cubsfan

Here you go: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180717006046/en/ Under the amendment adopted by the Board of Directors, share repurchases can be made at any time that both Warren Buffett, Berkshire’s Chairman and CEO, and Charlie Munger, a Berkshire Vice Chairman, believe that the repurchase price is below Berkshire’s intrinsic value, conservatively determined.

Viking - that's a really great little website - thanks for posting.

Wow - great material - you guys are awesome.

The best looking bank in the UK is Metro Bank. It's growing like crazy in a no growth market. There are structural reasons for this - but you need to dig into it to understand way. The UK banking market is a cartel, run for the banks, not for the population. Metro is cleaning up, and will continue to clean up for quite some time. IMO

It's a fabulous book.

I own one UK bank in size - Metro Bank - which I started buying 6 months ago, it's now a large position for me. In my top 5 anyway. It's a growth story, as deposits have grown at an enormous rate since 2010. My view, MTRO has multi bagger potential. COB is Vernon Hill - same CEO who grew New Jersey based Commerce Bank from 1 branch to 455 branches before selling to TD Bank for $8.5B in 2007. It's a simple, but hard to execute growth model that can go a long way due to Metro's ability to gather deposits rapidly.

Just to add a couple of recent investing books that I found very useful: -- Bank Investor's Handbook - by one of our members. An excellent, short and sweet book. I've made plenty investing in banks, but this book is a gem and will make you a better bank investor. -- Manlobbi's Decent - by Julian Cochran. An under-the-radar investment book. If you are a patient, long-term investor (or want to be) - this is a great book. It deals with a methodology to identify long term durability (moat) of investments. I found this book tremendously insightful. At the end, there is a detailed case study of Brookfield Asset Management analyzed using the Manlobbi Method. The book is written in an unusual style, which takes a chapter or two to get used to - but, for me, made it very entertaining. I loved this book. -- Invest Like A Guru - by Charlie Tian. Those that use GuruFocus (I do) - know Charlie and his detailed site. I was QUITE surprised when he released this book - and I think he hit the ball out of the park - on the various Value Investing strategies/methods and implementations. Another great book that helped me refine my own methodology.

Thanks. I would have sworn these didn't come up when I searched investing books...Anyway, thanks for pointing these out. Pleasure Saleen - those threads could use some reviving.

http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/which-5-investing-books-have-been-the-most-influential-to-you/msg276102/#msg276102 http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/best-investing-books/

use the CoBF search function with "investing books" - you will find many related threads

John - don't worry about it. You were civil about the whole thing, and we're all exchanging ideas here. The Semper piece is fantastic, but in the absence of that, Tilson sharing his free research was commendable and helpful to those that used it.

For those of us in BRK early, Tilson's updates were excellent. So, yea, Semper writeup is incredible in comparison, but if Tilson helped a lot of people from not selling BRK - he did them a huge favor. It certainly worked in my case, and with many of my investees.

The part I am referring to is BAM's competition. Now it is primarily Private Equity firms, as the big banks have exited due to blowups and regulations surrounding 2009 financial crisis.

What you might be missing is if you believe that Berkshire is undervalued relative to today's market. I believe it is - and that is what is important. From this point, what matters is the forward return possibilities of Berkshire vs, say, the S&P 500.

I'm not too sure I understand your question - but if I do, the answer is no. Anyone else please weigh in...

Having owned BAM for some time now - the major insight I picked up that I did not realize: Many competitors (large banks) have completely exited this area, which I did not realize. I've always worried about too much dumb money coming in, just like the re-insurance business. There is plenty of competition - but the exit of these banks is significant and a strong advantage in my mind. The demand side of the business is pretty obvious, but the supply side is where my concerns are.. -- This business is not as easy as it may look from the outside. The other insight - Bruce Flatt is low key, but confident, and extremely shareholder oriented. He refused to be put on the pedestal with Berkshire and Buffett as an equal - in spite of an admiring and friendly crowd. This CEO is great. One important comment: In his mind, the value of the asset management side of the business exceeds the entire market cap of the company right now. In that regard, you just have to ask yourself is - if you trust the guy and is he competent? Don't be worried.

But he didn't "miss" Microsoft - it's always been "off limits" since 1991.

I sure hope Munger did the same with the WESCO meetings. Those were gems. Hope they were recorded too.

Parsad - thank you for the heads up on this - I had no idea! Wouldn't miss it!

i had the same type of problem on saturday on my macair - almost exact.

Dynamic - thanks for doing this.

My review on the book from Amazon: Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase This is a very good book on investing in banks. It's easy and quick to read, as it does not belabor the point. I found the book quite entertaining on what might be a dry subject. There are very good insights into what are the most important metrics to understand. Part of the difficulty I always found with investing in banks is just understanding the "lingo" - that mystery is gone after reading this book. I highly recommend this fine handbook.

Quite weird to observe indeed. - Especially if one look at those particular trackers. Incoming capital/accounts to be reallocated? I think Tom runs a bunch of individual accounts as well, so some of those positions may be inherited.

This little gem from Alice about Warren's process helped me enormously years ago. Keep it simple - precision not necessary. We're dealing with the future for gosh sakes. Use the back of the envelope and think margin of safety.

Agree - love that logo!