John Hjorth

If only all the problems of Europe were contained within the boundaries of the southern real! :-[ I think Europe has much much bigger problems than that Packer. +1 [with all respect for the quality of the posts from Packer on this board on other matters, the posts are by me much appreciated].

If the link from valuefca does not provide the wanted information, my best guess is: No.

Have you read the acquisition criteria section in the annual shareholder letters?

Muscleman, If the preferreds are mentioned in the list for second quarter: http://www.sec.gov/divisions/investment/13flists.htm , otherwise not.

Most likely that figure on daily basis is under influence of the number of robots [bots, crawlers, spiders] visiting the board, which can swing wildly. [sanjeev might however have shut the bots out]. Bots can be good or bad. We as Internet users need the good bots, because they constantly read and map the ever expanding frontier of the Internet, thereby making the internet searchable. I.e. about the GoogleBot here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googlebot https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182072?hl=en Bad bots can have several questionable purposes, among them harvesting email adresses for spam purposes. On this board [a SMF board], the bots aren't visible. I don't know if Sanjeev can make them visible. On certain other types of board software the administrator can make bots visible, i.e. please take a look at the homeplace of an other board software called phpBB [ https://www.phpbb.com/community/ ], where you can actually see the names of the bots visiting that board recently.

Warren Buffett has stated in front of camera [it's on YouTube somewhere], that he considers WFC a better bank than JPM. He has also stated, that banks may not become a too big fraction the total BRK portfolio. The new - so far - unkown "Position X" is in the "Commercial, industrial and others" category, ref. the BRK 2013 Second Quarter Report.

+1! This intiative by Ross is much appreciated! The project has to start at some level/platform. Rome wasn't built in one day. Please also take into consideration, that running this project for Ross takes time away from managing own positions.

Yeah, there are a few wrong reports out; who checks these things! Yeah clearly whoever writes these articles can't read a 13-f. Or perhaps the water coolers and/or coffee machines at Huffington Post are contaminated and need a rinse, thereby making the staff intoxicated. It's straight out ridiculous, that Reuters doesn't check things out. thefatbaboon, could you elaborate a bit on your bullet #2 [-while almost all other posts on the board today are about SHLD! - only a few people are speculating about this BRK 13-F omission, based on posts!]

Wow! Bumping this topic has been like knocking a hole in the Hower Dam! :D

I am sure! :P Odense, Denmark

Purchases of equity securities end of June 2013 : $6.052M [Gross][excluding Heinz] Purchases of equity securities end of March 2013: $1.401M [Gross] => Purchases of equity securities second quarter 2013: $4.641M [Gross][excluding Heinz] Cost basis of equity securities commercial, industrial and others end of June 2013: $28.272M [excluding Heinz] Cost basis of equity securities commercial, industrial and others end of March 2013: $24.341 => Increase in cost basis of equity securities commercial, industrial and others second quarter 2013: $3.931M [excluding Heinz] The Q2 13F-HR will be out in a few days, and it will for sure be interesting reading, and might or might not reveal the answer to what the three capital allocators have been up to!

It's available now at : http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/qtrly/links2ndqtr13.html .

Off topic: Ladies and Gentlemen [if there are any ladies posting in this topic within the last posts?], The discussion contained in the last posts in this topic by writser, Palantir, ERICOPOLY, Heilko & Birdman23i is in my opinion certainly worth a separate topic in the General Discussion Forum of its own! I hereby suggest one of you to pick this discussion up buy starting a separate topic in the General Discussion Forum. Personally, I'm sure it will be reading of interest to many board members! -Thanks in advance, because I hope you all pick this suggestion up! [i have also been buying books about roses lately, btw...] -And now back to topic again-again!

Can you tell us how you know the reserves are real? No. From my point of view I haven't paid anything for my fraction of the value of the reserves because the discount on the OGZPY ADRs compared to BV/ADR exeeds my fraction of the BV of aquired/paid reserves [bV of Production Licenses/ADR].

Averaging down in OAO Gazprom ADR [OGZPY] for the last 5 weeks.

This was one of the business headlines here in Denmark yesterday. From what I have read locally, I did not understand that the parent was filing for bankruptcy also: One among many : http://borsen.dk/nyheder/virksomheder/artikel/1/258507/better_place_gaar_konkurs.html [Hint: In Danish, please use i.e. Google translate and copy & paste if you are not familiar with Scandinavian languages].

As per this definition, there has been a lot of innovation within the last 30 years. Many good examples are already posted above.

Palantir, What's your basis for your statement?

Birdman, Thank you for guidance for reading on Lukoil. It's very much appreciated.

Personally I spend quite some time these days trying to understand the market valuation of certain Russian stocks when time permits, right now with focus on OAO Gazprom. Lukoil and Rosneft will be the next ones, however I'm not sure in which order. I will decide that later based on some overall analysis. My interest in OAO Gazprom is based on gas reserves owned by the company, its moat nationally [Russian monoly as per Russian State decision/regulation] and a so far not for myself documented overall perception that the company is "embracing" Europe with regard to gas supplies. Based on latest financial statements [iFRS] I have calculated current P/E to 5.04 for OAO Gazprom based on currency rates [rates RRU/EUR] about two weeks ago. The stock has been tanking since April 2011, and so far I don't understand why. My interest in the above mentioned three companies is not based on that they are Russian, but on their share metrics vs business performance, their state of affairs and prospects vs market in general. From reading the board I have understood, that Packer is also interested in Gazprom and Lukoil. Perhaps he will chim in.