LC

Pretty cool - I liked reading the "about" page which is really his ultimate takeaways after the project.

Picked up some VRE $15 calls for a buck, and also some VRE around 14.XX

Been an ugh year. Missed the energy trade late 2021 and got into it only in early 2022, and held my nose with MSFT which has been a goober drag on the portfolio. Been trading pretty successfully which has mitigated a good amount of damage, overall down ~3.5% YTD which I'll take.

So if earnings suck, the market will drop If earnings are good, the fed will jack up rates…and the market will drop. am I getting this right?

Empress gin is good- try monkey 47 which is really great. espresso martinis over here!

Assume Apple doesn't hold up - anyone thinking about the effects to Berkshire?

Do you own anything currently at super high valuations (let's call it 35+ times your estimate of normalized earnings)? I at really bad at selling - I would have been the guy selling Gallagher at $80/sh to my future disappointment - so I am curious how you think about near-term "overvaluation" when it comes to the sell decision. Or, do you buy based on valuation and sell based on business viability (e.g. only selling once the underlying business has been permanently compromised)?

I don't buy (yet, at least) the death of globalization. Global politics has had plenty of setbacks over the past 30 years. But I think underlying demographics are too strong to ignore. Billions of people have had a taste of a higher standard of living, and that genie is hard to put back in the bottle. I think the only way governments can meet this desire is by playing nice together.

Models and bottles as they say! And to answer your question, I would remove everything from my role except building the actual model. Right now I have to jump thru so much red tape to get my team access to data, to explain to other parties how the model is built/functions, where the model breaks down, etc. I can understand why it’s important but to me it’s just not that interesting. But it’s the price I pay to have access to data and technology I wouldn’t otherwise have (even if I had 100mm in the bank)

I would, but may change some of the environment. I like building statistical models and seeing how well they perform. I’d do that (or at least be thinking about it) whether I’m being paid or not. I could do without having all the red-tape surrounding the execution of the models, though.

Do you have a long term view of pricing? I fear prices won't stay elevated as (either or both) new capacity comes online and China resumes exporting.

damn cubs, 68? Get it buddy! Starting strength is great. Resistance training is one of the best things u can do as you age. the best advice my folks ever gave me was health = wealth. Both in terms of quality of life, and the longer you live, the longer your $$ compounds!

It’s really wild to think that no Chinese citizens have the intellectual chops to develop and manufacture these chips. I mean, is this really true? After how much the Chinese IP theft storyline has been pushed the past 10+ years? I have no first or even secondhand knowledge here so curious if anyone on the board can provide some insight.

Aside from spending time with friends and family: skiing in the winter, hiking/mtn biking/fishing in the summer. And evenings with a good book and glass of liquor.

No clue Greg but I was selling 255 calls all week

Damn, I remember sitting with my old man listening to Rukeyser back as a kid. Would be great if there was a similar (level-headed) program today.

How much accounting do you enjoy? I buy an asset in 1950 for $50. I depreciate it over 70 years down to Zero. BV = 0 Today that asset earns $10/year. FV = Greater-Than-0 The See's Candy story. That's generally the jist of it. Unless you are marking you assets to market (which may or may not be appropriate - depends on the asset), your BV will be a historical figure and not a current one. This is why you see one-time write offs for good will and such, and there is some loosey-goosey playing around that management can do. Remember when Berkshire wrote down Heinz's book value? It took them a few years to "determine the asset was impaired". Meanwhile the market knew it after a few months. How accurate BV is depends on a lot of things, including the capital-intensity of the business, accounting laws, and management's incentives.

Yes, no, maybe? BV is low if you think FV is higher. How do you estimate FV? Well if you are using BV, then you're just running in circled The real question is what is the best method to determine fair value. Personally I think BV is antiquated and mostly useless and I don't understand why analysts use it to estimate FV for Berkshire and such.

Just wondering what parallels anyone sees between this war and America’s 20? Year war in the Middle East (Afghanistan, Iraq). iirc the US military had a lot of trouble early on in Afghanistan, but look how long troops stayed there…

Yeah I took another, far bigger bite @ Atco when it was ~14 a few...days ago? Sold it all today slightly over 15.

5-10 big positions. the most important thing is depth of understanding, not breadth. you can make berkshire your entire portfolio and make more money trading the stock. look at boilermaker. dude earns the ROI of the stock and juices it with options trades. then i have a bunch of little things to keep my trigger fingers at bay. just as fun to trade around ATCO's merger arb. or buy a lot or two of some rinky-dink stock that looks interesting. but i don't do a deep dive on them. and they are all for sale, any day. there's a lot of good businesses out there and it's a fools errand to try to find them all. ash the pokemon trainer didn't catch em all but still became a pokemon master.

probably makes sense given a lot of anti-western themes have emerged from China in the last few years, versus negligible of the same from India. How are folks looking to profit from it? I don’t know anything about the Indian corporate market, Fairfax India is the only thing I have followed.

It is bipartisan. Elected officials from both parties want to trade on inside info.

Easy to say the Fed will keep raising by looking at the headlines. And I don't think the Fed cares about credibility (do they really care what the peons think?). In fact I think they're actually reasonable at their jobs, or at least at what they think their jobs are. IMO they will raise until inflation recedes and then stop and reassess. It's working to an extent. A friendly low-income housing developer here in Colorado is planning to halt all new projects citing rising rates. They can't make it work. They are also a bit unsophisticated and don't bother hedging rates but that's another story. So rising rates are definitely going to slow economic activity, but they may be counterproductive to other societal goals (affordable housing).

Not sure yet. The namesakes (BRK & FFH) both look cheap. But I have hedges and some aggressive names already so I may hold cash or play some merger arb (ATCO, looking at you) until the next rate hike or two and see if Powell conquers his inflation nemesis. Also looking at property on vacation areas - stuff that I want to use myself and that is easy to Airbnb or rent weekly/monthly for when I am not there.