John Hjorth

. Listened to it today, and I enjoyed it a lot.

It's interesting times ... - as always!

How come this one somehow reminds me of some days at CoBF? - Just kidding & joking! [- I'm just such a troublemaker!]

Lecture by Lars Christensen: Low bond yields are here to stay. Lars Christensen is a Danish macro economist. He is a fundamental monetarist, in the camp of Milton Friedman - his favorite economist. I've started following him for a while. The video is of questionable quality. Please have patience, if you start listening to it. It gets better. Like other fellow board members in this topic, I'm also struggling with this .[too!] I haven't heard the whole lecture yet. [This is really dense matter to me.] I thought I would just share here.

2018 AGM Meeting Info is up & out.

I got mailinglisted at Semper August about two years ago, after our "discovery" of the "first" Berkshire related Letter from there. Today, I've received the last letter by e-mail, attached to this e-mail from Chad Christensen : [ : - ) ]

You basically just "stole" [erhh, somehow] my first macro economist joke in this topic, boilermaker! -Let me just say that I'm far from amused ... [ ; - ) ]. - - - o 0 o - - - Here is another one, and this an IRL experience of my own. On my bachelor study in economics I was taught Keynesian Macro in the years 1978-79 by a Danish professor. He was just soo good, and funny! His name is Lars Matthiesen, I think he is retired now [he must be]. Under time span of running the class that I was in, he got appointed as member of the Danish Economic Counsils. That was a pretty big thing back then, all over in the local printed papers [There were none else then]. So, at the first class session after his appointment, he was met by standing applause by his students. He was both happy and proud of that, I could see. Then one student asked: "How did it happen?" He replied: "I got a letter from our Danish Prime Minister." [Meaning: "This is invitation only, & based on merit/quality of work."] Then another student asked: "Did you go through an interview?" He: "Well, they actually did not really ask me any questions, it was more some kind of friendly talk with the other council members about going forward, concluding and summing all the talk up with: "We justed wanted to actually see, that you have both your arms."" The student: "Huh? - Do you care to elaborate?" He: "In "macro", you really need to have both your arms! You know - You say "On one hand..." - and then you have to do this particular move with one of your arms,-, and then you say " ..., on the other hand ..." - and if then your other arm is not there to do that particular move, - you'll never get your message through!" - - - o 0 o - - - Many times since then, now many years ago, I have thought about this exchange of words. Get out of it what you do/want. To me, it has basically now boiled down to: "Push hard, but don't take yourself too seriously."

Bizaro, Yes somehow it's kind of a parody of a professional interview. Personally, I don't get annoyed by it any longer. Because it's evident, that Mr. Buffett isen't annoyed by it. I speculate, that he considers it some kind of sport to tear down the questions in stead of trying to answer them. Nate [oddballstocks] once called Mr. Buffett a marketing machine. I think that's the plain truth in one line. And he's going global. Just a few years back basically nobody wrote about the letters and Berkshire here in Denmark. Now he has active coverage here, too.

Thank you for sharing this gem, Dynamic, also.

This is the joke of the day: My own English spelling! A few days ago I found out, the I've missed the "c" in "acquisition" - and that pretty consistently! - Please feel free to call me out on my spelling. - I will prefer that you do it by PM, however. I'm here to learn.

By basic logic, bizaro, How would you let something into your brain as answers to questions [to consider] from which you have cut yourself off?

I just checked on EDGAR, the proxy material was released there on March 17 last year. So, I think your're right, longinvestor. - - - o 0 o - - - Off topic: Now BRK HQ YE 2017 headcount = 26. [ref. p. A-1 in the 2017 Annual Report], said the nitpicker! I hope to hear some really agressive and critical questions on Yahoo Finance after the AGM about what's going on at that bloated Berkshire HQ! Very concerning! [ : - ) ]

I apologize, if my - totally open question, out of pure interest - was bugging towards you. Three reasons stated here about why I'm stock picking, in stead of indexing: 1. I'm absolutely allergic to and anal about recurring fees. I haven't paid as much as DKK 0,01 [that's called one øre here in Denmark] in recurring fees since I switched to stock picking from 15 years of bond investing. It took me a lot of time to find the right solution for that back then - more than a year. 2. To me, stock picking isen't easy. That does not imply to me, that it's difficult. And difficult is here not the same as hard. It's just - at least to me - extremely work intensive, and time consuming. And I just happen to love that activity. 3. About indexing: Of the S&P500 constituents, the FAANGs fills about 11 percent. S&P500 earnings yield about right now is ~ 4.3 percent. You can take that, or not. If one don't, one has to work, by doing search and analysis. It's not impossible - even today - to find companies with positive growth prospects, considering carefully the downside risks - and at the same time with a postive judgement about overall quality, that have an earnings yield above ~4.3 percent. - - - o 0 o - - - Furthermore, personally I distinguish quite sharp between Mr. Buffett, the Berkshire CEO & Chairman, and Mr. Buffett, the private US citizen & ie. taxpayer, venting his personal opinions publicly. For several months now, "The Snowball" has been open here for my part at p. 543 - "White Nights", with absolutely no appeal for me read on. With that angle, your post makes a lot of sense to me, too.

I just want to post here my appreciation and gratitude for what you two gents are maintaining and sharing here on CoBF, SlowAppreciation & Dynamic. Thank you very much.

BG2008, Gio lives in Milan. I'm sure he would be up to some sincere travel advise to you, if you send him a PM. If you do that please ask him to reply in this topic for the benefit of us all. I think Uccmal was in Italy on vacation last summer. Perhaps he reads this and chim in. We were on vacation in Rome in the summer 2012. Very, very nice and beautiful city. I had heard about Italian pick pocketing before we went there, and to avoid bad luck I did buy a small one strap sling pack for that separate purpose. This one. Please note the zippers with two handles for two of the openings and rooms. Bought two tiny padlocks to lock the handles together for the two rooms/openings. And then nothing but the correponding keys in an attached leash in the pocket. Everything else [phones, cards, whatever] in the two padlocked rooms, and wearing the slingpack on my chest, not on my back. I also always put one credit card in the safe at the hotel, for emergency purposes. It can't hurt to ask at your host or hotel, if there are areas in the surroundings that are recommended to avoid.

They have already been marked, rb. The difference going forward compared to the past is the quarterly marking now will go over the income statement, not comprehensive income.

Well, it's just not book value as such any longer then, but some kind of adjusted book value. The difference is conceptual.

Today I have tried to find some information about this acquisition in the 2017 Annual Report, outside the Shareholder Letter. Not much that I've found so far - perhaps something has skipped my attention here outside the Shareholder Letter. Page K-99: The contractual obligation to buy [80 minus 38.6] percent at a later moment. It's mentioned that the annual sales is about USD 20 B. I discussed earlier in this topic with rb how the accounting treatment of this investment would go. If one study the minority interest in the specication of the equity movements during 2017, it can be observed, that there are no material additions to minority interests related to acquisitions. So I conclude, that this investment must be contained in "Other assets" under "Insurance and Other" [With no note to that post in the balance sheet], most likely accounted for under use of the equity method [to the opposite of line-by-line consolidation under the use of the past equity method]. - - - o 0 o - - - Somehow I find it a bit funny that buying 38.6 percent of a company with a turnover of USD 20 B now simply drowns in the Berkshire numbers. [Again, something may have skipped my attention.]

I really hope that you do not get carried away too much here, Viking. [ : - ) ] I mean I would really miss your posts about the Big Four US banks going forward. [ : - ) ]

shalab, If one do that, then we aren't talking about book value any longer.

Please elaborate a bit about your line of thinking here, Ballinvarosig Investors, It would be much appreciated, thanks. Do I really need to go there? There is just so much wrong with what Warren Buffett is saying these days. For a start, he continues to beat the very worn drum that a basket of hedge fund, fund of funds will under perform an pre-specified index of his choosing. What's worse, is that he conflates that statement with the notion that all types of active management is bad. Not only that, but he states that in all his career (60 years plus of being in the market), that a maximum of ten people he has ever met can hope to achieve the goal of out-performing the index. It seems to me that he is in complete opposition with his previous teachings, namely that an investor with a small amount of capital has a very realistic chance of out-performing the market. John Hjorth - I take it that you are an adherent of the cult of Buffett? If you are a devotee, then may I ask, have you adopted the advice of your protegé (excuse the pun) and adopted the index strategy? From the recent statements of Buffett, I think it's fairly clear that the circle of ten people that he identified as having the ability to out-perform the market are extremely unlikely to be inhabiting this particular discussion forum. It seems to me that yourself and other adherents of Warren Buffett would do much better in your present investment strategies than to sell all your holdings and adopt index weighted holdings in the likes of Tesla and Snapchat, companies that truly represent the dynamism of American business (clearly, anything that is not American is abysmal by the standards of Buffet). Maybe I'm wrong but in referring to the 10 investors, didn't Buffett say that he only has met 10 than he could predict in ADVANCE would beat the market? That is a very different statement from saying there are only 10 people that can beat the market. Please do not put me in any camp.

Cardboard, solid advice I need to pay more attention to... Viking, are you in the business - at all - of using leverage?

If you read it carefully, those considerations by Dynamic are - at least to some extent - short term beta considerations. [No critisism intended here, Dynamic.]. When you load up seriously on some position, the short term future will most likely be volatile, the long term future will tell you if your move was right or not. I apologize for using CAPM nomenclacure here. Basically unintended. It will not happen again here on CoBF for my part. We are on the same side of this trade.

Please elaborate a bit about your line of thinking here, Ballinvarosig Investors, It would be much appreciated, thanks.

Two souls - one thought, Valuehalla!, This is exactly the question I'm asking myself today with regard to Berkshire earnings power after tax going forward. - Isen't BNSF a 100% US company? - A part of the BHE business is UK based, right? - I'll hereby flash my ignorance, that I do not know the UK corporation tax rate. - - - o 0 o - - - It seems like we overetimated the one-off deferred tax advantage, by putting it at USD approx. USD 34 B, while it is now reported to be judged at about USD 28 B. [The qualifications was about deferred taxes outside USA [not affected by the US Tax Reform], and the "dent" from BEAT, now reported to about minus USD 1 B, right?].