John Hjorth

I will mention Market Screener here. Not totally up to matjone's requirements for historical data, but free, and you have to create an account. It has fairly good coverage outside North America.

Indeed, and already pointed out by Cardboard recently. There is always work to do.

Greg, To me, you've got this wrong. Why do you think that Mr. Jain & Mr. Abel are paid by Berkshire USD 18 M each annually [as far as we know, so far]? I mean : USD 18 M each for "delegation, bordering to abdication" [ref. Mr. Munger]? To me, it simply does not work that way anymore at Berkshire [and hasn't for a long time]. Yes, cyclicals are cyclicals, but then cyclicals aren't really all alike. I mean, there are stand-one-cyclicals, and then there are cyclicals-under-an-umbrella [, perhaps under the Berkshire-umbrella], and their operating conditions with regard to access to capital during a full cycle aren't nowhere near similar.

I wonder if we have experienced the last edition of this book? - It's now materially more than two years since last [major] edition.

Yes, interesting "out of powder"-comment related to the situation in the GFC. Cash & cash equivalents at USD 25.334 B at YE 2008. Thank you for sharing to Liberty.

lol!, Greg, I always enjoy your colourful language here on CoBF. The GF driving Mr. Gentile's car into the pool!? Man he must have been a bad boy! I would argue that's close to the top of the list on nasty punishment in a relationship. Bloomberg - Zeke Faux [March 23rd 2017] : ‘Bro, I’m Going Rogue’: The Wall Street Informant Who Double-Crossed the FBI. Guy Gentile flipped, and flipped again. These two men possess pretty entertaining personalities, and to me they are somehow "advanced user level only".

Happy 90th birthday to Mr. Buffett! - Yes, the 90th, you know, when a child reaches the age of one, it has had two birthdays - and so on! [ ; - ) ]

The whole line-out here is ridiculous. Where are the data to support the opinion? Let me just mention, that every Danish bank has a price list [available on its website], indicating what you can expect of price, based on the banks assessment of your credit worthiness/credit score. Where is the analysis & data to support this line of conclusions? Personally, I think a lot people confuse Danish mortgage bonds rates with rates related to being a lending customer at a Danish bank.

Quotation of post by Cigarbutt in the topic Rosenberg is more bearish than usual : I would submit that the above bolded part is obscene (from a financial point of view) :) ... Quotation of post by Cigarbutt in the topic What are you selling today? : No comments from me here about Cigarbutt's use of the word "obscene" above. [ ; - D] - Congrats! [ : - D ] - - - o 0 o - - - That said, I'm now very close to capitulation towards my fierce resistance here on CoBF of all the talks about negative interest rates for Danish mortgage bonds. [My main point has all the time been that this has to judged based on fixed interest rates over the whole annuity.] We now have available twenty year zero [& fixed] coupon, 20 years annuity mortgage bonds, that can be sold at ~0.96 of par, implying something like ~0.36 percent in effective interest rate. - - - o 0 o - - - I have never in my life seen anything like this.

To me, in short, we need to let this angle to jokes [opinion & confrontation] [the way well-intentioned-[no-harm-meant- to-anyone] jokes] here on CoBF - in this topic - go no matter who's the reader, no matter who's the poster. Take it easy, and stay cool [no matter what : If you arent't taking it easy or staying cool, stay cool anyway!]]

The Emotion Machine - Steven Handel [July 24th 2009] : “Gam zeh ya’avor” - This Too Shall Pass: A Lesson In Impermanence.[1] - - - o 0 o - - - [1] To me, very well written - but at times not easy to practice.

Simply put, this line of thinking by Spekulatius, has some merit, to me.

Thank you for the elaboration here, Mario, Please don't be a stranger here on CoBF.

Here is a story about how to be taken into surreal territory - the good way : Jeudan A/S - [JDAN.CPH] - 2019H1 Report - [p. 1]. translates to : [ ; - ) ] - - - o 0 o - - - I bought it first time in January 2013, then added in 2014, 2015 & 2017. EBVAT/share just continues every year to go up, up, up. What I especially like about it is that I've never received bad news from the company. I just read the company announcements as they come [mostly about new acquisitions or disposals], look at the quarterly financials and the annual report to see if there's any dividend coming my way, most of the year ends the answer is "No", and then I think : "Fine, please just keep my money".

Cardboard's posts today in this topic actually made me - finally - try to read up a bit the Presidential Powers of the POTUS [i used the Wikipedia article about it, just for starters]. I realized the concept of "Commander in Chief" and that declaration of war is a congressional matter. Where is line between these two concepts? How should we think about it in this actual context? [Trump, Xi & the US/China trade dispute]. This "thing" started on March 1st 2018 [Link]. No end/solution/agreement in sight so far. The last couple of days I've been studying a few small Danish banks, that - on surface - seem dirt cheap. Perhaps I should consider one of those Fentanyl patches instead. The user experience reads fantastic.

Perhaps a bit hard times for your posts, here, Mike, Thank you for sharing, and please let it go here. I always appreciate & enjoy reading your posts here on CoBF.

I think it's important to read old posts here on CoBF keeping intensively in mind the actual context and - especially - the investment environment at that particular time the post was written. I've done that over the last years a lot, and I think it has been educational to me personally - very!, actually, but it's certainly subject to one being able to keep the actual context back then in clear mind. If you read old stuff on CoBF that way, it - i.e. - beats just about any good book about the GFC. You get the real action going on in real-time, with a time stamp on it, here on CoBF - post by post.

Posted by CorpRaider in the "Semper Augustus letter" topic here in the Berskshire forum here on CoBF : I'm sorry for double posting. Has the structural situation of Berkshire Hathaway, - the parent - ever been discussed or analyzed here on CoBF? I haven't been able to find something so far.

Thank you, AdjustedEarnings & gfp, In short, I prefer to ask here when in doubt instead of making implicit personal assumptions [, that may be wrong]. [i will late forget what I've learned from the discussions about SEC filings and US capital market law in the "Could Berkshire tender stock?" topic started by alwaysinvert.] Company law, capital market law and regulations of filings with the stock exchange works in a very different way in my home country with regard to share buybacks. Yes, the question was highly hypothetical, given the actual circumstances on overall basis right now. Thanks.

I read your post based on its underlying assumptions, DTEJD1997, The fact here is however, - if one loosens up from the assumptions - that there always is a solution to every issue or "problem" in this space [behavior, combined with economics]. If one understands the problem, then one also knows in which direction to look for the solution to the problem. In short, it's a fight against idiocy, stupidity, ignorance, incompetence on so many levels : at law & policy makers, regulators and at the pension funds, and to some extent also at the savers. One of the properties of such an issue is also that unpleasant one, that it compounds over time - the more one is procrastinating and lingering, the worse it gets - simply because it's about returns. The fact is that one needs to set the pension funds free [perhaps just less constrained] to invest where the value creation is actually taking place : In the companies all over the world. We all pick our own fights. My riot against all this [and the outrageous fees related to that] has been pretty silent and is called DIY. - - - o 0 o - - - I feel pretty sure the well educated Danish youth won't take this BS. They aren't dumb, nor are they socialdemocrats. First in line the banks have been within the last 10 years or so - next in line will be the different kinds of pension funds. I expect lower expected forward returns will create an enormous pressure on fees, and regulation about asset allocation will be subject to review and rethinking.

Thanks, Dynamic, I suppose I got it right in the first place. I appreciate the visualization.

Thanks SHDL & Mike, How do you perceive these moves by Mr. Ackman & Mr. Greenberg? Remember Mr. Buffett's talk about the issuance of B shares in response to the threatened creation of unit trusts in the 1996 shareholder letter [dated February 28th 1997]? Tweet by Ed Borgato. I don't understand his "The job is to make money, not land backflips" comment. I understand the first part, not the last one. Perhaps it's lingual for me here, I suppose it means "It doesn't have to be advanced, as long as it makes money" [A bit like "Keep it simple"]. Or perhaps I'm just dumb - thick books can be written about what I don't understand.

LOL! - But I agree with meiroy, rkbabang, It really looks fantastic. What a wonderful spot... - I suppose it would be impossible to maintain usual stress levels while taking a break from the hamster wheel at such a place. I especially try to visualize how the place would look in the autumn [the colours of the leaves on the trees in NH in the autumn]... Do you plan to use it yourselves if it's not occupied by tenants? - Good luck with it to your wife and you.

Thank you for sharing, Liberty, I think I've never in life seen anything like this. Christ it stinks. Instead of subtitle "Common sense" it should have been labeled "The brain death of a reporter and an editor in chief". Are there even any basic principles related to protection of sources & verification in professional journalism that this piece does comply with? The source a dead man who set condition of confidentiality! [who can't defend himself here]. Other persons have been hung out to dry by name here. I hope somebody here sue the heck out of NYT. Not subscription protected. Ticket selling when it's worst. Is the overall perception in the US that decency is the name of a village in Sibiria? Why can't people just let FBI do its work? [ a part from this must be about ticket selling...]

I have posted about it over and over again : This is a severe misconception, likely based on lack of understanding & knowledge of the Danish mortgage bond market. The long term interest rates in the Danish mortgage bond market are not negative [but at record lows, yes, right now ~1 percent]. Mortgage rates with short term refinancing terms are negative right now [and have been low for many years]. [<- & good luck with that, if one is a highly levered Dane.] It's not the Danish central bank that's buying these mortgage bonds. It's primarily foreign capital inflow to this bond market from abroad, because this particular part of the European bond market is considered safe haven for institutional money. [yet, still this "traffic" is to me somewhat incomprehensible.] If ECB has been buying some or a lot of these bonds, you may perhaps have a point, but it will mean squat for Denmark, ref. just below here. Furthermore, those short term mortgage bond rates are actually the only measurable & visible short term bond rates, because there are basically no Danish T-bills in circulation - Denmark does not, and has not for many years been running at at deficit. Just to put the gloom and doom-talk here on CoBF a bit in Danish perspective. What is it [in general terms] that the Danes are doing with their mortgages? To refinance [here it is called "to convert"], you have to terminate your existing mortgage two months before end of a quarter, so the deadline for next round of refinancing was end of July. This round just closed was the biggest in history. 80 percent of all mortgages decided refinanced [measured in DKK, not number of mortgages] were decided rolled from negative short term refinancing rates to long term fixed rates [the majority is likely mortgages with 30 years annuity profile], at ~1 percent interest rate, locking in the "advantage"/historical opportunity for the long term. This is only possible because the debtors do not have to buy the underlying bonds related to the existing mortgage in the market, but have the right to redeem at par at any time.