and women. This twitter feed has a few (well, fifty), examples. To me, this is very worrisome. Thank you. I have been trying to restrain myself from twitter and commenting here or anywhere online, only muttering to my wife and my kids. I will only add that I will have lived through three of the worst presidents (Nixon, BushII, and the Trumpster) that the US has ever had and that if Trump is only a mild disaster, but does not imperil the constitution, despite his loose talk and doesn't blowup NATO, but say only has a "mild" trade war with _____(fill in the blank), he won't be the worst--Bush's disaster in the Middle East would outrank him.

I think that the studies indicate that EV/EBIT does better than P/E by capturing indebtedness.

Here is a straight (not covert satire) story on why value investing does not work in India. The title is particularly bad, "Why Warren Buffetts value investing model doesn't work." As if he ever bought cigar butts that were highly leveraged! It sort of sums up the stupidity of the article. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/stocks/news/why-warren-buffetts-value-investing-model-doesnt-work-in-indian-market/articleshow/55201873.cms Basically, the idea is that low P/E companies in India are dreck, these companies with low P/E have high debt, don't work out, what with low returns on equity. (Honestly, why discriminate aren't most overleveraged companies worldwide bad?) The article is for your amusement. It has some other "easter eggs" of stupidity.

For those who don't know, base rate can be thought of as the underling percentages, growth, prospects, or success rate of something that closely matches the situation you are looking at. For example, how often the team with the best slugging percentage and ERA won the World Series. (The reference class is not that the neither the Cubs nor the Indians have won the series in over 65 years!)

Jamie Dimon interview on youtube, Sept. 2016

Mauboussin has written a (small) book on base rates. It's very good and free. It describes the what, why and how of using base rates to inform your decision making in the first 26 pages or so. Then he looks at various base rates of various metrics such as growth, return on investments, and price increases etc. As Kahneman says, remember the outside view, using base rates really help. http://csinvesting.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/The-Base-Rate-View-by-Mauboussin.pdf

While personally elusive, i.e. hard to get an interview, I wouldn't say that Bevelin is elusive, with what, 4 published books. ;) Shane, top notch interview. Thanks!!

Check out two of the better 'advisors' on internet businesses, like Tim Ferriss and Ramit Sethi. With Sethi, personally, I would only look at his free content and not buy his product. By the way he is relentlessly promotional, but my estimate is that he also gives away 20 to 50% content. On Ferriss, his book 4 Hour Work Week is somewhat self congratulatory, as is his website, but it still is quite useful. Unless you can get a really high price for your time, sell a product.

This might be oversimplistic. There have been times in history when investors have favored dissolution and others where they have favored consolidation. Owing to the cheapness of borrowing I tend to think the present categorizes more as the latter (similar to the conglomerate boom but with nonidentical reasons). The general principles of value should hold in any market environment, but more specialized strategies like "buy spinoffs" may not always be advisable. I can say personally that many of the spinoffs I have looked at have a ton of debt, so this strategy would lead you to a rather leveraged portfolio. I believe that is true of some of the Liberties. Well, first of all I think you are missing Jurgis's well documented irony. Secondly, Munger would never say blindly buy anything. He is saying other great investors' ideas, cannibals, or spinoffs are places to look. I am pretty sure we are agreed on that! I think that the good spinoffs (for investors) can constitute companies where there are forced sellers and no natural buyers, to paraphrase Klarman's points about spinoffs. (Now it may be that 'index' of spinoffs is a better than average, viz. the Guggenheim index, but that is not Munger's idea, although I think that the S&P has done better lately, at least versus Guggenheim.)

Motley Fool did an interview with Monish Pabrai three and a half years ago. He mentioned advice from Charlie Munger, some of which was news to me.. He quotes Charlie as saying [*]Look at what other great investors are doing. (ok I knew that) [*]Look at so-called cannibals--companies that are buying a tremendous amount of their own stock--I knew that too [*]Look at spin-off, although a fertile area, I had no idea that Munger would suggest this. (thanks to spinoffmonitor for this) Here is the direct quote from the article:

Cardboard, You might be interested to read about the evolution of the Republican and Democratic Parties over US history. At one time the Democrats were proponents of "small govt" and "conservative values" like keeping slavery. The ideologies and values of the parties have switched a couple times over the 150 years since Lincoln. I'm no expert on history or politics, but I think making comparisons between Republican party of Abe Lincoln's era and Republican party of today seems completely misguided and irrelevant. Agreed. One should also remember what Munger says about extreme ideology turning your brain into cabbage. The Obama haters are already there and comparing the US media landscape with Nazi Germany's propagandist? coleslaw anyone? (Re: our president, there is a condition aptly called Obama derangement syndrome. Now it seems to be morphing into Clinton derangement syndrome, see today's, Friday, 9/30 in the Wall Street Journal from Rabinowitz http://www.wsj.com/articles/hillary-hatred-derangement-syndrome-1475192121) The idea that Trump is anything but the shallow, grubby, vainglorious idiot he is, well pass the cabbage salad. He would be the most unstable and unfit president in history. (To quote the Wall Street Journal's Rabinowitz) And, as to him running Berkshire, that is as comical to non-shareholders, as a Trump presidency would be tragic, but the questions sure got a lot of posts. (Also, many suggest that he is not all that rich and that a simple index fund would have beaten his returns, with the added benefit of no bankruptcies and, ahem, not being in bed with him. )

The punchcard is a great mental tool. What it does is make you only things that scream out at you. Buffett did not follow it, not that any of us are even a meager approximation of the great one. (But note that Graham-Newman made a majority of their money from Geico! which implies that even the master's teacher, Graham, might have profitably used the punchcard.)

I think it is really interesting at how complacent the posters on this topic are. That in part really worries me. (But only in so far as the possibility of Trump winning, which happily is still less than 50%.) The impression that I get is that, ho-hum, it doesn't matter financially who gets in. I think that Trump has the potential to really be a phase shift, in a really bad way. You can bet that Clinton would neither ignite a trade war, threaten to nuke N.Korea, repudiate Nato or try to renege on US debt, Trump well, I hope not, but I would not make that bet.

Last year's BH Symposium (Nov. 2015) is finally posted on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7vwZMcburK8pq0gQlh-xsg There are 2 panels with 5 segments each just about an hour long. Enjoy.

Assuming this is a serious question...... First of all you need to figure out how confident you are in your estimate of Trump winning the election. Then you need to figure out the odds of various market scenarios in a Trump presidency. Next you need to compare your estimates to what is already priced in to the market. Once you have all that figured out then you can trade accordingly. Good luck. It is a very serious question; although some of the answers are well... Anyway I have put in my estimates of the probabilities as well in my original post. I do not think that the market has priced any probability of him winning in. (Brexit anyone?) The vix would be much higher. Now the question is would he be true to his word and basically ignite a trade war? That is the real unknown. What is known is that he is a fool and he could get many, many things, very, very wrong. I could see a huge (note the word) spike in gold, but that would only be a 'sentiment' indicator, something that is not for me, unless there were a great gold company to buy (is there such a thing??? ;) ) So other than having cash on hand, I don't really have any coherent way to hedge the portfolio.

Although I am absolutely horrified by the prospect of a Trump Presidency, I have to at least figure out how to position myself for the 20 to 40% chance that he will win. Other than too much whiskey, how would you gear up for getting Trumped. Basically, I think that there is a 20% chance of him winning and a 70% chance of markets really gyrating, and in 2017 real risk (10 to 60%) of a 2008 level crack-up, with horrible trade wars possible. My thinking is to have a higher than usual amount of cash, plus a very small amount in a volatility instrument. (Personally, I'm hoping that we have seen his highwater mark, but...)

So, I'm trying to decide between Berkshire and Fairfax annual meetings next year. The pro for going to Berkshire is that Charlie and Warren aren't getting any younger (and I have not been yet.) The con is that there are just too many people and it's televised anyway. The pro for Fairfax is that it is a smaller crowd, with more opportunity for getting to know people.

I'm not sure, ahem, that his powder was dry. (sorry, could not resist.) But there is another point, metaphorically speaking. You do need to plan for opportunities, but you have to avail yourself of what presents itself. This is not to say that you buy to buy, but if the opportunity "jumps out at you" as Buffett has said, you can not 'sit on your hands'.

Understanding the business model is absolutely critical for valuation. A 10 PE or EV/EBIT is means different things to a See's type company (good margins, low cap requirements, seasonal, limited growth prospects) versus a Google/Alphabet circa 2000 (good margins, ample investment opportunity, great growth requiring capital) versus GM or a mining company. All this is about is increasing your circle of competence. Reading AR without understanding, including understanding the business model is better than useless, but not very productive. If you are in business or work in a business, look at that business first. Read the trade magazines. Do a one page Michael Porter analysis of the company or industry. Look at business school case studies of the industry. Once you have the background, call people in the industry, competitors and suppliers. Ask them what are the key drivers in the industry, then see if you can figure out what financial data is most relevant. Don't be discouraged you have an exciting lifetime of learning ahead. Personally, I do not read broker reports, but once you have done the above, one question you can ask industry participants is who is the best Wall Street analyst. (Remember they may only mention those who have looked at their company favorably.) With that info, look at any relevant industry report, with the second caveat that analysts create business for investment bankers and their orientation is short term. By the way, looking at old reports and predictions is humbling and informative, for many, if not all businesses, (this despite the furious technological changes).