fareastwarriors

mmmm i do love my lamp chops...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324904004578539443761846024.html?mod=WSJ_business_LeadStoryRotator#articleTabs%3Darticle A Rising Star Emerges at Berkshire

AIG 22.96% AMX 2.94% BAC 44.22% CWGL 0.13% GE 8.60% JPM 1.61% LUK 4.63% NTRI 4.00% PGX 3.09% SD 3.05% XCO 2.40% CASH 2.38%

Curious, do you work for a Berkshire company. How else would one own BRK-B in their company 401K if their company was not Berkshire? I'm not criticizing, want to know how (if) because I will go 100% BRK-B in my 401K and tell everyone I know :) Also some 401k plans allow for "brokerage window" and through that you can purchase basically any security.

+1

That's interesting he's back to managing money. I hope his letters get posted somehow.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-05/fannie-shares-seen-as-worthless-surging-in-disconnect.html .Fannie Shares Seen as Worthless Surging in Disconnect Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shares surged to five-year highs last week, giving them a combined market value of $48 billion, about the same as BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest money manager, and Starbucks Corp., the biggest coffee-shop operator. ...

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100783879 Zynga to Cut 18 Percent of Workforce, Lay Off 520 Employees; Shares Halted

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/05/31/buffetts-energy-gamble-in-las-vegas/ Buffett’s Energy Gamble in Las Vegas Warren Buffett needs luck for his Las Vegas gamble to pay off. Berkshire Hathaway’s $5.6 billion bet on NV Energy suggests the billionaire investor is coming up short on decent ways to deploy his cash. With electrical utility mergers offering meager synergies thanks to the pounds of flesh demanded by regulators, Berkshire will struggle even to cover its cost of capital.

Warren Buffett once said owning a utility was a way to stay rich rather than get rich. But he was being coy. Berkshire Hathaway's BRKB +1.60%$5.6 billion acquisition of Nevada utility NV Energy NVE +22.51%is a case in point. From one angle, it looks like Berkshire is sensibly putting some of its $44 billion cash pile into a steady, if hardly stellar, profit generator. There's a dose of opportunism here, too. Berkshire is offering $23.75 a share, a 23% premium to Wednesday's closing price, though less than 10% above NV Energy's peak for the year, reached only a month ago. Since then, NV Energy's stock, along with the wider sector, had fallen about 10%. Increased expectations that the Federal Reserve would soon taper off its bond purchases have made high-dividend-paying utilities stocks less attractive. NV Energy offers a hedge to this. Nevada suffered more than most in the bust: Las Vegas property prices dropped 62% peak to trough compared with 34% for the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price index overall. So Fed tightening should be largely determined by the pace of recovery in states like Nevada, which in turn should underpin electricity demand there, boosting NV Energy's prospects. In addition, Nevada's population growth rate is projected to be about 50% faster than the U.S. average over this decade. Meanwhile, NV Energy will likely overhaul its generation portfolio to reduce reliance on coal. Both provide structural profit growth. Berkshire's last big bet on a utility-like company, 2010's purchase of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad network, also came with less-obvious growth drivers. For one, Burlington Northern happened to be best-placed to transport the subsequent surge in Bakken oil production. Having averaged $2 billion to $2.5 billion in net profit from 2006 to 2009, it made $3.7 billion last year, up 84% since Berkshire bought it. That would sound like getting rich to most investors. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324682204578515270723135556.html?mod=WSJ_Heard_LeadStory

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-30/berkshire-s-abel-builds-buffett-energy-unit-with-purchase.html Berkshire’s Abel Builds Buffett Energy Unit With Purchase

NV Energy to Join MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company http://www.marketwatch.com/story/nv-energy-to-join-midamerican-energy-holdings-company-2013-05-29 Berkshire's Midamerican to Buy NV Energy for About $5.6 Billion

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000171775&play=1

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-29/tesla-pushes-electric-car-viability-with-rapid-charge-expansion.html Tesla Pushes Electric-Car Viability With Rapid Charging

Feeling "rich" is relative. If all your neighbors/friends are earning millions and you're doing half a mil, you wouldn't feel rich at hard but more likely feel like you're doing something wrong.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-24/berkshire-s-weschler-holds-almost-150-million-of-davita.html Ted Weschler has a personal holding in the dialysis provider valued at almost $150 million. Weschler has 1.19 million shares, or about 1.1 percent, of the Denver-based company, according to a regulatory filing yesterday. The holding was amassed before he joined Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire, according to the document.

So are there any publicly traded toll road/bridge operators trading at modest valuation right now?

Maybe I sold way too early. (a small allocation and a small profit)

No need my friend. Watch it free on Bloomberg.com http://www.bloomberg.com/video/72756316-michael-burry-profiled-bloomberg-risk-takers.html and here is the link to other "risk takers." It's a great show. I hope they have more new episodes soon. http://www.bloomberg.com/video/risk-takers/

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-22/tesla-repaying-loan-for-losers-gives-obama-green-win.html Tesla Repaying Loan for ‘Losers’ Gives Obama Green Win

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-05-03/matty-moroun-detroits-border-baron Read this a while ago. The bridge might be a great investment but I personally feel the owner is an a-hole. He is just protecting his business investment I understand but I think another bridge might be for the greater good in this case.

Doesn't always work out. Tonnes of these nail houses. Like this one - newly built for 600,000 yuan compensated 260,000 yuan when government decided to put a highway right through it. Classic picture though. http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/12/03/chinese-nail-house-finally-demolished-from-middle-of-highway-after-duck-farmer-agrees-41000-payoff/ I'm surprised they used all that effort to build around it. Just demolish and keep going. What is the owner going to do? Sue? funny.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-15/tesla-the-stuff-of-short-seller-heartburn#r=rss Tesla: The Stuff of Short-Seller Heartburn

Canadian products? Nope. There are more good choices for US investors, I think.

1) take anything the CBO says with a very large grain of salt. Their prediction record has been abysmal. 2) housing prices are increasing? Maybe the third time since 2009 will be the charm. Tell me who will buy them when the coming generation is graduating with the largest amounts of student debt and the lowest paying jobs we've seen in a decade? 3) trade balance is improving precisely because individuals can no longer afford many of the imported luxuries they used to buy IMO. Hardly bullish. 4) stock mutual fund flows have consistently been negative up until this year. Not sure if this will last through the next correction or not. 5) deflation takes years to culminate. Even Greece is just now experiencing it. Increased Federal debt has made up nearly every penny of consumer deleveraging. All that's hit the economy has been corporate deleveraging if I recall my numbers correctly. Realize that all interests have to do is go back to the 4-5% they were at before the crash and we're spending more than 30% of current government receipts servicing interest. You don't think that will be a drag on th future economy? Spending will have to be cut somewhere or revenues will have to rise or we can keep interest rates artificially low until we've inflated enough of the debt away where that's not a threat (not bullish for the economy either), 1) industrial production increasing isn't a substantial part of the economy anymore. I'd say this is more of a lagging indicator and is a small part of a much much larger economy. 2) debt service is only at multi-decade lows due to extremely low rates. What happens when rates rise with a recovey? 3) bank capital ratios mean nothing in light of the trillions of derivatives that they hold on their books with global counterparties who aren't as strong (European banks leveraged 30-to-1 who have gone double or nothing in buying European sovereign debt). 4) the level that housing construction is rising from is meaningless without the context of the overbuilding that occurred. There are still empty neighborhoods with vacant houses in places where the most overbuilding occurred. 5) housing may be the most affordable it's been, but only for those who can obtain credit. Not the easiest task nowadays. 6) non-farm jobs are being added but they're typically low wage, part time jobs that are replacing the full time jobs. Not bullish for real wages (which have been declining for a decade) which means its not all that bullish for the long-term economy. Granted, some jobs are better than no jobs. All of this isn't to say that I think Watsa will be right. It's simply saying arguments could very easily be made for the other side. He's been cautious in his approach to protect capital, not necessarily to maximize short term gains. Also, we're seeing unprecedented amounts of global stimulus that aren't sustainable. What happens when trillions in liquidity stops? The velocity of the dollar has continued to slow and has fallen very far from where it began in 2007. This is not the sign of a healthy economy, but is partly why we aren't seeing inflation from printing. I think Watsa made a very smart choice. He looked at the unprecedented rise in global debt over the last 30 years, asked himself what are the consequences if this goes South, and hedged accordingly. This was a way to protect his business. Could we have profited from it? Sure. Was that the intention? Unlikely. Secondly, you focused on all U.S. statistics but the majority of the deflationary derivatives were written on Europe. Europe does appear to be heading towards a deflationary end game and these may still pay off in the next 5 years. I have nothing to add but do I count as an upcoming generation? I graduated in 2011 and I bought a house in 2012 and now I am trying to buy another. ;D This is in the SF Bay area too so no 200k house for me. Plenty of people still have money. As for inflation or deflation, I have no clue!