oldye

http://investors.sandridgeenergy.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=196066&p=irol-eventDetails&EventId=2577951&WebCastId=939817&StreamId=1407174 Was listening to the conference call; If I'm not mistaken these are 200 million dollars 5 year converts thats pay 6% and convert @ 10.85 a share. "The buyer of the proffered will not short the common" Cheers!

I find myself mixing in a lot of video w/ my general reading, fora.tv has tons of fantastic videos!

SD, Do you think they will have options trade on the Montreal exchange? They have in the past but it looks like they haven't had any since 06.

Very guilty of thumb sucking, it was trading at 13-14x earnings, had 20%+ Roe's and very interesting growth prospects...I just don't know China well enough to jump in. Good 3 part cnn interview with the CEO...that lives in the employees village which looks very clean and modern. The interview is a little dated but theres a good line where he says that profits will double in 09. I hope more Chinese companies start to follow BYD's model! http://analystpundit.blogspot.com/2009/11/byd-charlie-mungers-pick.html

Buying a Put(going short) gives you the right to put the gold to the seller at a set price...its insurance if you buy the right for 200$ you can't lose more than the 200$. Here is an example: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/op?s=GLD&m=2012-01...you can purchase the 90 put for 560$...you'd need gold to trade below 850$ sometime between now and Jan 2012 , if gold goes up you can't lose more than the 560$ you purchased the put for. That said I haven't done it yet and won't unless I buy something I want to hedge. I'd be far more interested in a poorly run, high cost, leveraged gold mining co. than the actual metal but I don't follow any mining co's so if anyone see's something interest I'd be all ears.

I'll be 62 when that happens...any guess on what Fairfax Asia will be worth? :)

Sokol recently said it was about 18 months.

Sfk trades in the pinks as an unsponsored ADR and the way my broker explained they just go and get the best price whether its on the pinks or Toronto.

This all sounds like something from a John Grisham novel.

Descendants of Shelby Davis just bought 2.5% of Fairfax. Cheers!

http://www.claimsjournal.com/news/national/2009/11/23/105514.htm

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=auc.IG6IqZSw&pos=6 25 billion dollars to build railroads in the desert...err what a low earnings yield err.

There going to be a shortage of qualified labor in the U.S starting this decade...Japan has very low unemployment and we're heading the same direction. These "corrections" do wonders for efficiencies, production per working hour was rising at a 9% rate in the U.S last quarter...will probably be even higher this quarter. The question than is...will the increase in efficiency offset the loss in income...well if 95% of the people employed last year are still employed and on average they received a 2% raise the net loss of income is only 3% overall. If a 3% drop in income results in a 10% increase in delinquencies...does than a 3% gain U.S total incomes results in a 9% drop in delinquencies? (Hell No!) Unemployment does not explain a 9% rise in delinquencies.

Sorry Eric, your right especially when the stock is below book its a no deal. I take back what I said second guessing Prem, I think the company will have an opportunistic dividend policy where it deploys capital where they think it will earn the highest return for shareholders. Right now the insurance business sucks and if they want to deploy incremental capital to shareholders because it won't organically grow at 15% its fine.

Great notes! Thanks

Dividend should be Zero plus whatever Prem and co. need to fund their charitable and other interests which I'd prefer they did by selling a little stock and using share buybacks to maintain their holding. Shareholders own the stock because we want the Davis double...We can effectively give ourselves a dividend whenever we want. A dividend at 4% of book effectively forces all investors to divest 4% of their holdings at book value. I have a retirement account where I can see myself not selling any shares for 40 years...why would I want a dividend?

Thanks Al, I got "Business as Usual" from Schwab...so hopefully they're both right and we won't see any changes.

"I think the 1940s to the 1970s is not applicable because in each case you had a large portion of the world following non-competitive (communist/socialist policies) which leads to inflation as those portions of the world are not producing very efficiently or are being destroyed by war but they are still consuming driving up prices." There is always the chance that current conditions result in similar inefficiencies in the future.

if there is a double dip...the dollar gets a lot stronger!

You can buy cheap out of the money puts that have no margin requirements and capped downside.

The deal is absolutely brilliant for Berkshire, Burlington generates about 1 billion dollars in free cashflow per year..if you assume they grow it by by a mere 10% per year in 15 years you end up with a 4 billion dollar cash machine backstopped with 80 billion dollars worth of real estate. You could just tell from the smirk on his face that this why he gets up in the morning!

Hedging isn't is anything free...Berkshire is rich enough to accept the volatility and profit from it, if anything Fairfax's success predisposes them to hedging and I'm sure they'll be extra careful. I

These things bare no more risk than U.S treasuries which are also taxable yet yield 54 million dollars per year vs 33 million for 30 year treasuries... thats 630 million over 30 years

California's economy is bigger than India's...7.2% yield more than compensates for the chance of default which for all practical purposes is zero.

Thanks t-bone!