cubsfan

Nice questions.... May I ask - where & who would I submit a question as well? thanks

"You make most of your money in a bear market, you just don't realize it at the time" Shelby Cullom Davis

I think that is such a good point - security is just really, really hard - because the bad guys continually change tactics. And also users don't want their lives to be made more difficult by internal security processes. (You want me to remember how many passwords and processes??) Companies will continue to spend fortunes on it, as they have since the inception of the mainstream internet. It started with antivirus and firewalls - but continues to morph into a large variety of products/services as security threats evolve and the endpoint devices keep changing. It's a nightmare for IT departments. So the only area I would disagree. Companies are willing to pay plenty for top notch security. It's just that it takes many products to solve the problem - and also a large amount of spending, (not to mention increased hassle for their user) on their own internal processes, etc. - No one vendor or product solves the problem, although many of them (Symantec, RSA, etc) say they can. Most of the technology to secure data/endpoints/devices exists - for a price. But the one problem that is very difficult to solve - is how you don't overburden and piss off the people you are trying to protect?

That is really ugly. There are usually 2 sides to every story, so will be very interested to hear Berkshire's response. It does bother me the company did not comment extensively if they were contacted by the authors.

First of all, thanks to JBird for the great audio file. Having gone to the meeting before, and not being able to go this time, it was terrific to hear Charlie's voice again. The jokes and intonation come across much better than in the notes. I will however give FarnamStreet his due: his notes are simply fantastic, and much of what you will miss in the audio - you will pick up in his transcript. I took pages and pages of notes at the previous DJCO meeting, but they simply did not compare in terms of completeness with FarnamStreet 40+ pages of notes. And I'm happy to pay a very reasonable fee to fully capture the full force of Munger's intellect and have a historical record. I've re-read those notes many times - better than most books as far as I am concerned. I'm grateful to both of you for contributing to this effort. And thanks to all the other members that have shared their personal DJCO notes and efforts.

Analysis by Larry Robbins on the dealer sector is very helpful. Thanks for posting.

I think Wilbur's comments last year about selling IRE - the position is a 3X, so it makes some sense to get lots of our investment out. And it was a very large position.

Markel

Terrific presentation by Howard.

Here is some commentary from a couple years ago about ORLY strategy from a while ago. ORLY was their largest holding in 2 funds for quite some time. FPA knows it well. O’Reilly Automotive. For the past few decades O’Reilly has followed the same simple, straight-forward business plan – use all cash flow to expand the store base incrementally from its Springfield, Missouri headquarters, supplemented by infrequent opportunistic acquisitions. O’Reilly has successfully followed that strategy while growing from its original single store in southwest Missouri to the current 4,000 stores, covering most of the country. As it starts to fill-in the parts of New England and Florida where it currently is unrepresented, O’Reilly is making some changes to how it allocates its cash flow to reflect its reduced internal reinvestment opportunities. These changes include:  Slowing store growth  Negotiating changes in terms with suppliers to increase cash flow by slowing payments for goods  Modestly increasing leverage  Using free cash flow to repurchase shares Interestingly, this strategy has been followed to great success by Auto Zone, the #1 auto parts retailer, over the past decade. The impetus was similar – running out of attractive new store locations.

I've heard the FPA guys talk about ORLY a lot. I think they have the same take on it. Availability, delivery and network scale to provide immediately needed parts is the key. End customer doesn't get to price shop when mechanic buys it for them. Cost gets past through to customer. Mechanic needs to know they are going to get the parts fast.

Mondelez owns Cadbury

France, i believe

I love the Salt Lick - no place like it!

I'd agree, I think Tilson is a really decent guy. No doubt he has incredible energy and I think some people confuse that will being promotional. If you have ever emailed Whitney, I've found he gets right back to you and is very gracious. There is plenty to be learned from Whitney and he's generous with his time if you are a young investor.

Me too!

This little episode is reminding me of blowhard Michael Steinhardt trashing Buffett for firing his buddy Gutfreund: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPZHWLlCNB4 Saw that one live too. Starts around the 2:30 minute market.

I've always liked David Winters, but he took all of this too far. He made such a big deal about dumping Berkshire stock last year over this Coke issue. He had to be the Coke activist that would shame Warren into action.

It just seems like Winters could never let this issue go. After Buffett explained himself last year at the annual meeting, Winters was PO'ed. And recently, Winter's has gone after him again. Buffett ripped him good on his fees and underperformance.

She also said he has had his daily calorie count calculated exactly and doesn't deviate.

If Buffett qualifies as the best investor of all time, based on his incredible and lengthy record, I find it hard NOT to call him a genius. There are some genius aspects to Buffett, like his incredible recall of facts and figures, his impressive mathematical skills, his reading skills, etc. He's a genius on many levels, IMO.

And what a fantastic job you have done Parsad - Thank You!

Ferrero would be beautiful. What do you think is a fair price - 10-12B Euros??

If he thinks he made a mistake or he found something much more compelling, then I'd absolutely want Monish to sell the position. He is not wedded to a long timeframe if these conditions occur. This is the real world, where he is managing real money for investors.

I think he has been pretty clear about this - he could make 25X his money on this position if it goes well, it could also turn out to be a zero because of the litigation risk - so it is sized accordingly.