John Hjorth

Hilarious. Love it. Made my day. [ : - ) ]

I'm in your camp on this, longinvestor, Furthermore, - say, you try to pick it up relatively cheap for two years - you are then subject to "the risk" of a large Berkshire aquisition in that period, creating a jump upwards in earnings going forward, which most likely will influence market price upwards, generating a miss out for the forward net Berkshire buyer. We know the Oncor deal is in the mold right now, but generally we do not know what is going on at Mr. Buffetts desk.

It's actually great advice, rb. Thank you. [: - ) ]

Thank you for your elaboration, Uccmal, - It's much appreciated. - - - o 0 o - - - On the 1st August I decided to do calls on basically all cash in time deposits in the family for liquidation, thereby pushing the cash into being investable at our investment bank, where the cash will pull nothing, the opportunity cost below 1 per cent. I will do the calls next week. I expect to add a bit more to Berkshire in 4th quarter, if it does not run up too much. There are a few positions, that I also would like to reduce, because I consider them fragile in a correction or crisis. The rest of the long term positions I'm reasonable satisfied with, however not all positions are yet the size I want going forward, but the prices offered by the market right now are not reasonable to me, so I'll let that go for now. After that my expectation is to do nothing - just to wait. I don't know yet if I can do that. I will find out. I think it's time for me to learn to do so, to be prepared.

Added more BRK.B in the opening today. - - - o 0 o - - - [Yes, at about all time high for BRK.B, but USD/DKK, and USD/EUR is now down more than 10 per cent this year].

Why are you buying shares in a company in terrible industry heading towards cyclical bottom? Just kidding and teasing oddball. 8) HA!! Although that argument could be made for some of BRK's holdings. It is to me true. There is no such thing as a free lunch. - Good luck, Charlie - We are in the same camp.

Full respect for your last post, Artha158, It is quite symptomatic for this board, that the daily ongoing discussion right now has switched to the discussion of the most crappy capital allocation of all: Cars. [Fellow board members active in that particular car topic: Please take no offense here].

Pete & Jurgis, The more I think of it, the more I come to the conclusion, that it's actually true what you are posting. It's so Fairfax specific on this board - for historical reasons. It's cyclical push back on the board. I love it, because one always learn something from it, no matter where the sentiment pendulum is with regard to Fairfax. - - - o 0 o - - - With Berkshire it is totally different on this board - Imagine the mud slinging from the Berkaholics that would take place if some presumptuous board member would dare to post in the separate Berkshire forum that he or she has started to short the heck out of Berkshire! - Perhaps even calling it a turd! Sanjeev would become soo busy! lol. - - - o 0 o - - - Now back to Fairfax.

You are just the concept of an extraordinary good person, Joel. The Fairfax story over time is just almost as impressive as the Berkshire story.

I had to read your post three times, Uccmal, to get it it right. [Hopefully I got it right after the third reading.] It is about being prepared for the next downturn. [ref. your separate topic about that.] - - - o 0 o - - - Welcome back posting. If you're still in France, please enjoy your stay onwards with your family. If you're back in Toronto right now, welcome to reality. [ : - ) ]

Added to JPM today.

YouTube: Howard Marks: The Memo: There They Go Again....Again.

Yes, this is exceptional, longinvestor, Mr. Abel is building up maximum pressure by lobbying. Reuters: Elliott wins more time to beat Berkshire Hathaway's Oncor deal. This is getting as exciting as a high quality crime novel.

I'm in the same camp as you, Jurgis, after a quick read late last night. I will have to reread Mr. Mark's memo in depth in the weekend to come. I ended up very confused by doing the quick read.

Sunrider, I think it would be appropriate to add a poll option called: "I don't know" [at least for my part]. [ : - ) ]

Started a small position in SHB B.STO [svenska Handelsbanken AB, ser. B] today, after having studied the bank on/off for more than a year. Ultra brief thesis on SA here. [it's to me not totally head on, in the meaning there is something to add.] In the Book Forum here on CoBF there is this topic about a book about the bank.

Wrote some BRKB Aug 11 expiration, 170-strike puts for $1.45 per share. I wish I could do something like this, but not possible because of a tax regime that could be considered from the Dark Ages.

Based on what has been discussed in this topic so far, - especially longinvestor's starting post - I have decided to do a visit to Indexville going forward, in the coming period - it will not be extensive, and it will be on some kind of on/off basis - when I'm in the mood to do so, so it will take some time. It's about working on my total ignorance in the area. It's also about what to say to the Lady of the House about what to do with the whole Holly-go-Molly the morning I wake up dead.

Texas is tired of the bankruptcy. They want to be done with it. Berkshire is playing that, surely. Mr. Buffet is a bridge player - I suppose he is not that bad at playing poker, either.

NasDAQ.com - Market Chatter: Berkshire Hathaway Warns Will Walk Away from Oncor if Dates Not Met.

In general I agree with your post, StevieV, What I was trying to express, was that it has has been hard for me to suppress my mental propensity to buy the techs. It is that propensity, that I personally find hard to cope with. I like them all [the techs], and what they do for us all, it's just too much GARP investing for me.

Tremendous post, snow pea, Please keep them coming, thank you.

With regard to the first sentence of your post, longinvestor, I just have to steal the content of a very short post made by rb here on CoBF recently in another topic: "I'll steal that line!" [Please feel free to call it "double-stealing" - for my part! [lol]]. That first line of yours, in your last post in this topic - is to me - just so true. It is all about being consistent to your thesis, and at the same time being factual, looking at the facts, as is. The facts that matters to you, may be totally different between each of us. We simply can't all be right on this, nor all be wrong. - Again, I hereby nominate you, longinvestor, as candidate to the CoBF poster of this week. - - - o 0 o - - - "The real problem" here is, what's going on in ones brain with regard to "opportunity cost" - the techs have been smoking BRK dearly for quite some time. It's just so increadibly hard to cope with, mentally. Personally, I think I'm getting better at this game, - mentally -, over time. That does not imply, that I'm good at it, yet, nor that I'll ever be. - - - o 0 o - - - It's just such a fascinating experience to push ones own mind absolutely to the limit, which is to me, what I'm doing here.

valueinvesting101, I'm pretty sure, you can't find that in the Yahoo clip.

I really like the approach of yours to the Berkshire float in post #84, rb, Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I had a number inside my head in the same range while I was thinking about doing a calculation based on the information in the 10-Ks and discounting it with a WACC, just by looking on the numbers and without doing the calculations. So in the area of USD 30B it is, give or take a bit. - - - o 0 o - - - Good to have you back.