KinAlberta

I picked up some shares FNMA a number of years ago and basically ignore it. A total gamble based on court cases so I don't spend two seconds following it beyond reading maybe two or three articles over the years. Since's its OTC I can't hold it in my registered accounts. So, now, as a Canadian that can't buy this in my registered accounts and I can't buy US mutual funds, I'm just wondering if there's away for me to get an indirect/diluted exposure in FNMA and/or FMCC preferreds? Are there any publicly traded US firms (closed ends or something) holding nice large positions - or Canadian mutual funds, etc.

I always enjoyed his writings. Learned a few things too I suppose. Inc Stmt vs Bsl Sheet perspectives. In 2008/09 his video interview on banking and FASB is a classic.

6+% change due to a change in politicians? Especially an anti-pure-capitalism/anti-free trade politician - surprises me how politics seems to equate so strongly to general investment performance.

I'm wondering what the odds are that Buffett might 'retire' prior to a sale on quality companies or other major opportunities (likely recession driven) that he might buy with his ever growing cash horde. ...and if he retires one way or another BRK's share price might dip (as Buffett himself once predicted) and so the BRK cash could be deployed for buy backs...and if that isn't a consideration / competing opportunity in Buffetts mind. :) Yes, useless speculation but my mind just does that. Sorry.

We pay for the bare minimum cable. (And aim for that goal on most other things.) Will there be other ways to watch this?

Interesting topic. I hope inflation risk enters the discussion. ...and other liability risks.

Interesting comments thanks. I too first bought FFH around the same time (around 1997). ...though lately, for the first time I can recall in years if since the 1990s I am completely out of FFH. In the past I've been in and out of it but always held some shares. Compared to BRK or even say Markel, I've never had a great deal of confidence in it. I mentally place it down among Loews/CNA and Leucadia in terms of its willingness to make some pretty big but measured bets with high payoff potential but when the payoffs don't come there's nothing all too foolproof to them. BRK is more like a bank account - always building value even when the market doesn't price it in. FFH though seems to rely on turnarounds, etc. Its movements into India, etc. are great and not turnaround orientated. They are growth orientated. I guess what I'd like to see in this forum is a thread comparing BRK to FFH (and others) in terms of what seemingly makes BRK such a sustainable economic enterprise, even in tough times, compared to say FFH where one feels that its gains are more 'luck' than calculation and deeply thought and considered foresight. BTW - I am a great fan of Watsa but there's just something missing in comparison to Buffett. I'm just not too sure what.

I've commented elsewhere that anyone picking stocks should put half of the contributions into a decent index and continue to do so. Maybe into separate accounts to pay taxes on each out of each account. (I wish I had, even though I put a large sum early on into BRK._ If you can continue to do 20% a year on your stock picking, what do you care if half of your annual savings is just floating along in an index. Huge outperformance over the index will swamp the index funds in short order and you'll be so wealthy that the indexed funds will just be a relative drop in the bucket. However, if you are like most stock pickers, over a few cycles, or say 10-15 years, you'll see exactly what your after tax returns are doing in comparison to your indexed funds.

I've noticed a noticeable amount (by definition) of insider selling among Canadian bank stocks recently. Not sure if I'm just sensitive to it or if it's a real change but someone may want to look at insider behaviour for hints as to the future.

So if bidders/buyers push the Dow up to 30,000 in 'short order' (that's a highly scientific unit of time), then where is that money going to come from? If they are abandoning another asset class to do so, that may be the place to look for opportunity. If it's coming out of cash, then what are the consequences of draining cheap liquidity from the system? (...and the 2nd and 3rd order consequences?) Also, where are the sellers putting their money? Into other DOW stocks or somewhere else like cash?

He sounds like a cartain manic depressive fellow I want to sell some shares to... really strange. Yea - This is getting bizarre. I don't have any issues with the acquisition in and of itself, but the 180 degree turn on the U.S. markets as the result of the election with no commentary on rising rates, falling liquidity, strengthening dollar, declining corproate profits, levered corporations, and valuations that appear excessive certainly seems strange. If you read what he's said carefully, he hasn't done a 180 on the US markets but on the US economy. The hedges were not mainly explained in valuation (e.g. CAPE, Tobin's Q) terms. They were explained in terms of protecting the company from another 1929-33 type selloff, which would have destroyed the company in the absence of the hedges. They now feel that that kind of catastrophe has reduced in probability, because we have a quantum shift from a world in which politicians over-regulate and rely on central bankers to promote growth via leverage, to one in which (maybe) government gets out of the way and productivity drives gdp. So the hedges have gone. Doesn't mean they think the market goes up. All they've said on that front is that it will become a stockpicker's market again. Value starts to win again. I have a problem with this idea that productivity is suddenly going to go up and all ills are cured because of the election. This implies something along the following lines: As a business owner I have a project that I can execute that would that would improve productivity of my labor force and I can make me more money. Interest rates are low so I have cheap capital available. But I don't execute the project because I don't like the guy in the White House? In addition economies are large and complex mechanisms. They don't turn on a dime. You don't go from deflation risk and possibility of a great depression just because you had an election. The risk of a stock market crash definitely doesn't go down after you've had a 100% or so rally in stock prices. Others here have said things along the lines of just go with it and don't ask any questions or Prem has a master plan that shouldn't be disclosed, trade secrets etc. Please! Managements are accountable to shareholders. Strategies reflect management thinking and should be disclosed. More disclosure is required when those strategies go bad and when they are dramatically changed. Take Berkshire for example. Their strategy is well defined and well communicated. They say what they will do and do what they said and it works. The fact that the strategy is public doesn't prevent them from implementing it. If Berkshire did something radically different like go and drop 50 billion on airlines or buy Twitter you can bet we'd get a way more detailed and reasoned explanation then "Trump won the election - problem solved". So in 2010/2011 the strategy was buy quality companies at attractive prices (remember the big 3?), hedge the long portfolio and hedge against deflation (a macro call since the hedges were outsized relative to FFH risk). This was based on a view the the economy will stagnate and would be at risk of recession. Ok this is quite reasonable for an insurance company in the 2010 environment. Then they go ahead and ditch the quality companies and buy duds. Ok maybe they've made investment mistakes we're all allowed one or two of those. But one should acknowledge the mistakes, learn and correct. Then we get back to the hedges. The economy in 2014/2015 was different that the one in 2010. They look at the facts and decide that the hedges are still appropriate. They don't take even a reduction. Now you get the election and it's 180 change? I'm sorry but "Trump won the election - problem solved" is just not good enough. Actually, an economy can turn around very quickly when the animal spirits are unleashed and the correct policies are enacted. Thomas Sowell describes that in an older interview with Peter Robinson in Uncommon Knowledge that you can download or watch on Youtube. I believe it was Harding, though my memory fails, that basically did it and the economy turned on a dime with a year. And he states it's been done before. And to your point about a business owner not doing something because you don't like the guy in the White House, that's a bit simplistic. It's not the person but the policies and philosophy and it's ramifications that would gives them reason to pucker up and freeze. It happened to millions of us who were extremely wary of risking capital with such an anti-capitalist/socialist in charge. So you were "wary of risking capital" due to macro concerns? That reminds me of Grantham's attack on 'value investors' by highlighting what animal spirits brings to the table. (I should also mention that Buffett has said that value and growth are; 'two sides of the same investment coin'.)

This (see below) is my experience with his writing style. Still Came away with some interesting new perspectives.

Gold plated toilets & 18th century French furniture... I'm not so sure about that. Maybe updating the 1970s Boardroom Style.

Not sure if this has been posted anywhere yet. A Buffett interview Buffett after Trump win: '100%' optimistic about America CNNMoney Oops - I see it warranted it's own thread here: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/berkshire-hathaway/buffett-interview-on-cnn-money-11-nov-2016/

And now for something a bit lighter. :-) A very horny Dinold Trump:

yes, thanks

"most conservatives (including Trump) have no understanding of [blah, blah, blah, our hateful lunacy])" Thank god for that at least. Hilarious - "Listen 24 Hours a Day." I can't imagine listening even one minute of one day in my life, let alone a marathon 24 hour session. :-)

"Some of them were pretty darn good looking too!" ...and this observation means what? :-) Sorry, forgive me but I'm a Canadian and I don't fully understand US politics. I can only guess as to what the presence of a high ratio of pretty darn good looking" women, in Detroit, might mean.

IMO there's only one issue people really care out of three above: growing inequality. If this was solved - not easy, but if - the globalization and immigration backlash would go to the fringes at most. Same with racism and nationalism. People hate immigrants and foreign products mostly because they feel they are poor and immigrants take their jobs/wages/etc. This happens much less if society is prosperous. (And we could argue that Europe really needs immigrants with its aging and declining population, but try to tell this to Europeans right now...) Unfortunately, you might be right that situation won't improve and we will continue to have the demagogues running the racist, nationalist and possibly authoritarian tickets. We can only hope that Europe doesn't get too many of such elected. I'm more optimistic about US for now - situation here is IMO is better (even with Trump candidacy), the society more diverse, more multicultural and more accepting (even with the anti-Mexican and anti-Muslim rhetoric). A very interesting read. I'm just cherry picking below - because I'm Canadian. :-)

Not sure if this was already posted but it's a good commentary...

Don't worry about me - one sentence was all I needed. I'm a big fan of constructive, fact-based criticism of my positions. That comment was neither. Though I seldom offer up facts of any kind, I too am "a big fan of constructive, fact-based criticism." I find it much easier and quicker to talk in wistful, airy-fairy terms. :-) However I try to avoid sharp critiques because that usually just points out my own ignorance. So, speaking of which, Value^2 mentioned FFH dilution. That's an interesting angle. Does anyone have the stats on that readily at hand? As for my financial interest in FFH. I've owned it off and off since the early to mid 1990s and have held some of shares for near two decade long stretches of time, and periodically it's been a significant position. Today I own zero FFH shares. That said, I am very interested in rational fact-based valuation commentary.

For members of a site called: "Corner of Berkshire and Fairfax", I would expect to see a lot of Berkshire and Fairfax positions. :-)

What are you folks debating? Gates and Jobs are even on the list provided. I'd rate Musk as the most successful as I think he'll go down in history as bringing forth the most inspiring positive changes. The others are closer to those seen as riding this or that technological, political, financial or other trend. Musk has done this too but through considerable more creative innovation. Bezos won't get much credit for 'just being faster off the mark' on retail innovation, even if it could have taken years before someone else saw the opportunity he saw early.

The interesting things is that these issues been around since 1970s and mentioned multiple times in 1990s, 2000s, now 2010s. And very few companies (none? does GM count?) have gone under. Not saying to ignore pension issues, but so far and at least for big cos, the issues seem to have been contained or maybe kicked down the road. Apart from situations where the co was going under for other reasons already. FWIW. It sure would be interesting to see how companies dealt with the earlier 'gaming' of expected returns. I'd guess firing older workers, attrition, offshoring, mergers, conversion of pensions, etc. I don't see any great downside for management to over promising on this front.

Just throwing in one here. The first book on Buffett I read. One of the first books written about Buffett. John train had mentioned him too. Anyway, it's interesting that there are no decent reviews of this book. I guess it predates the Buffett writing bonanza. 1 cent used. A good value buy. Warren Buffett: The Good Guy of Wall Street Hardcover – September 30, 1992 https://www.amazon.com/Warren-Buffett-Good-Wall-Street/dp/155611334X