John Hjorth

Entertaining [biased?] read from Bloomberg with the title : "Who owns the sun?" [buffett or Musk] - about NV Energy: http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-solar-power-buffett-vs-musk/ The ending part made me chuckle:

The PCP aquisition expected to close on January 29th 2016 : www.berkshirehathaway.com/news/JAN2516.pdf .

Would be interested to hear more about your business, if you don't mind sharing. Where do you find clients etc? Also: Is Muscleman on your payroll, in case of defaults? [J/K]

[J/K] I do not recall any of my electronic devices falling out at some time in 1859. Maybe I'm just fading mentally, or I'm in an early stage stage of Alzheimers - ref. my signature here on board... [/J/K] Do you mean 1959, or what? Here we have a rule of never leaving home without some kind of cash pocket money in the wallet, what is considered an appropriate figure [and currency] depends on what's planned to happen. Cardboard is entirely correct... Look it up on the interweb... I didn't want to bring this up (yet), as I didn't want to come across as an alarmist. OK, got it, thanks : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859

[J/K] I do not recall any of my electronic devices falling out at some time in 1859. Maybe I'm just fading mentally, or I'm in an early stage stage of Alzheimers - ref. my signature here on board... [/J/K] Do you mean 1959, or what? Here we have a rule of never leaving home without some kind of cash pocket money in the wallet, what is considered an appropriate figure [and currency] depends on what's planned to happen.

Added today to: BRK.B SAN MKL NOVO B.CPH [corresponding US ADR: NVO]

Yeah, right: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/cheap-stocks/ And before you start to sing the "historically high margins" song again - I've heard it, no need, most of these companies don't have historically high margins. Also a lot of them already had declining sales last year, so no, not cycle top. Have fun Jurgis, What do you consider as your investment universe, as a base of your post above? Can you clarify your question? I invest in everything. :) Some preference to high ROE "Buffettology" stocks. I was thinking if you had geografical preferences, perhaps based on currency considerations. Thanks for the elaboration.

Yeah, right: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/cheap-stocks/ And before you start to sing the "historically high margins" song again - I've heard it, no need, most of these companies don't have historically high margins. Also a lot of them already had declining sales last year, so no, not cycle top. Have fun Jurgis, What do you consider as your investment universe, as a base of your post above?

Based on your elaboration I agree with you. Most of the money to invest in the coming months for my part is staying in Europe, with the exemptions of a few US stocks that I want to own or buy more of. [With regard to SAN I also agree with you, but I'm not scratching my head, I just keep on buying. To me, this is the most misunderstood global [almost] bank. Perhaps I will post more about it in the separate SAN topic in the investment ideas forum.]

frommi, Thanks for sharing! TwoCitiesCapital, There is a different investor sentiment on this side of the pond. Perhaps it's currency related. Conditions are worse in the southern part of Europe compared to the northern part of Europe. It seems to me that a lot af US investors don't have an eye for that.

frommi, Any european names among the 45 picks? I hope you will share with us, thanks in advance.

+1 - I can't agree more.

Please show me - just one - investor who has become rich by following the advice from RBS - including investing in RBS.

What's the purpose of posting something like this? Gio is not even an active part in that particular discussion in this topic. John, In previous years I have always reported the overall increase in BV of my companies, simply because that’s what I am interested about and that’s what I keep track of very easily. The return from my stock market investments alone is more difficult to calculate. I was told the BV of my companies doesn’t make sense… Therefore, this year I have not posted any result. Just in case you care, the BV of my companies is up +4% for 2015, while the return from my stock market investments alone are in the red probably high single digit. Cheers, Gio Hi Gio, I do! -Thanks for the explanation and info!

What's the purpose of posting something like this? Gio is not even an active part in that particular discussion in this topic.

Novo Nordisk A/S [Novo B.CPH] [uS ADR: NVO].

This was one of the questions at the 2015 meeting. "Cash taxes versus reported taxes"; WEB said they'd much rather have the insurance float, here were his comments, The $60B in depreciation at BHE helps our customer, not us; It is not free equity to BRK It can be regulated away We don't borrow Not a hidden form of float Corp tax rates can change, that'll be a big change Not a big asset at all relative to float In answering another question, he said that the "pedal to the floor" investments in BHE is a competitive advantage versus other utilities. Because BHE is part of BH's tax return, it allows them more capacity to invest. Other utilities don't pay that much tax to avail tax credits. Here I'm not trying to argue with or question what Mr. Buffett said at the 2015 AGM, but it's much more complicated than just that [said the CPA]. What's complicated? The math or accounting? What WEB said was that they much prefer low or no cost cash in their hands to invest like the insurance float versus some smokey book asset like DTL. It seems the tax returns of BRK are complicated - mentioned is several shareholders letters within the last several years - thousands of pages mentioned several times - do you think this is all about the tax returns of BRK HQ? Answer: No! It's all about joint taxation.

This was one of the questions at the 2015 meeting. "Cash taxes versus reported taxes"; WEB said they'd much rather have the insurance float, here were his comments, The $60B in depreciation at BHE helps our customer, not us; It is not free equity to BRK It can be regulated away We don't borrow Not a hidden form of float Corp tax rates can change, that'll be a big change Not a big asset at all relative to float In answering another question, he said that the "pedal to the floor" investments in BHE is a competitive advantage versus other utilities. Because BHE is part of BH's tax return, it allows them more capacity to invest. Other utilities don't pay that much tax to avail tax credits. Here I'm not trying to argue with or question what Mr. Buffett said at the 2015 AGM, but it's much more complicated than just that [said the CPA].

krazeenyc, That's an outstanding result for 2015 with so much cash held during the year, perhaps the best risk adjusted return for 2015 described in this topic so far. Personally, I would very much appreciate - if possible for you - to read a bit more from you in this topic about your worries going forward at the moment. Thank you in advance.

To stay out of trouble, in every aspect of life, including investing, i.e.: No bagging of other broads than "she" - else I suppose I would wake up one morning from a forced anesthesia, and - most likely to my surprise - looking at an open can of mashed tomatoes, placed on the night table, with no tomatoes in the can, the can just containing my balls [most likely I would also conclude that she castrated me using the lid of the open can after getting rid of the mashed tomatoes, not using a scalpel], Buying more boring and dull stocks at reasonable prices for the purpose of a - hopefully - satisfactory return in the long run.

Minus 2.7 percent for me for 2015. This for all accounts of the family that I manage, on consolidated basis. In my personal accounts it was minus 3.6 percent. It's the family ["consolidated"] figure that matters to me personally, and I have voted according to that - not that it matters for the outcome of the poll as it is set up. Cash added during the year amounts 260.8% calculated on the basis of the opening balance on overall basis for all accounts, and cash at year end on overall basis is 35.6 percent, so there will be at lot for me to do in 2016 also - I expect to get my private life back in 4th quarter of 2016, at least to some extent. I actually like this as a second full time job, but there are other things in life that matters, too. The above figures need some fine tuning with regard to Danish withholding taxes on dividends from Danish stocks, however it won't move the needle. I will try to find time to prepare some files in EXCEL to upload in this topic for the purpose of doing calculations of ROIC for a given year, based on what I have already read from fellow board members in this topic.

Thank you to all contributors to this board for your posts i 2015, I hope for a prosperous investing year 2016 for all! I hope you all beat the crap out of your personal yardstick and benchmark in 2016 - whatever that might be! Happy investing in 2016!

Personally, I don't understand this, and honestly, I don't want to. Life is about making a positive difference that make sense - now or in the future-, to other human beings, near to your, or to other, [- or to your self - in the short term.]

Merry Christmas to all fellow board members, and thank you very much for sharing your views and thoughts in your posts during 2015! Also a special thank you to Sanjeev for keeping this board up running now for progressively many years, still allocating time and other ressources to keep this board up running and kicking, while still having gradually more and more other things to do and to take care of!

Really? - Please elaborate a bit, Jurgis. I don't believe I add value through my investing decisions. And it probably would be more useful to society if I spent more time on projects in my primary occupation rather than trying to get extra return by actively investing. I was trying to go this way this year already, but got sucked in into oil morass and some other interesting "opportunities". 8) Most likely I'll just dump most money into BRK/Fairfax/Malone and couple more "forever" holds. I've been going in this direction already. (And before we have religious argument that this is also "active" investing - yes, I know, next question 8) ). The counterargument to this is that putting money in BRK/Fairfax this year would have been even worse than my oil-dragged portfolio. :o But this is for 2015 results thread. 8) Peace. Thanks for your personal considerations, Jurgis. Peace & respect!