dealraker

All the successful business owners both large and small around here have signs on the door: FOR SALE! 4% BONDS ARE OUR GOAL! And the guests on CNBC are increasingly not SAAS investors or Woods types but sold-out-of-stocks people seeking addtional funds for fees. "SALE NOW AND RUN TO SAFETY" is the chant, the underlying "you can't make it without me" is of course obvious. Bruce is on the same relentless path: Cover-up the bad, show-case the good. Life today "in plain English" as we state down here in our state.

Dinar I bought a small amount of VRSK in 2010 for my wife's account. A sound business it seems...with a probably deserved valuation.

Given that I began this thread complaining about the NSC derailure? This indicates why I diversify, my knowledgable brilliance shines based on the first chart. LOL! Again, when you look in the mirror and don't see Warren...then you aren't Warren. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/02/28/train-history-charts/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWJpZCI6IjQyMTM3MTQiLCJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNjc3NjQ2ODAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNjc4OTM5MTk5LCJpYXQiOjE2Nzc2NDY4MDAsImp0aSI6ImY3MGE4NzM0LTk2ODYtNGQ3Zi1hY2M2LWE4YjAxNGY2NDc2YyIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS9uYXRpb24vMjAyMy8wMi8yOC90cmFpbi1oaXN0b3J5LWNoYXJ0cy8ifQ.1lFK3tPUbMpoamiLeGzpzRXY1bAqoGqmIFqTrQvTmIQ

And held my nose for her account on this one: 03/01/2023 Buy 125 NSCPopup NORFOLK SOUTHERN COR @ $225.7099 -$28,213.74 Dinar, I make no sense to myself or anyone else sometimes. As usual I'm investing where I think I have almost no chance of losing over time - and thinking the so-called upside will as they say "take care of itself" and such. To some degree I think AJ Gallagher has the probability (odds) to do better than Berkshire while Berkshire has more odds not to be derailed by some future competition model (than AJG).

...and... 02/27/2023 Buy 445 BRK'BPopup BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC SERIES B NEW @ $303.7299 -$135,159.81

For Angela's taxable account a couple of days ago: 02/27/2023 Buy 90 AJGPopup ARTHUR J GALLAGHER & CO @ $184.8999 -$16,640.99

I liked the brevity of the letter this year. The annual meeting will be great as always.

Buffett has been considered old now for 30 years, many think far too old to be hanging in there. In some ways I don't disagree with this. Buffett's letters have too greatly disappointed many for 30 years now as apparently he wrote things at some point long ago that stimulated people, their first dose...the one they remember and want more of. Ahh...the older we get...the better we were! I just can't wait for the next CEO superstar to be called "the next Buffett" and such. Or to watch the obsessed upon tech stock that slightly falls and we all buy more and more of, you know the ones that 20 years later have no returns. Isn't all of this the same thing? Life is great...if you can stand it. My cyncial side this a.m.

At some point you'll get a drastic x-years xoutperformance for bonds over Coke. Absolute certainty. Don't settle for less.

Not only that but we have literally hours of open discussion coming at the annual meeting.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote Warren Buffett a letter telling him to sell all his stocks, including Berkshire, and sit in cash and shorter term bonds for a while waiting on the inflation and recession to end. I got a letter back, Warren wrote, "Charlie, you've lost your shit dude. Man-up, business is business and I don't sell then stand outside the door and watch during downturns hoping to buy back later." I just wrote back, "This guy...his online name is change...well, he's got me so shook-up I'm shakkin in my boots!" Can't wait for Warren's reply! LOL, being silly. Life is great if you can stand it! A tad too much coffee and Berkshire's annual report this a.m.

The absolute sure thing, certain to make you feel like a market genius, is that if you blow out of your stock portfolio enough then eventually you will nail it. Then you can come right here and post repeatedly your cash position... ...to those who in the long run who will have multiples more money than you.

Yes but again I'm not Warren Buffett. I just sold AN, I'd bought it in the financial crisis. But I didn't sell it for any of the reasons you mention above.

I'm 68 and I learned a long, long, long, long time ago not to sell stocks. If you look in the mirror and don't see Warren Buffet then you aren't Warren Buffett. Check out my Brookfield comments, I've owned that for 4 decades. Most hold a few stocks, those they complement and promote. When the promotion and compliments end they sell those stocks and buy new ones. Me? LOL, not me.

I'm onboard with that comment pupil, but not only is there potential for a change in legal prescedent (either political party could press this issue given a sense for potential votes), it is likely just as you state above that the stock price will have periodic plummets from fear. Or maybe even 2 or 3 years of far lower valuation. And where will the buybacks be? Nowhere because the company isn't going to buy back stock now. They never do when the stock falls or when there is extended business fears. New era railroading. Do the momentum dance until it explodes...then run and hide. And you can be sure, at least I think it is certain, that operating ratios are headed higher as is regulation.

So here in Linwood NC we got a NSC yard some 40 years ago. For a long time you could go sit in the tower and watch the system work. It was a simple and logical model to watch --- the cars slide off this or that rail then using gravity reposition onto another track into another lineup. But what mostly stood out was the inspections and maintenance going on. Each car had its own inspection, there wasn't a single one that didn't get this. Now the yard is still there and the 28 or so tracks still get used as in the past. But there's bacially no one there anywhere to be seen. Many of the engines/cars sit in the same spots for over a year. We know this because we kayak over to the yard under an arched trestle right into the middle of the RR yard several times a year.

Xerxes exactly. It became Chainsaw Al Dunlap. Hunter got up in the morning and began smoking and drinking coffee for the rest of the day. I think his base thinking was sound but then maybe there was too much stimulation, too much intensity and lack of clear thinking. In the end, given if one of these things doesn't blow up the ship completely, my view is that railroad investors got a bunch of return very fast--- all at the expense of getting no returns for years afterwards. Given I'm a buy/hold type there's absolutely no gain in the excess HH behavior. Again his original moves made a lot of sense. The same at CSX in my view, even with Ward as CEO they still were off base with a lot of their excesses, particularly self-promotion. When you are running trains full of explosive stuff, maybe cancer causing crap, through congested areas I don't think you have any option but to obsess over maintenance. It is no different than the way Buffett/Jain run insurance with Berkshire, you've got to plug in the inverse thinking of: What is it that we don't want?

As some of you may have read or enjoyed, old dealraker has done a serious dance as to grievance regarding particularly Norfolk Souther's business model of: Cut employees Cut employees benefits Cut lines End capital expenditures (exaggeration...but close) Cut expenses (particularly maintenance) Cut rail yards (I have a former yard, a fairly recent one, empty across the lake from me) Do creative top management plans Buy back stock Buy back stock increasingly as the stock price rises Slow buying back stock when the price falls STOP buying back stock when the stock plummets Borrow large sums of money to fund said buybacks above Tout (definition: sell in an aggressive manner) the proverbial one variable called "efficiency ratio" to the dumb, stupid, and easily manipulated idiot envy crowd Watch the above crowd obsessively compete with one another referencing said efficiency ratio in online forums until it causes knowledgable people to laugh while peeing in their pants Then? Enjoy the BLOW UP. While the entire world obsesses over "beating the market"; hyper referencing one variable ranking metrics like "efficincy ratio"; choosing idiot hero's like Hunter Harrison..... It has been clear for years and years and years that Berkshire's Burlington had the better railroad operating model. Not slightly better, but hugely superior. It is just that "I want it all...and I want it now...and if you don't give it to me I'll cry like a baby" stockholders flock to one-variable rankings so they can one-up one another with how idiot-like they can dance. My NSC stock, an 82 plus year family holding, is going to get precisely what it deserves and what its chanting shareholders deserve. The grievance dance will go from operating ratio envy to lawsuit/collapse/survival obsession. My morning rant while I laugh out loud. I would have sold NSC years ago if it was in a tax free account and I sell stocks about once every five years. This "puppy" is a joke, run by jokers. Two cups of coffee...and I express myself. Those of you who own Berkshire and get frustrated that it doesn't "keep up" at times? Damn people, be glad you own Berkshire! As usual this is conversation for me and I'm not checking for gramatical or spelling. Have a good day. We are off the rails for a 2nd time with NSC.

So I bought the lake lot next door at retail asking price (my family developed this area) of $5,000 then the lot next to it that I live on for $7,500. Pretty sure there have been times when I'd have trouble selling either lot for what I paid - inflation adjusted - we've had some bang up downturns being where 15,000 furniture jobs vanished (in a community then of 130,000). Although I have no biological children I come from a big family, we simply said long ago, "If we have things for sale, either in the stores or company property, everybody pays the same thing...the market determines it." So I didn't get discounts on building materials either. Today? I could get $250,000 to $300,000 per lot if the house wasn't on one of them. Kinda the same way I invest, try to get things that over time will go up at some rate. But I never think in terms of beating the market or selling one day. So we are probably born engrained to do this or that and it may really be impossible to chage it.

Wined up and such when I read this so the response goes "of course" and such. I may be in the HIW yield view rather than bonds as much although I did to 100k into PFF a few months back, but its the same thing. Remember I'm the guy who inherited $3500 of Berkshire; watched it all the other stocks in the trust get feed to death by the banks trust dept giving me less money (excluding Berkshire) almost 15 years after inheritance so I do know the stall word. Yet then... Maybe we got to a point of several hundred times the inheritance? Yea. So again, my view is simple: "Pick your starting point...and live with it." Is now a great starting point? No. No! Maybe NO! But in the end we are slammed endlessly with those promoting Bitcoin; those saying Brookfield is selling at 50% of intrinsic; Elon/Tesla is God...any price anytime is good; "I can buy, then sell, and do far better"; people investing in mutual funds, which don't do well...yet these investors do 30% as well as the fund buying and selling it; somebody screaming at me here that I'd have done better in a zero cupon for the last almost 50 years; and whatnot other scrambled eggs. I'm just the oddball old dude who says: If you buy and hold you won't go old and poor...and it actually is an option in real life, not just in those old books on the shelf you read that nobody pays any attention to. But if you do this at some point at some time somewhere somehow you do have to choose a starting point. To be honest no starting point to me has "felt good" for the last near 50 years.

Agreed, but not my decision. The older guys run the show. However, they have done an incredible job over the last 50 years so... I wasn't even aware of either until this was brought up 3 months ago. While it is a small position I'll relay the VWO .08 to them. They'll likely swap.

As to predictions of trouble while I was certain most banks were going to collapse by 2005 I was as wrong as the next guy in the end. Completely missed the overall senerio. I was astonished at what happened to Cathay and East West.

change I added to BAC at $32-and-something --- and Wells when it was lower than now- but can't remember the price. I also added to two banks I've owned since their IPO's: Cathay (CATY since about 1990 or so) and East West (EWBC since 1999). EWBC has gone up a lot since a few weeks ago, Cathay a tad. I had intended to buy HOPE, but just literally forgot about it. My family business wanted to buy something Asian, not much of this "something", and had bought HOPE. But almost immediately they decided to change to an index - chosing EEM. The feeling was the anti-Asian thing was maxing out giving things related to Asia low prices. It was a small endeavor, almost a speculation.

I'm not sure if he had rigid in/out thinking such as book value but surely that was part of the model. I think it was more of the times...and we all from time to time know and discuss this in our online Berkshire forums...when Berkshire just got left behind in a meaningful way. Then, again and as we all know this happens, there are very brief times when Berkshire goes up in parabolic (modest parabolic) fashion. In any event lerner, he'd mention it to me (he's in my investing club) and I ALWAYS agreed with his decisions. I thought his thinking was absolutely logical. I personally wasn't interested in doing it, but under a different umbrella of life I'd have been right there with him. And on top of this while I'm not a trader I thought of this as one of the most logical "trading" things I'd ever been aware of. The deal is now....the post Buffett years will come...and then it may or may not be a pattern any longer.

Spek, just for your perspective...I was screaming at my family to sell their bank stocks by 2005. And I mean asshole like in their face about it. As you know I was buying banks (that I already owned) a few weeks ago.