Parsad

Haven't bought any Recipe or Fairfax India. I don't like Recipe and I'd rather have exposure to Fairfax India through my Fairfax holdings, where it benefits from its ownership in FI and performance bonuses from FI. Cheers!

I bought a bunch of ATCO today. First time in a few years! Cheers!

Cruise ships go to Hawaii. Not sure where Dinar is located or how convenient, but ships do definitely go to Hawaii. Cheers!

I agree! No one saw inflation coming a year ago. But you had a huge bottleneck in the supply chain, increased pressure on oil and commodities, even more pressure due to the Ukraine war and a shortage of labor. Combine that with the amount of cash on the sidelines, and you have a perfect storm of inflationary pressure. The supply chain while still somewhat stagnant is loosening. Increases in interest rates will have some influence on inflation. The Ukraine war at some point will fizzle in terms of global worry. I suspect we'll see a short recessionary environment as markets adjust and then continued steady growth. Employment is at historic lows...money is flowing...technology is continuing to advance humanity...consumers while adjusting spending, will be earning more. This is neither 1970, nor 1929...but there may be shades of such periods where we saw some dramatic corrections like 2000-2002 in tech stocks. In the meantime, I've gone from 50% cash down to 25-30% cash depending on accounts, and will probably put most of the rest to work as stocks get even cheaper. Cheers!

It's hard to go by Schiller or anything else, when government intervention distorts normal cycles. Other than 2008/2009, when P/E's fell to slightly below median levels, Schiller has been wrong on the bull market for 12 years. Only when government's stop interventionist policies will markets go to reasonable valuations. But administrations would be too afraid to just stand by and let things correct themselves. In the mean time, I agree with the idea that you buy things cheap and sell at fair value. Cheers!

Sorry All, The site had some file issues from early Sunday morning, and I didn't notice till this morning as I was busy spending the day with my nephew on Sunday. It's fixed now. Apologize for the inconvenience! Cheers! Sanjeev

Am I the only one that thinks Munger, who always looked older for his age, has recently aged better than Buffett? At 98, Munger mentally seems extremely sharp, whereas Buffett seems to have slowed down a bit at 91. Warren still looks good for 91, but he seems to be laboring a bit during the meeting now. We're so lucky to have received their wisdom for so long, hopefully they have much more time left. Cheers!

But now is a good time to have a high cash allocation? No, that would have been at the beginning of the year. Now would be the wise time to start putting some of that money to work, and put further money to work if volatility and market drops continue. You can hold cash forever, make a purchase, and have the market cut right through it shortly there after. Bottom line, and I don’t think it’s really disputable, is that holding any amount of cash for an extended period of time leads to underperformance. Even if you cherry pick the hell out of the historical data, there are very few actual prolonged periods where you’d have been better off hold it vs just rolling up the sleeves and buying something of quality at an average or better price. Yes, the main words are "extended period" and "prolonged". No one is disputing that. But selling assets as they reach intrinsic value and then waiting for fat pitches where they are below intrinsic value is not the same thing. Cheers!

First, they've avoided most of the downside their competition got hit by...so by the time interest rates finish rising, I think they would have prevented close to $1.5-2B in losses. Second, with markets and bonds both getting pummeled YTD, they have opportunity in front of them. So I imagine they will make at least $2-3B in bond gains/income and equity gains/dividends directly related to changes in the cash portfolio as they invest it. Depending on how bad things get, they may find some good acquisitions, both insurance and non-insurance, which they would not be able to take advantage of without cash in the hold co and cash in the portfolio. Net, they will have made/prevented a swing of close to $4-6B looking 2-3 years out just by moving to cash and then putting that cash to work. Cheers!

Same. I finally initiated my first positions ever in GOOGL, AMZN and DIS today. Hope they continue to fall...I was jacked up on cash and still have about 35% of my portfolio in cash after starting those positions...since we all know that cash is what stupid people hold! Cheers!

So the -13.5% or so start this year for the S&P500 is the worst since 1939, and would the 3rd worst start of the top ten in recorded history...only falling short to 1939 at -17.3% and 1932 at -28.2%! https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-rough-4-months-for-stocks-s-p-500-at-risk-of-booking-the-worst-start-to-a-year-since-1942-heres-what-pros-say-you-should-do-now-11651250525?siteid=yhoof2 Interestingly enough, in 8 of 9 years, excluding 2022 YTD, the S&P500 did not get any worse by year-end or recovered from modestly to dramatically. Only 1973, it got modestly worse by year-end. https://www.slickcharts.com/sp500/returns Doesn't mean there won't be further volatility this year...the market could drop another 20-30% from here...who knows?! But the likelihood of the market ending much worse than now by year-end is historically only around 10%. Cheers!

I've seen stranger things happen. Leverage can be dangerous...it killed Lehman Bros., it killed New Century. Even the smartest man in the world is capable of doing something incredibly stupid. What if we see a 1929 again...margin call doesn't seem so unlikely then! Cheers!

Probably why he's pissed at Bill Gates for shorting Tesla. Cheers!

I do get those! As well as the hearing aid ads. By the way, I think you meant erectile dysfunction...not distinction. I'm sure there are a few people for whom it may be distinctive, but mine would be the dysfunctional type! Cheers!

They are from Alibaba, but your and Paul's pedo comments don't help, because the algorithm rifles through words in posts and then serves ads. Keep it clean, and we won't see so many such ads. It would probably help if some of you stopped clicking on them as well. Cheers!

Please do not start this thread again in the Investment Ideas section. That section is for ticker specific ideas so we have a database of discussions about a specific stock, not broad-based country ideas like Turkey. Cheers!

Unfortunately, the ads are served by Google Adsense. Probably because of Paul and Greg's pedo comments! Because they never used to show up before that. I've deleted those posts when I've seen them, but the algorithm is serving them. I've asked them to keep those type of comments off the site. So the only way to get rid of the ads is to provide feedback to Google Adsense that they are inappropriate or ban Paul and Greg. Sanjeev

Too be expected. Most insurers will take a hit this quarter and next with the dramatic drop in bond prices. Fairfax may take the least hit of all reinsurers with so much of their portfolio sitting in shorter bonds and cash. Some of this will continue to be offset by firm insurance pricing. With rising interest rates, the risk free return versus current return on equities has to also be considered. We've seen some volatility, and a correction in the most overvalued sectors, but the overall market will continue to correct as rates continue to rise. This also bodes well for Fairfax over 2022 and into 2023...they will be able to put significant amounts of cash to work in bonds and other securities...increasing interest income, dividend income and possible capital gains. It's when shit hits the fan that Fairfax builds their reputation and book. Cheers!

There are very few celebrity chefs who can actually successfully run a food empire. I don't think McEwan is one of them. Different types of restaurants also bring different problems. Fast food franchise restaurants are run very differently than fine-dining sit-down restaurants. Mid-priced sit-down chains that are national are run very differently than fast-food or fine-dining. Catering businesses have their own set of problems. Food trucks have their issues. Some regions also cannot support fine-dining restaurants in large scale...for example Vancouver. Vancouver has a ton of rich people, but not a lot of them want to spend money on the high-end side believe it or not. Sure we have our share of people who enjoy luxury items, but high-end fine dining finds it hard to make good profits in Vancouver other than a few well-known local restaurants. Torontonians like to spend money on famous chefs and their restaurants...New Yorkers do too...and Los Angeles, Chicago, Vegas...but Vancouver really doesn't. It's why the Keg or Cactus Club do extremely well in Vancouver, but restaurants by Jean-George Vongerichten or Stefan Hartmann failed. Ask Rob Feenie who ran one of the best restaurants in Canada for over a decade...Lumiere...who sold out and decided to run the menu for Cactus Club! Part of it is the people, part is the inability to find really great staff for high-end dining, and then a lot is simply the economics of the business...food costs, staffing costs, rents, etc. New Yorkers are ok paying $100 for a steak...Vancouverites, not so much! Cheers!

100% agree with this! I think Recipe is a mess! Might be cheap on a cash flow basis, but the assets are all over the place and only a handful will grow successfully organically...The Keg, New York Fries, St. Hubert, Original Joes. They would have been better off buying a handful of great cash-flowing U.S. restaurant brands during the pandemic (Denny's, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory to name a couple) if they were going to focus on sit-down restaurants and various ad-hoc brands with 3-5 locations. A lot of these smaller brands are not franchisable. Not a right fit for me or Fairfax! Cheers!

Would you consider any permanent impairment in some of Recipe's assets...similar to most sit-down restaurant chains around the world after the pandemic? Personally, I'm more comfortable building positions in Fairfax India and Atlas at the right prices. Not that restaurants will disappear, but we've clearly seen during waves of the pandemic that the most successful restaurants have been those that can handle both in-house sales and drive-thru sales. Home delivery helps, but revenues still fall off dramatically unless you have a drive-thru. And it's quite hard to add an efficient drive-thru to say an Olive Garden or Cheesecake Factory! Cheers!

Five Guys little bacon burger, little fries and regular Coke! Other than that...nothing! Cheers!

The week before the AGM, and no one is posting? No Viking spreadsheets? No Daphne asking about estimates? No insights by Stubble? Or are you guys all on the way to Toronto or something? Cheers!

The fastest way for a billionaire to become a millionaire: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/guy-buys-nft-2-9-005000804.html Cheers!

No business in the world wants unsatisfied customers. Sure, some small business owners may not give two shits like the COBF , but larger corporate operations want happy customers...their managers want happy customers. Does complaining ever change anything at the top...rarely...perhaps in 1 in every 1000 cases. But that doesn't mean you should not complain if you are dissatisfied with service or a product. I get compensated almost every time I complain. Cell phone bill? Knock off $10 bucks next month. Cable bill? Ok give me some free movies. Hotel service? Free drinks at the bar. Airline delays or cancellations? Passenger bill of rights. Restaurant error? Comp the meal or a free one next time. Grocery bill incorrect? Free item or $10 off...it's the law in Canada. That being said, I don't complain that much...maybe once a month...ok 2-3 times a month! Cheers!