Cageyone

In 1990 my investment advisor who I had known for over 20 years told me he had gotten to know Prem as a person of the highest integrity. So I bought my first 500 FFH shares at under $14 CDN. I was always a “lazy” buy and hold investor and acquired more shares since then. It has definitely been a bumpy ride, but now FFH is more than 60 % of my portfolio. And I sleep nights because of Prem’s integrity and the integrity of the team he’s built. So based on watching FFH for over 30 years, in my view the FFH team is a solid 8.

Sounds too good to be true! Can anyone point to some negative articles on Tesla?

FFH up again today in a down market! So is it becoming the "all-weather" stock we've all been waiting for?

As a buy-and-hold value investor I should have held onto our purchased-new 1967 VW Westfalia Camper Van. As the last year of the original VW bus design, they’re currently worth a small fortune! My current “value investment vehicle” is a 1997 Jaguar XK8 convertible which I’ve had for about three years. Not only is it fun to drive (weather permitting) but I can also convince myself that it is a “work of art”. Plus it seems to be holding its value (which is about what the rest of my investment portfolio did in 2015!). But as it is totally impractical for someone living in a northern snow belt, my “daily driver” is a 2010 four-wheel drive Yukon SUV.

With 60% of my tax sheltered portfolio in FFH, I’ve come to expect “lumpy” results. So after adjusting for minimum mandatory withdrawals (and in $Cdn) 2013 was +19.1%, 2014 was +24.8%, and 2015 was +2.5%! But as a long term buy and hold forever (read “lazy”?) investor, my CAGR since 1999 has been 8.1% -- exactly in line with the 8% factor I used back in 1996 when trying to decide whether I could afford to retire in 1999 at age 58. So no serious complaints or regrets!

Hi fellow "long investor"! Thanks to the lower 2016 minimum RRIF withdrawal rules, I think I have cash for the year. But sometimes a stock just keeps going and I should sell some more! Valient was a prime example this year. I sold some when it was at a 52 week high at $170 Cdn. And I should have followed "my rule" when it topped $300 and sold some more, before it returned to its current $160!

I should probably learn to lighten up a bit on names when they touch 52 week highs!

Have any of FFH's previous investments involved life insurance, or is this a first?

Daphne, I’ve been waiting to hear from “the wise ones” too! I’m far from being a “wise one”, but I’m probably one of the most heavily invested, with FFH being over half of my equity portfolio. And as a long-term “buy and hold” guy, I’m also probably one of the most inactive (read “lazy”?) ones on the Board! However, for what it’s worth I do a weekly portfolio valuation. And back on March 19 when FFH more or less peaked, FFH was 55.0% of my portfolio – and my overall portfolio was up 24% year-over-year. So nine months later on December 11, FFH was still 54.8% -- even though my overall portfolio was down 4% year-over-year. So in a generally down market FFH held up reasonably well considering that about 15% of my portfolio is in energy and other commodity names. And of course in hindsight, I should have been a little less lazy back in March and taken at least something off the table!

I just got diagnosed with "Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea" and last night was my first night on a CPAP device -- not a great experience! (Long time getting to sleep and frequent awakenings -- but interestingly, I do feel "brighter" this morning!) So does anyone have some tips on how they have "learned to love" their CPAPs so that they are better able to deal with investment decisions?

This prognosis suggests that "Mr. Market" still has a long way to go down! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/youre-feeling-bullish-last-weeks-133916109.html

Pretty convincing support for Prem's thesis from David Stockman! So are the key questions "when?", "how bad?" and "is FFH the best place to be?"

So far there doesn't seem to be a lot of selling going on!

Another sobering look at the deflation scenario... http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/business/topstories/is-u-s-fed-chair-janet-yellen-creating-a-zombie-economy-1.3050229 But as a consumer, the current negligible interest rates enticed me last week to upgrade my 2005 Toyota for a 2015 model, financing the difference for 0.99% over four years. And the dealer only made about $1,000 over his cost (and he swallowed the cost of bringing the vehicle from another dealer 150 miles away!)

Yet another sobering view... http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/topstories/why-wobbly-world-markets-are-more-worrying-than-oil-don-pittis-1.3034038

Are Canadian brokers into this "game"? I'm considering a new car purchase and rather than selling securities in a taxable account I'm considering a Scotiabank car loan at 3.99 percent. So are there Canadian brokers offering a significantly lower rate on securities backed loans?

Kind of interesting that no one other than "compounding" has suggested that a Value Investor might consider a vintage/collectable (in his case a Ferrari) as an appropriate investment! In my case about 3 years ago I got a Jaguar XK8 Convertible privately at a good price and it continues to hold its value -- and it's incredibly fun to drive and is absolutely drop-dead gorgeous! But on a more practical note on the past 3 new vehicles I have purchased I've gone to several dealers with the Car Cost Canada dealer cost sheet and told them they would get exactly $1,000 over wholesale cost net of any manufacturer incentives. So then the only debate is how much they will give me for my trade and the dealer with the highest trade-in offer wins the deal!

As a semi-serious photographer I've never used an iPod or BlackBerry camera. Instead I always carry a high quality pocket-sized compact camera with a decent optical zoom and an SD card. The quality and flexibility is so much better!

I got a Playbook shortly after they came out and found it far superior to my previous Android tablets. So when I heard they were going out of production I got two more! I started following BlackBerry technological advances and decided to get a Z10 as a shirt pocket Wi Fi device and later a Passport. Both are amazing in terms of predictive typing for emails and the potential for linking to my desktop (e.g. through Blackberry Blend with the Passport) and BBM as an instant messaging service. Ironically I'm still using a 10 year old flip cell phone on which I have a lot of prepaid time as I try to decide whether to transfer the prepaid time to the Z10 or the Passport. From most reports the BlackBerry technology is superb but is not well known, perhaps due to the fact that most of the marketing for the past year or so has been "word of mouth"!

Hi FFH Watcher! Although I'm a Newbie on this Board, I've probably been around as long as almost anyone, having acquired my first FFH shares in 1990 at under $14 CDN. I've only made it to one AGM, about 6 years ago, when I spoke personally to Prem and told him that because of his philosophy and principles I was over 40% in FFH. He responded that he was over 90%, which as given me a lot of confidence to stay with the "lumpy ride" both up and down. However, I'm realistic enough to accept that the exceptional performance over the past year or so won't necessarily be repeated again over the short term!

Thanks for your thoughts! My dilemma is that I currently hold no Berkshire but FFH is now slightly more than 50 percent of my portfolio. So I'm wondering whether I should swap some of my Fairfax for Berkshire.

So in the event of a global tsunami, which will weather the storm better - Berkshire or Fairfax?

This video and the Bridgewater Associates website got me thinking as to whether Prem has also achieved an "All Weather Fund" - since while the market is down 3.5 percent since its high last week, FFH is up by about the same amount! http://www.bwater.com/home/research--press/the-all-weather-strategy.aspx

Slight correction to my last post! It was Hydrogen Peroxide (not hydrogen chloride) is the natural anti inflammatory agent that my wife's doctor used intravenously to help control inflammation.

Dr. Mark Hyman, MD has written a number of recent books including "The UltraMind Solution" documenting a lot of the science behind how relatively simple changes in diet, supplementation (and the negating of a variety of environmental factors) can have an absolutely profound impact in controlling a wide variety of chronic diseases, including even autism and dementia. We have had relevant first hand experience in that 17 years ago my wife was suddenly and almost entirely immobilized by rheumatoid arthritis. The first "traditional" rheumatologist we saw said that her symptoms were so advanced that she would be in a wheelchair within 5 years. Yet today we just spent 4 hours hiking a mountain trail in southern Arizona! We had the incredible good fortune of finding an MD in 1998 who, like Dr. Hyman, had had personal experience with the incredible power of diet, supplementation etc. to reverse their own serious chronic disease issues. The doctor immediately took my wife off all sugar, all wheat products and all dairy for a period of several months. A wide variety of vitamin and mineral deficiencies were identified and corrected. Chelation therapy using the amino acid EDTA was used to eliminate an overload of both mercury and lead, and intravenous hydrogen chloride was used to help control the general level of inflammation. My wife still needs to watch her diet to stay away from gluten and she continues on a vitamin and supplement regimen. But she has more energy than I do and was setting the pace on today's hike that had a cumulative altitude gain of over 1,200 feet starting at an elevation of around 4,000!