oldye

They also mentioned that India will soon be a net importer of coal.

I find this thread kind of ironic considering the name of this board ::)

Berkshire's cost of debt is so low that debt can be considered float, if you normalize underwriting profits on the 63b in float and use that to pay for the interest on debt you probably get something close to mpaul's number.

You are comparing apples to oranges, you can find info about when reserves have been released by looking at the positive developments in the reserve triangles in the 10k.

Its amazing that anyone trusts these people to run their money esp insurance companies. Imagine if Hamblin Watsa was running Allstate's 99 billion dollar portfolio...instead they invest at 3-4% while exposing their shareholders to huge swings. Simply amazing.

Drill Baby Drill, I want to see 2$ nat gas!

Nice write up and summary of past transactions.

The hedge is a little over 200m underwater right now

"Tomorrow is never promised today" You are absolutely right, Sfk will not compound intrinsic value over the decade at 14.4% per year, I think normalized Ebitda will be around 50-70m and years like the one we're having will be rare considering it took a severe recession, and unprecedented government subsidies to shuttered aprox. 15% of capacity. They are building a new mill in Russia slated for 2012 that will increase worldwide capacity by about 6% coupled with the new generation capicity in Canada will reduce costs and in this business will probably be passed on to customers.

900 seems high for Q1 but might be right for Q2 I think they used to get a premium over market for their nbsk pulp but that dynamic no longer seems to be in effect since the subsidies started.

Say you buy a stock or 5-6 stocks at 38% of intrinsic value and its value compounds at 14.4% a year for a decade and you get paid IV at the end. You'd make 9.5 times your initial investment after a decade better than 28% after tax. I know thats kinda of pushing it in terms of patience but you have to admit that you can earn very healthy returns just buying and holding.

Buy and hold works amazingly well when intrinsic value keeps growing. Everything held equal it is by far the best way to invest unless you don't pay taxes. For the record Fairfax hasn't been near intrinsic value in the 4+ years I've owned it so maybe you are not selling at IV, you are trading in and out of a stock based on historic patterns.

http://www.pineridgewinery.com/Store They're not exactly selling 2 buck chuck

Yup thats exactly what that is an opinion of Fair value, I'm not defending CET, just showing that they're using a number thats somewhere between Book and managements opinion of Fair value.

https://www.prac.com/about-us/common-stock-appraisals.asp Based on their own numbers Fairvalue: $3265 considering 20% discount for lack of liquidity" $2610

SFK Pulp told customers in North America and Europe that its April NBSK price would rise $50/tonne. That would bring its US NBSK price to $960/tonne, while Europe was slated at $940/tonne.

I think they are effectively selling natural gas at well below marginal cost to buy oil at more than 3x marginal cost. Shareholders had the opportunity to invest in Arena if they wanted at a lower price.

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9Mzc1MzU0fENoaWxkSUQ9MzczNzQxfFR5cGU9MQ==&t=1 Sandridge slides Expected Proforma enterprise Value is 6.2 billion vs. 5.4 billion PV10 reserves using 12/31 numbers.

Sell low buy high what a brilliant strategy

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/op?s=TLT&m=2012-01 puts and calls =)

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/04/02/pfizer.bextra/index.html?hpt=T2

Awesome letter, Keep em coming! I always thought the Santa Barbara properties were Charlie's personal investment not Wesco. The best time to invest in real estate are when interest rates are high.

Eric, Cost of capital=float+debt+equity. In finance they use capm formula which uses volatility to figure out the cost of equity but that assumes beta is a useful measure for risk. Viking, Theres no way you can figure out where there portfolio will trade at tomorrow, 9 months or 5 years from now but until the soft market is over they'll get most of their growth from it so you have to make assumptions or use a range. During an average relatively calm disaster year they'll generate enough money to buy a company about the size of Zenith, buyback stock or increase portfolio holdings. (I apologize for the poor formating earlier)

"The other country we have concerns about is China. Its stimulus measures were three times that of the U.S.A and most of the stimulus funds went into infrastructure. From whatever reports we can gather, we hear that there is massive overproduction in almost all sectors, rampant speculation in real estate and that we should take with a grain of salt all government supplied economic numbers."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703416204575146041482391722.html This is great, its like the industry saying "We screwed up royally by reaching for yield and taking risks we didn't understand so now we're going to pay a bunch of advisers to gamble with policyholder money because we're totally incompetent"