fareastwarriors

Thanks for sharing. I never really thought about it in that way before. I was in the camp that entrepreneurs were usually risk-takers... It was insightful.

I just don't see a run for the exits on the brand. Women will continue to buy them because they are comfortable and they make them look good. I don't dispute the rich valuation Cardboard and I don't want to come across as defending them. I simply think its risky to short it. anecdotally, from my lady friends, LULU makes fundamantally good products, and they still swear by it. but it could be the case, that it is a good company but just a bad stock (at least at the current valuation)

Most of the ads I see on this site are based of my google profile activities (searching and gmail) ;) it is kind of scary... i look at the one thing on another page and bam the ads shown here are related, almost instantly...

Seems to be only useful if one is a subscriber. Google for the Title: Shale-Gas Boom Alone Won't Propel U.S. Industry If you are coming from Google WSJ will let you read the article. +1 works for Barrons, NYTimes, and (most) FT articles as well.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324392804578362781776519720.html?mod=pls_whats_news_us_business_f Shale-Gas Boom Alone Won't Propel U.S. Industry .

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-15/buffett-reaps-102-million-as-dimon-gets-dividend-raise.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-14/eagle-ford-shale-boom-fuels-madhouse-in-south-texas-counties.html Eagle Ford Shale Boom Fuels ‘Madhouse’ in South Texas Counties

If they're going to do buybacks, I'd rather it be at low prices than high prices. They can always do a bigger dividend later, but for now, buybacks seem like a better use of capital IMO, and if the absence of a higher dividend allows them to buy cheaper, I think it's a good thing. And if in the meantime they keep piling up capital on the balance sheet, it just means a bigger dividend and buyback next year, and a more solid balance sheet in the meantime, so it's not lost. I really hope BAC can do some substantial buybacks before something blows up again ala a JPM/Whale or something else... I would definitely like to see a lower share count.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-14/goldman-jpmorgan-ordered-to-fix-capital-planning-by-fed.html

BAC up nearly 3% aftermarket

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324532004578360362254897242.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection Natural-gas futures jumped 3.6% to settle at a 16-week high of $3.812 million British thermal units after government data showed inventories dropped by more than expected last week.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-13/oil-riding-rails-creates-jobs-as-buffett-puffs-chest-freight.html

Is it not because they issue bonds which are not guaranteed by BRK?

Howard Marks on Barrons http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052748704836204578340351329744008.html?mod=WSJ_BOL_mod#articleTabs%3Darticle or google "Guru to the Stars" Howard Marks has made a killing on distressed debt. So, what does he think of the bond bubble? It's in only the "fifth inning."

thanks! ;D

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-08/buffett-adds-eagle-capital-s-witmer-to-board-of-directors.html

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/03/07/feds-stress-tests-point-to-banks-improving-health/?ref=business Banks Pass Fed’s Tests; Critics Say It Was Easy

Lower your limit price or do a smaller all-or-nothing block...? And Just hang tight.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-03-07/federal-reserves-stress-testing-is-politics-not-math

.BREAKING NEWSFed Stress Tests Show 17 of 18 Banks Weathering Severe Recession Fed Stress Tests Show 17 of 18 Banks Weathering Severe Recession By Craig Torres & Joshua Zumbrun - Mar 7, 2013 1:30 PM PT ..Facebook Share LinkedIn Google +1 0 Comments Print QUEUEQ..The Federal Reserve said 17 of the 18 largest U.S. banks could withstand a deep recession and maintain capital above a regulatory minimum. Only Ally Financial Inc. (ALLY), the auto lender majority-owned by U.S. taxpayers, fell below a 5 percent Tier 1 common ratio, a regulatory minimum and measure of financial strength, according to data released today by the central bank in Washington. Morgan Stanley (MS) showed a minimum Tier 1 common ratio of 5.7 percent in the test, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) showed a ratio of 5.8 percent. “The stress tests are a tool to gauge the resiliency of the financial sector,” Fed Governor Daniel Tarullo said in a statement. “Significant increases in both the quality and quantity of bank capital during the past four years help ensure that banks can continue to lend to consumers and businesses, even in times of economic difficulty.” Since the 2008-2009 financial crisis, U.S. regulators have tried to minimize the odds of another taxpayer rescue, compelling U.S. banks to retain some earnings and reinforce their buffers against possible losses. With the economy in the fourth year of expansion, banks are benefitting from a housing market rebound, falling mortgage delinquencies and record-low short-term interest rates that boost earnings. Projected losses for the 18 banks under a scenario of deep recession and peak unemployment of 12.1 percent would total $462 billion over nine quarters, the Fed said. The aggregate Tier 1 common capital ratio would fall from an actual 11.1 percent in the third quarter of 2012 to 7.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014. The firms represent about 70 percent of the assets in the U.S. banking system. Not Forecasts The Fed said in a release that the “projections should not be interpreted as expected or likely outcomes for these firms, but rather as possible results under hypothetical, severely adverse conditions.” A Fed official said on a conference call with reporters that the severely adverse scenario represents a financial calamity of greater magnitude than any two-year period in the last 100 years except for the Great Depression. The biggest sources of losses are those “on the accrual loan portfolios and trading and counterparty losses from the global market shock,” the Fed said in its release. “Together, these two account for nearly 90 percent of the projected losses” for the 18 banks under the severely adverse scenario. “We are entering this year with a stronger capital base and we are further through the credit cycle,” so fewer loans are going bad, said R. Scott Siefers, a managing director at Sandler O’Neill & Partners in New York. “Even though banks are paying out more of their earnings than a couple of years ago, there has still been an increase in retained earnings,” which bolsters capital. Second Test The Fed on March 14 will release results of a second stress test that focuses on the lenders’ capital plans, assessing how dividend or share-buyback increases would affect them. The central bank that day will inform banks whether they can increase payouts. Today’s test results don’t forecast results for next week’s test, the Fed official said on the conference call, because the Dodd-Frank stress test doesn’t include forward-looking management decisions. The KBW Bank Index (KBX), which tracks shares of 24 large U.S. banks such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), State Street Corp. (STT) and Capital One Financial Corp. (COF), has risen 9.7 percent this year, compared with the 8.3 percent gain of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. Capital Doubled The Fed said in November the largest banking groups had nearly doubled their Tier 1 common capital to $803 billion in the second quarter of last year from $420 billion in the first quarter of 2009. The Fed derived the results today by following stress test guidelines in the Dodd-Frank Act, with bank dividends held constant and share buybacks or issuance not considered. The test is aimed at providing a standardized comparison of how bank capital fares during a deep recession. “There needs to be much more market discipline over capital requirements,” said Hal Scott, a Harvard Law School professor and director of the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, a research group of academics and industry leaders. “What the stress test disclosure does is give markets much more information than they have had about the possibility of banks dealing with situations on a comparative basis,” Scott said. Bloomberg LP Chief Executive Officer Daniel Doctoroff is a member of the committee. Severely Adverse The Fed’s March 14 Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review will be a more detailed test that incorporates forward- looking capital decisions of bank managers and requires financial institutions to meet specific criteria to pass. Both tests apply the same so-called severely adverse scenario, which subjects the loan and securities portfolios of banks with the shocks of a recession and soaring unemployment. The Tier 1 common ratio measures a bank’s core equity, made up of common shares and retained earnings, divided by its total assets adjusted for risk using global banking guidelines. The ratio grew especially important during the financial crisis as investors applied extreme mark-downs on bank portfolios to see whether firms had enough core equity to absorb additional losses or the potential for balance sheet growth. Test Variables The Fed for the test gave banks 26 variables -- ranging from interest rates to stock and home-price indexes -- and showed how they would change through a baseline, adverse and severely adverse scenario. Under the most adverse scenario, U.S. gross domestic product doesn’t grow or contracts for six consecutive quarters. Unemployment peaks at 12.1 percent, and real disposable income falls for five consecutive quarters. Stock prices tumble 52 percent, and house prices fall 21 percent. This year’s CCAR for the first time provides banks with an early look at how they performed under the analysis, giving them a chance to revise their capital plans. If their capital can withstand those conditions without pushing ratios below regulatory levels, and if their analysis is rigorous enough, the Fed signs off. The Fed conducted its first stress test in 2009, aimed at restoring confidence in banks by showing worst-case losses. In 2011, the central bank adopted a new approach to the tests that focused on banks’ plans for capital. “The point is to bar capital distributions from under- capitalized or risk-prone bank holding companies, which happened a lot, with full Federal Reserve Board approval, even as the crisis was clearly revving up,” said Karen Shaw Petrou, co- founder of Federal Financial Analytics, a Washington firm that specializes in financial regulation analysis. The 19 largest banks in 2007 paid out more than $43 billion in dividends as housing prices continued their fall, and an additional $39 billion in 2008 as the crisis began to accelerate, Patrick Parkinson, the former head of the Fed Board’s supervision and regulation division said in 2011. He is now a managing director at Promontory Financial Group LLC. To contact the reporters on this story: Craig Torres in Washington at ctorres3@bloomberg.net; Joshua Zumbrun in Washington at jzumbrun@bloomberg.net.

2007 -- FFH gains 2008 -- FFH gains (a lot of them because I was levered in the calls the day of the short selling ban) 2009 -- FFH gains, WFC gains (some), and ORH gains (account went up 50% the day of the buyout offer -- thanks to Cardboard) 2010 -- FUR gains, C gains, not sure I remember what else 2011 -- lost 35% in RothIRA 2012 -- Up 300% from BAC (it doesn't show in the numbers given because it excludes January 2012 which was epic month) Probably this is what Buffet and Munger mean to be very patient and swing hard at ideas with high conviction. I doubt if they would have done this concentrated and this levered but who cares,Some times luck favours the brave! Thess are unbelivable results! that's amazing. congrats.

the average American is pretty naive and ignorant. but somehow we make it work...

BNSF Railway Co., one of the country's biggest consumers of diesel fuel, plans this year to test using natural gas to power its locomotives instead. If successful, the experiment could weaken oil's dominance as a transportation fuel and provide a new outlet for the glut of cheap natural gas in North America. The surplus, spurred by new technologies that unlock the fuel from underground rock formations, has sent natural-gas prices plummeting. That has prompted industries from electric utilities to tugboat operators to switch to gas. If freight rail joins the parade, it would usher in one of the most sweeping changes to the railroad industry in decades. "This could be a transformational event for our railroad," BNSF Chief Executive Matt Rose said of the plan, which hasn't been publicly announced. Shifting to natural gas would "rank right up there" with the industry's historic transition away from steam engines last century, he said. Freight railroads overwhelmingly are powered by diesel fuel refined from crude oil. BNSF, the largest railroad in the U.S., estimates it is the second-biggest user of diesel in the country, after the U.S. Navy. A potential shift to gas faces many hurdles, however, including getting approval from federal regulators on fuel-tank safety. Introducing gas also will require different fuel depots, special tanker cars to carry the fuel and training for depot workers. That won't come cheaply. Just retrofitting a diesel locomotive and adding the tanker car could add 50% to a locomotive's roughly $2 million price tag, though that increase would diminish as economies of scale take hold. Mr. Rose said his company nevertheless would quickly move to a "retrofit of existing road locomotives" if the pilot locomotives prove reliable. The pilot trains are expected to get rolling this fall in the hopes retrofitting could begin about a year later. BNSF, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., BRKB +0.70% considered using gas-powered locomotives in the late 1980s, but shelved the plans when natural-gas prices rose. This time may well be different. A gallon of diesel fuel cost an average of $3.97 last year, according to federal statistics. The equivalent amount of energy in natural gas cost 48 cents at industrial prices. That gap doesn't accurately reflect the potential savings since the railroad will have to pay to cool natural gas into a dense, energy-packed liquid. BNSF also faces sizable upfront costs, which it declined to disclose, to retrofit even a portion of its roughly 6,900 existing locomotives. Still, experts believe that natural gas has the potential to be significantly less expensive than diesel for years to come. BNSF is working with manufacturers to develop a locomotive that can run on diesel and gas, which Mr. Rose said could lower fuel costs and help meet federal air-pollution standards that take effect in two years. The new locomotives, which use liquefied natural gas, are being developed by units of General Electric Co. GE +1.38% and Caterpillar Inc. CAT +0.51% Mr. Rose said preliminary tests indicated that LNG-powered trains could go farther before refueling than diesel trains and have comparable towing power. The BNSF move is the latest step by companies and industries to use more natural gas, a fuel that is efficient, domestically produced and cleaner than alternatives. There growing supply of natural gas in North America has made it significantly less expensive than crude oil for each unit of energy delivered. Electric utilities, which years ago essentially abandoned burning oil in favor of coal, have started shifting to gas-fired power plants. Chemical, steel and fertilizer makers are planning new facilities in the U.S. to take advantage of low gas prices. Companies and government agencies increasingly are looking at using gas to power fleet vehicles, such as garbage trucks. And gas is making inroads in marine vessels. Wärtsilä WRT1V.HE +1.24% Oyj last year signed contracts to send China the world's first tugboats operating on diesel-LNG engines. Last December the Finnish company was selected to provide a similar engine for a ferry across the St. Lawrence River in Quebec. Like municipal bus fleets, which have converted to engines running on compressed natural gas in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities, trains are easier to fuel than other modes of transportation because they repeatedly travel on fixed routes. That makes it less cumbersome to build enough fueling depots. Compressed natural gas is similar to LNG, but requires a different fuel tank and engine. Natural gas faces higher obstacles to penetrate the nation's biggest diesel-fuel market: long-distance trucks. They are by far the largest consumers of diesel in the U.S. and there has been considerable interest in converting them to run on natural gas. But truck routes can vary and finding enough refueling stations has been a problem. Royal Dutch Shell RDSB.LN +0.96% PLC on Monday said it was completing plans to produce liquefied natural gas in Louisiana and Ontario and supply it to as many as 200 truck stops in the U.S., adding to a small, but growing, network of natural-gas fueling stations. A Shell executive said he believed more LNG production facilities will be built in North America as demand grows Some experts say switching railroads to natural gas could take time. Canadian National Railway Co. CNR.T -1.33% in September retrofitted two locomotives to run on a mixture of 90% LNG and 10% diesel. A spokesman for the company, the largest railroad in Canada, said there would be "mechanical and fuel logistics challenges" with widespread conversion and that it was too early to determine if the pilot program was successful. The dual-fuel technology "is not a slam dunk," said Lorenzo Simonelli, the president of GE's transportation business. But "we are working with BNSF as well as other [large railroads] to provide them the pilots and then start working towards a full production of locomotives and retrofits." Change historically has come slowly to the railroad industry. But there are compelling reasons for railroads to ponder the switch, including new Environmental Protection Agency air-pollution standards for railroads that will likely require railroads to add expensive emissions-control equipment to new diesel locomotives in 2015. "The overriding incentive is the low price of the fuel," said Raj Sekar, manager of engines and emissions research at Argonne National Laboratory. He said it would likely take at least five years for gas-powered locomotives to be a significance presence on the rails. While railroads consume only 6% of diesel burned in the U.S., according to the federal government, some experts believe BNSF's decision to try using gas could have a large psychological impact on energy markets. "This is the kind of change that gets people thinking," said Kevin Book, an energy-industry consultant. "It will answer the question that everyone is wondering: Is there= a future for LNG transportation for freight hauling?" Berkshire's BNSF Railway to Test Switch to Natural Gas http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324539404578342540494619344.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection

must be nice

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-04/weschler-to-leave-wsfs-board-as-duties-expand-with-berkshire.html Ted Weschler is stepping down from the board of WSFS Financial Corp. (WSFS) as he takes on a larger role helping Warren Buffett manage funds at Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A) Weschler, 51, isn’t running for re-election at the bank’s 2013 annual meeting, according to a regulatory filing today from Wilmington, Delaware-based WSFS. Buffett has been expanding the amount of funds overseen by Weschler and Todd Combs, 42, former hedge fund managers who joined Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire in the past three years. Each will oversee about $6 billion by the end of this month, more twice as much as in May, Buffett, 82, told CNBC today. The investment managers “have proved to be smart, models of integrity, helpful to Berkshire in many ways beyond portfolio management,” Buffett said in a March 1 letter to shareholders. Weschler was a director of the bank from 1992 to 2007 and rejoined in 2009, according to a regulatory filing from the company. His hedge fund invested in the bank before he joined Buffett at Berkshire. Court records show Weschler was involved in Berkshire’s bid for a loan portfolio from bankrupt lender Residential Capital LLC last year. He also helped Buffett on a deal to buy most of Media General Inc.’s newspapers for about $140 million in June.