John Hjorth

Your post reads to me perfectly up to your usual standard of quality in posts here on CoBF, gfp, And I personally agree with what gfp posted - sincerely, - - - o 0 o - - - Off topic: Best wishes for a speedy recovery, gfp. - - - o 0 o - - - Now back to topic.

I kindly ask all contributers to and readers of this topic to go back and revisit gfp's post #363 of February 25th 2019 in this topic, quoted below : Please do yourself the favor of reviewing the video with the interview of Mr. Buffett with Ms. Quick. Please ask yourself about your personal experience during the clip - especially with regard to Mr. Buffett's behavior and appearance in the clip. To me, he has never been lingering and/or circling any question before he moves straight to question at hand. To me, it has always been "directly head on", and to me it still is. Not even somehow controversial questions I recall have had the ability to bring him out of personal balance [politics etc.]. Now what do you experience here with regard to Mr. Buffett's body language and general appearance? He did not get upset in any way, but anyway? Normally he's "firing back" like a machine gun [friendly meant] immediately - no ping- & lead-time, & totally calme while replying. Here: A bit of unrest appears to take place - he's moving around a bit on the chair - even pausing a bit in his answers some places [absolutely not the normal], and Ms. Quick actually handles it the right way [she is Mr. Buffett's favorite interviewer, and is very good at "reading him" - she - so to say "clicks with him"] by asking him a totally open question in the end of this particular part of the total interview, that gives him the opportunity to leave the subject with a comment that calls for a smile, - and Ms. Quick actually lets it go from there. Personally, I interpret this as Mr. Buffett being quite annoyed/disappointed, not by the question asked [knowing it would be asked], but from that the not specified deal did not work out, and Ms. Quick gently lets him off the hook here. - - - o 0 o - - - Elephants [at least these kind of potential elephants...] aren't really suitable for data driven analysis by us, -and certainly not related to Berkshire buybacks. [ ; - ) ]

Cigarbutt, Somehow I'll argue, that the bullet #1 in the Youtube video : - "Slight nose up attitude" - certainly has merit in the current investment environment, -but not exactly meant the way mentioned in the video ... - more conceptually meant with reference to Icarus, Hubris & Nemesis. [ ; - ) ] - - - o 0 o - - - Today, I've been bear hugging my NVO dividends just received. - - - o 0 o - - - On a more serious note: In short, I share Spekulatius' view, expressed above. Likely rough times ahead for us. Personally, I just hope that we this year get at least some satisfactory clarity on the situation going forward with regard to Brexit & ongoing trade disputes. This may however still be too much to ask or hope for.

Yes.

Thank you for sharing, Charlie, It's much appreciated. Somehow, over the last few years [since I got aware Mr. Rochon, his doings and his writings], reading stuff written by Mr. Rochon has been growing on me - quite a lot. There is however one paragraph in the client letter that I'm a bit puzzled about: How do you perceive it? -Personally, I read it as if Mr. Rochon has bought more big US Banks since after the "as per" date of the last 13-F/HR filing for Giverny Capital [in 2019, as per EOP 2018Q4]. - Please note the word "big" in the paragraph header. In the last Giverny Capital 13-F/HR I only see JPM as one of the "big ones".

writser, I haven't had time to dig into this yet, but I will. It reads - ar-hmm - "juicy"! - A giant battle between Vincent Bolloré and Paul Singer?

Added to TOP.CPH & TRYG.CPH.

Just an ultra-short and compressed elaboration here for you, Spekulatius, Yes, it's been a buying frenzy the last few days, however a tiny one. The frenzy continues Monday with small additions to two dull, but very well run Danish P&C insurers, after which it's back to trading sloth for me. It's about my oldest brother's [in Danish] LD-konto [in English, in daily-day speaking : "LD-Account"]. Website. Website : Background. Danish Wikipedia : Lønmodtagernes Dyrtidsfond. English Wikipedia : Employees' Capital Pension Fund. So, in short, DKK 4,368 "frozen" in the years 1977 - 1979, that has accumulated to approx. tDKK 120, subject to taxation since 1984. Not worth my time for an average in. ["Just buy those damn shares".] My brother agreed on that. - - - o 0 o - - - Not everything is strict logic from an investment angle, when you're managing family money. We disagreed [dearly] on adding to his NVO position. He insisted. The "price" he had to "pay" to me was "to set me free" with regard to reinvesting NVO dividends in NVO. There are trackers of ORSTED.CPH scattered all over the place here in the "system" - up ~ 82 percent since August 2016. I said to him the current price is just plain wrong. He insisted. Here, it's a tracker, and it's his money, so I yielded. My brother is a registered shareholder on all his Scandinavian stocks. I know for a fact, that he's reading all the financials that is incoming in his physical mailbox. To me, it's more important to keep him turned on and interested, eager to discuss when we meet or talk. - - - o 0 o - - - I'm not married to the Lady of the House. I most likely never will. I consider it a privilege to wake up every morning to see her asleep next to me, knowing she is there next to me, not because she has to, but because she wants to. She is - compared to me - a bit of a spender, I'm only expensive on books, I think. What she's spending is her own money, not ours [here, there are no such money], nor mine. - - - o 0 o - - - Yes, shopping is contagious ... A courier was here yesterday with a package from a company called Parfumerie Akzente GmbH, Postfach 74629 Pfedelbach [near Stuttgart?]. Perfumes. - Something to me, too! - I don't know in details what else is actually going on right now ...

Spekulatius, Back in November 2018 - here - Jeff contributed in the ACA topic with a post, based on his personal & actual situation : So much for the US Health Care System. If you are a healthy person in good mental shape, alone maneuvering this system may eventually put you on medication.

Further minor additions today during the morning hours here in Scandinavia and the US, respectively: INVE A.STO [investor AB, ser. A] [Website], INDU C.STO [industrivärden AB, ser. C] [Website], LUND B.STO [L.E. Lundbergföretagen AB, ser. B] [Website], JDAN.CPH [Jeudan A/S] [[Website - unfortunately website - and financials - only available in Danish], ORSTED.CPH [Ørsted A/S] [Website], JPM, BAC & C.

An old post - posted a bit more than four years ago - by Kraven - has come to my mind related to this topic:

Dynamic, Thank you for sharing your hard & cumbersome work with all the CoBF members, to the benefit of us all. - - - o 0 o - - - For SU [suncore Energy] you have the number of shares held by Berkshire at 300,901, while the Berkshire 13-F/HR EOP 2018Q4 signals number of shares at 10,758,000. [You have typed in your file the value of the position instead of the number of shares.] NEAM SU position EOP 2018Q4 I read to zero shares in the NEAM 13-F/HR. - - - o 0 o - - - It does not matter much for the whole picture, however I've chosen to report it to you here, now that I've got aware of it. - - - o 0 o - - - Again, thank you very much for sharing your work, - for my part, it's really, really appreciated.

Added to LVMUY today. [LVMH - Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE - bought on its primary marketplace in Paris - ticker MC.PA]

Added to BRK.B, BAM, NVO [NOVO B.CPH], & SCHO.CPH today. - - - o 0 o - - - Had a bit more capital coming in today. [What a hazzle and a walk in the desert - this has been a work in progress since June 2018.]

aws, It' still beyond my comprehension how you since July 17th 2018 still have your bullet #3 in your considerations, latest based on the following in the 2018 Berkshire Shareholder Letter, p. 12: I'll let it go from here onwards.

Well, we know that there weren't any up to February 14, so even if they are buying hand over fist after that, the total amount for the quarter is unlikely to be impressive. Personally, I'll mentally settle with this. -What are the alternatives? 1. To lever your Berkshire position, or 2. To sell your Berkshire position [whole, or partly]. None of those alternatives have any appeal to me personally, compared to just holding on. - - - o 0 o - - - Are we getting played? [in the meaning: As continuing shareholders.] Personally, I've been through the whole emotional spectrum, from the release of the 13-F/HR to the 10-K. Today, my conclusion is, that we've not been. The whole line of Berkshire communication for the year end 2018 has to me been orchestrated to perfection, ending up with the interview with Ms. Quick early Monday morning [ pre market opening] after the release of the 2018 10-K Saturday in the weekend up to that particular Monday. Mr. Buffett has - and will always have - an informational advantage, compared to us as Berkshire shareholders.

adventurer, You'll need to study IAS 36 and its application for various industries to get the basic understanding of this accounting phenomen.

Just for information here, France already has such a thingy.

I just did a search by topic title, if this was covered already by a topic in the General Discussion forum. It does not seem to be, however specific questions related to MS Excel has been covered in a few separate topics over the years here at CoBF. This topic is not meant only for nerds, wizards & addicts [, or even some people with Microsoft certificates, paid for [most likely dearly!], and drawn in a candy- or sandworm-for-fishing-like vending machine [<- like me]] ... - Please just post! [ ; - ) ] - - - o 0 o - - - For starters, attached is an Excel Shortcuts Cheat Sheet. Excel_Shortcuts_Cheat_Sheet_-_20190302.pdf

Thank you for sharing, gfp, To me, this explains a lot of what we have discussed here on CoBF within the last two weeks about Berkshire's capital allocation. An elephant in sight, that got away, in short. Just too bad - one cannot win them all.

Carrying a post by obtuse_investor over here from the "Annual Letter 2018" topic:

aws, I'm specifically referring to the attachment in this post of mine, and to gfp's very detailed elaboration in several posts in this topic about all the details in a "safe harbour" buyback plan. To me, this can be analyzed data driven - which I have done - here, in this topic. If you look at the data, Berkshire could have bought B shares for USD 1.9 B below 205 in December 2018 [like it - at least - did in a part of October 2018]. [<- The data for what I'm writing here are in the attachment mentioned above.] Why did that not happen? To me, the answer to that is not about some "general considerations", but about data analysis, combined with straight thinking based on logic, taking existing and ruling regulation into consideration.

aws, Have you studied any of the data provided in this topic?

Post by gfp in "Annual Letter" topic just short time ago : It makes no sense to me, what has been going on with the buybacks in the days just before Christmas. B-shares - the most liquid of the two classes - were bought at an average price of 205.09 in the period October 11th - 18th, and none were bought in December, where the share price for the B went below ~205 at around December 17th, and even at few days were below 200! - - - o 0 o - - - Cash is being built up at parent company level, EOP 2018Q4 USD 26.394 B. Why? [p. K-111.] Perhaps needless to say that I'm in the same camp as alwaysinvert with regard to dividends - well, now I "said" it.

Hi gfp, You're right, actually! -Those numbers will be exactly there, in the press release tomorrow! -And then Reuters grabs them, journalists start typing, everybody copycat'ing [without reading or understanding anything else at all!], and the whole thing "explodes"! "Berkshire has burned a hole in the carpet of USD X B in fourth quarter!" Berkshire bashing and anti-hype on Bloomberg, Seeking Alpha, Twitter, in short, all over - and on CoBF likely too! I'm already getting flooded with it in my e-mail inbox, my Twitter feed and so on! -As you already said, it has buying opportunity next week for Berkshire written all over it! [ ; - ) ]