gary17

i have absolutely no idea. i see $650 now. it’s so weird. i would have thought the non cash accounting gain meant +700...

pre market $600...

I noticed China has started to buy oil with Yuan — any economists here have any thoughts as to what this means to the US / dollar / world economy ? I know this is a super broad topic. I read something on BNN that this is supposed to be good for gold price !

Can someone elaborate on what those three means ?

What would Brkshire’s net earnings be in the future with the lower tax? i am a bit confused by the one time benefit i thought most would have a one time liability and get the recurring benefits moving forward?

Prem tried to do the same with blackberry before !

Can they compound book value at 10% for five years? if they can that’s good enough for me lol

why do i feel they bought a lemon with the AWH purchase

what are people modelling for google and facebook’s 2018 tax rate?

i think i found my answers - anyway, i think the key question is if this thing can compound at 13% of book over the next 5 years... if it can and gets re-valued to 1.5x then that'll provide an attractive return.... Can rising interest rates cause a hard insurance market ?

does anyone know what is the following for FFH in $CAD/share? your guess for fairfax right now? - float - book value about $560 - net debt ? thanks

Thanks for all the posts i certainly learned a lot i had AWH shares before and have been tempted to buy but can't 100% get comfortable with whether Prem has really learned from his mistakes... and what they are thinking now... looking forward to hearing from them again soon when the results are out and then see if it gets to a even better price to enter.

rb can you explain for those without economics degree why when China runs trade surplus they need to buy T bills? thanks

fairfax is trading at more than twice book?

If I am not interested in cryptoassets but sees a use for blockchain technology... would it make sense to invest in technologies that enable blockchain rather than the crypto assets themselves? for example, i read running blockchain for any type of crypto asset requires significant processing power... would it not make sense to invest in say NVDA or AMD or even INTEL?

Pardon my ignorance — but the slow transaction of bitcoin — can that not be improved over time with faster processors / chips? That is a computer problem is it not? just like how internet was slow 20 years ago?

rkbabang- It seems hard to avoid exchanges outright as to buy a crypto one must use an exchange... right? The only other option I know of is a crypto ATM. i have been reading lots and learning and playing around with a tiny amount just so i know what's going on. still a big philosophical thing for me to see how the government couldn't just come in and say no more crypto... trump could just tweet tomorrow he's going to outlaw crypto and this thing could free fall IMO.... hmmm i haven't been convinced how it could be completely independent of government.

I assume this is USD , not CAD ! thanks:)

In addition, depreciation usually understates true maintenance capex costs. LC, can you please provide an example ? Like a very basic one - thanks

Thanks Packer, Tim-- On a related question -- so i often look at operating cash -- net income + depreciation + amortization and then subtract cap ex that's needed to make the business competitive.... i think WEB called this "owner's earning" would it make sense to add the loss on warrant derivative liability back? I also see a lot of companies use "stock based compensation" which is also a non-cash item... should that be added into the owner's earnings calculation? It's funny Warren talks about owner's earning, but I also believe I read he said don't use ebitda, use real GAAP earnings... (I guess ebitda and owner's earning not quite the same, but they are both nonGAAP TIA Gary

Thanks Tim , much appreciated --

Hi, I was wondering if someone can explain to me, in very , very simple terms, what does "warrant derivative liability" and "loss on warrant derivative liability" mean in the income statement Thanks Gary

Thanks for your responses. I guess what I am wondering is if at the time of considering the acquisition , Prem’s team did more due diligence — are they relying on financial disclosures from AWH or did they go a step further to see if things are as wonderful as they seem to be. Thanks

How do we know AWH has really been underwriting well, and not just getting lucky the past decade -- ? When I initially looked at AWH, I was also looking at Tower and AmTrust - this was like 7 or 8 years ago -- they all had a nice run, but then Tower and AmTrust are both doing very poorly now (Tower went out of business I believe). If FFH bought a lemon with AWH.... what would happen to FFH's business?

i don’t count those unrealized because that’s true for many conglomerate it could fluctuate