bizaro86

That's not what I meant because it doesn't raise the issue that I mentioned of the shareholder not knowing how to allocate the cash. I had my head stuck in the past when I remember he had addressed the topic back when dividends were asked for. But yes, beginning the sentence the way I did was prone to confusion. My point is that the shareholders similarly wouldn't know what to do with the shares distributed. Acknowledging that WEB will never break up his life's work (and he's earned that right, imo), shareholders wouldn't have to do anything if they didn't want to. Exactly like now.

There are tons of businesses inside BRK that would be big enough to stand alone. The energy business and the railroad would both be among the largest in their fields.

Spin offs create value all the time, mostly by improving capital allocation across businesses. That hasn't been an issue under WEB. But his time is closer to the end than the start, and BRK is pretty complicated now.

Congratulations!

It could be a Total Return Swap that they're short. Those have a fixed duration/maturity and there can be a fee for exiting the position early if they can't find another buyer since the instruments are bespoke and over the counter. That being said, I'm sure whatever fee would've been owed would've been less than losses on Tesla so far so I dunno. If it is a Tesla TSR, I would imagine every time they considered exiting the fee to exit seemed like it was more than their exposure to future losses. "How much higher can this money losing, capital intensive cyclical business go?!?!" I actually think Tesl might be getting close to a top here. After the S&P inclusion, who is the new marginal buyer? I've never shorted it, because the risk reward has always seemed poor. I might buy a few way out of the money puts now.

I offered in person or virtual showings for a November 1 vacancy. Uptake on virtual showings was very low - only one person wanted that and it was because they were relocating from a distant city. They ended up taking it, so that can work, but most people want to see the place they're going to live with their own eyes before committing.

Thanks, Pete. So the total position is still deeply under water, to say nothing of the time value of money. Oh well, at least it's moving in the right direction. SJ I would strongly suggest never including the time value of money in your assessment of Fairfax's investments, unless you have a stiff drink to hand. Atlas may be an exception. Yes, a potential investor would be well advised to simultaneously initiate a position in Fairfax Financial and Corby Distilling. SJ Lol. If Prem would just have bought defensive staples like Corby for the last 10 years the mood in this thread would be a lot different.

Make sense though. Large city with many renters, large population of young and single people and high cost. But I bet Seattle suburbs are white hot. I'm throwing 700k cash offers at 3bed/1bath 1,000 sq ft houses in the east bay of San Francisco. I'm not even competitive apparently... Suburbs have largely lacked the price appreciating that Appartement or houses in the city areas had. I lived in Long Island and now in Boston area and in both cases, houses were still below ~2005 prices. I think RE in thr city core might have doubled with8b the same time frame. If this trend reverses, it could have a long way to go, but I somehow doubt that it will. Actually good bay area suburban housing has been on fire since a couple of years after the GFC. The suburban city of Burlingame (17 miles south of San Francisco) has seen a 2.5X price rise for single family homes in the last 10 years (Dec-2010 to now). That is annualized appreciation of nearly 10%. If you take last 25 years for this suburb that number comes to about 7.5% annualized which is rivaling S&P returns (without dividends reinvested of-course). https://www.zillow.com/burlingame-ca/home-values/ For comparison San Francisco (SF) has appreciated "only" 2X in the last 10 years for single family homes (7.5% annualized) and about 4X in the last 25 years (for a return of 6% annualized). SF Zillow: https://www.zillow.com/san-francisco-ca/home-values/ SF Case Shiller: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SFXRSA If you bought a house with no leverage (and thus only received that unleveraged appreciation) I think its pretty likely the net cash flow from rent (or rent avoided) would have been at least comparable to the dividends received from the S&P.

I went to the top program at the best magnet high school in my Canadian city. We had 30 grads my year. All stayed in Canada and are very successful on average except the valedictorian, who went to Stanford and lives in Silicon Valley now. There are more high end Canadians moving to the US than vice versa, no matter how much people complain about your politics. But data is better than anecdotes, and Liberty's newsletter had a great graph on this a few weeks ago. https://libertyrpf.substack.com/p/44-my-thoughts-on-investment-style Basically, the US is by far the biggest net recipient of immigration by inventors, and its not even close.

The big benefit the US gets from its inequality is quality immigration. Because of the high end opportunity, many people with high end talent move to the USA, realizing that is the best place for them to monetize their talents. That generates huge spin off benefits.

The other pro of waiting for a bit to raise the inclusion rate (aside from the fairness argument) is that it would generate tons of current year tax revenue. If they up the inclusion rate I would probably sell some long-held multi-baggers to lock in the lower rate on previous gains. I would also try and sell some real estate for the same reason, although that would depend how much time they gave. Tons of people would do the same, triggering a one-year tax windfall.

I would just ask how much has Fairfax lost on shorts since this article was published?

Maybe warrants on Canadian juniors? There are few trading iirc. Fits the lottery ticket request, anyway.

There s a good saying, "if it drives, flies, floats, or fucks, rent it"... That said, I totally agree with rkbabang as a boat owner. Expensive, but totally worth it. Buddy of mine says that BOAT stands for Bust Out Another Thousand! Get a used sailboat from the 70s or 80s. Someone else owned it through the steep part of the depreciation curve. They're the cigar butts of the boating world. If you really want to be frugal you can buy one for not much more than the scrap value of the lead keel. Of course then you need to learn how to sail. I bought a 2007 Sea-Doo Utopia jetboat. 20' bowrider with dual 155hp engines and the best part for lake boating: no prop to damage. Floats in just over a foot of water. The "prop damage" issue is one reason it might make sense to own rather than rent. I decided against renting a boat this summer when I checked the reviews for the only marina on the lake with rentals. A huge percentage of the reviews said they had been charged their full $1000 damage deposit for damaging the prop. I'm sure that happens with renters, but the frequency was such that either they have a gravel bar they don't mention right out front or they're scamming people. So we went go-karting instead.

+1

Took some money off the table on "risk on" names. Reduced AER, TZOO, and a tiny bit of ALX.

Hey, that's worth a prize too if you are right. ;D Cheers! I'm either going to be exactly right or 100% wrong, which is an excellent position to take for a contest! ;) I think a late 2021 IPO of Anchorage, the Bangalore Airport holdco is likely, but that's FIH not FFH...

My guess is no Fairfax sub will have gone public by Q2 2021.

I agree low to mid single digits on equities should be easy, but it would have been easy to do a lot better than they did on equities the last 10 years as well. If they changed their approach to buying "easy singles" and just bought the low multiple large caps you mention their returns would almost certainly be fine. Is there evidence they will stop doing their "swing for the fences on structurally distressed" style of investing?

Good question. I'd like her to be nurtured around nice people, but they need to have common sense. There’s two kind of private schools. The catholic ones. And the none catholic ones. The none catholic ones can be a lot more liberal than the public ones. The catholic ones have their problems too, like half of the kids don’t have immunizations. I noticed some schools are called Catholic and some schools are called Christian. I wonder if they are different? Generally speaking a "Catholic" school is operated by Catholics, and a "Christian" school is operated by Protestants. If you have a religious preference between the two presumably you'd go that way. If you don't, I doubt the differences would be meaningful.

I agree with this. I did International Baccalaureate, which is a similar idea. In a big public school, but all my classes were with the same 40-50 kids (out of the 700 person graduating class). And it was a relatively high achieving group. The 20 of us that did the full program are basically all high end professionals now. That's probably true at a good private school as well, but the diversity wouldn't be as good. There were multiple kids of C-suite executives at billion dollar firms, but mostly it was middle class parents. There was also a pretty significant contingent of kids from "immigrant families that strongly value education." My friend whose parents worked janitorial at the same hospital he now works out of as a dermatologist would be an example there. Having a spread of experiences is useful. You don't appreciate the used Toyota if all your friends have new sports cars. But you do when some of them take 1.5 hour bus rides to the other side of town...

I don't live in the US, so maybe this anecdote doesn't apply. But I went to private school for junior high, and a local public high school (magnet school though) for high school. The public high school was better, and it wasn't close. It was also ~10k/year cheaper. Now I have kids, and while I'd be willing to pay for private if I thought it was necessary, the compounded value of 15k/year/kid puts buying them each a condo/house for cash after university in the same cost ballpark. Anyway, I think switching districts or finding a good public program might be an option to consider. My kids are in a specialized (language) program even in elementary, so they have smaller class sizes than average.

I think they would take sports betting reinsurance if there was a market. They did the March Madness bracket contest, which is similar.

For Dillard's specifically I don't know. You might be able to back it out by comparing cash received from selling PP&E from profits from PP&E sales if they report that as a one time gain.

I don't think column C should be the cash received from the sale of PP&E, but rather the undepreciated balance sheet value (ie original cost basis) of the PP&E sold. It isn't likely that they are the same.