Parsad

Buffett and Businesswire will be ringing the NYSE bell on September 30th to celebrate Businesswire's 50th Anniversary. Cheers!

all Buffett did was give him the Option of buying back his stock. He never said it was a certainty. Tilson doesn't make much sense here. Buffett knows that anything can and will happen in markets. If we do get a repeat of 2009 Buffett will just do whatever is rational "at the time". Sometime I wonder why people have to write something every time Buffett sneezes. He sneezed?! When? I didn't read anything about it. ;D Cheers!

I believe #2. Insurance premiums are hardening. Rail traffic continues to increase and Buffett believes that housing will stabilize and turn up in the next couple of years...thus Berkshire's various subsidiaries related to housing are going to turn. Berkshire became one of our largest holdings a few days ago. And that was simply because the operating subs should be trading at 1.5-2 times book value...the entire company was trading at about book. So you have the best insurance businesses in the world, along with some of the best non-insurance businesses in the world, all trading at book value. It was as ridiculously cheap as it was in February 2000. Cheers!

They did the exact same thing in 2000...the last time the stock was so cheap. I expect it to outperform the S&P500 for the next year now! Cheers!

Just saw the movie on the weekend. Think it's the best movie of the year. Believe it or not, Brad Pitt was pretty damn good as Billy Beane...Oscar worthy! Cheers!

Funny animated video of Mark Zuckerberg explaining Groupon to Warren Buffett. Cheers! http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/09/23/business/100000001069282/ipo-blues.html

Finally, somebody is brainstorming at Sears. Lately we've seen a number of ideas implemented that they should have done long ago, including licensing their core brands to other retailers, and now subleasing store space inside their Sears stores. Cheers! http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/news/2011/09/23/sears-to-sublet-store-space.html?ana=yfcpc

Here is BH's reply after Cracker Barrel instituted a poison pill. He can't go over 10% now, so I don't know exactly what change he's going to effect. Cheers! http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/93859/000092189511001847/ex991to13da407428021_092311.htm

Yup, those are ok, but nothing copyrighted. Thanks!

Nope. Not going to happen. Twcowfca is a book publisher, so ask him how he would feel about that or his authors. So, please do not attach any copyrighted material, otherwise it will be deleted. Anyone found transmitting copyrighted material to other board members through the site, will have their memberships deleted with no warning. Cheers!

It's sort of the same thing as why are derivatives allowed? Why are stock options allowed? It serves a purpose, although less so in terms of HFT. The geniuses behind Wall Street like to get creative, seeking out any way to get an edge, so you have such innovation...if you can call it that! Once there is enough people on the bandwagon, then as Given said, they carry much more clout by the dollars behind them and the lobbyists they hire. And once they are entrenched, you cannot get rid of them. Thus even more important to not follow the herd. Cheers!

Sanjeev, I respect your opinion a ton. With that being said, for Tim's performance, we are not talking about the short term. 14 years through an environment that has (mostly) favored the value style. Heck, with a small asset base, he could of bought a variety of indexes and done better. He didn't even beat the benchmark he chose. You might very well be right that over 20-30 years he'll do better. His long term track record would suggest otherwise. He also seems like a pretty decent fellow. You know him much, much better than I'm sure I ever will. However, if someone would've had faith in him and invested from when he first started his firm (according to his track record), he would have done them a disservice. On top of that, best I can tell, he is not like Chou and lowering his fees. So...he basically did a pretty bad job after taxes and still wants to get paid quite handsomely. I don't know how ethically sound that really is. Hi Paul, The underperformance came almost solely from one year of damage...2008. If you looked at his track record until then, it was one of the best in the industry. So he got hit bad in one year...and now he has to gain it all back, just like Mohnish or Prem did. But if there was one guy I would bet on to do that, it would be him. And if any investors were with him from day one, they should be doubling down on the guy right now, or moving other investments to him. In regards to the fee, I agree with that. I'm not a fan of the "1 & 20" or "2 & 20" type fee structure, simply because of outlier years like a 2008. If you miscalculated, then you don't eat until you make it all back. Unfortunately, Tim is not unique in this but the industry as a whole works this way. Any mutual fund, most hedge funds, etc, operate exactly the same. Tim, his family and his staff, all have most of their investments in the McElvaine Trust. I think that helps a bit in regards to the compensation structure, since he has taken the same hit as every one of his partners. For me, and this is a personal choice, honesty & ethics come first, then investment management philosophy and finally compensation structure. The latter two don't matter if you don't have the first two. Cheers!

Not me! Volatility doesn't bother me. We aren't leveraged, we don't short and we've bought alot of quality businesses at discounted prices in the last couple of months. I've still got cash and am buying things I like. Cheers!

The money they allocate would be the capital outside of my Fairfax shares. They know not to sell those! Cheers!

I think you will probably see something as well. Cheers!

This analysis is excellent -- consistent with assertions (but obviously much more expansive) I made in debate with some on this board over 1 year ago. For those of you who get turned off by his reference to a "long wave cycle," ignore the terminology and understand the dynamics. One can argue about whether the economy operates as precisely as he suggests (although Dalio admits he has simplified the analysis) but the dynamics he explains are very real. Investors who fail to understand the analysis are "like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest" (to borrow a favorite from the real Munger). There are no dynamics behind the "long wave cycle". It's just nonsense. You can fit any argument into almost any set of statistics. For example, when you made the original argument around September 1, 2010, the S&P500 was at 1,100. It then rose to well over 1,300, before correcting back to slightly above where it was. You can make two arguments here from one set of statistics...either you were wrong, and the market rose to 1,300, or you were right and it corrected to where it was. What is the correct answer? Neither, because the market does not make sense in the short-term and none of us are buying the market. Based Berkowitz public comments, I'm inclined to believe he is/was ignorant of the realities presented in this analysis. He'll never make as much money as he originally anticipated in BAC, with returns relative to alternative common stock opportunities not so good. Although at $6, maybe BAC is a great investment -- I personally don't know either way but I'm still cautious about investing in banks that are still heavily levered, even if "only" 10:1. And the only way Berkowitz will make meaningful money in his BAC investment is if the Fed induces significant inflation through money printing but even then the returns in real terms will be paltry relative to the alternatives. Buffett, on the other hand, stands to do quite well under almost any scenario except complete armageddon. I asked Mohnish what he thought of Buffett's investment and if Buffett was simply making a preferred bet like GE or GS. He said, no definitely this time Buffett is making a bet on BAC stock. He's protected through the preferreds, but the warrants aren't simply a kicker this time, but were integral to the investment. Why? Because with GE and GS he was getting interest comparable to quality equity investments he could make. With BAC, he's tied that capital up now at a 6% return for 10 years. The opportunity cost of this investment indicates that he is making a bet on BAC recovering, but he is protected on the downside if he is wrong. On a positive note -- good to see preseason hockey games have begun. Will be tougher for the Canucks to get out of the West this year -- biggest team specific question mark is how much of a role Schneider will be asked to play? Will be interesting to see if the Kings take a big step forward this year -- lots of talent. About the only thing we'll agree on. Although Canucks will win the cup! Cheers!

As far as Mcelvaine goes, best I can tell is that after taxes, he has done a disservice to his investors. Thankfully for him, he gets to keep all those nice fees along the way though. He seems like a nice enough guy...but after 14 years or so and you are underperforming the S&P/TSX Total Return (his chosen index) after taxes (and more volatility)...that is atrocious. So is Fairfax stock, but I don't see anyone on here selling their Fairfax shares or saying the same thing about Prem. It's a process. People have bad years, even several bad years. Look at Berkowitz or Bill Miller. Mohnish was hammered through late 2007 and 2008. But you make bets on managers because you think they have the right skills and discipline, and more importantly the correct temperament and ethics. The guys at Anson have three full years under their belt. How can you know anything at all about them, even remotely, yet you have managers who have nearly two decades under their belt, and investors are questioning their abilities. It's the ridiculousness of this that makes my mouth drop. Peter Cundill, who has one of the best 30 plus year records in the last 100 years, hand picked Tim as his CIO. The man that Buffett said is the type of investor he wanted for Berkshire, is the one who groomed Tim. The problem isn't the managers, but the short-term view many investors take. I would have no problem putting my money with Tim and betting on him for the next 20-30 years. In fact, my family knows that if something happens to me, put half the money with Tim and the other half with Francis. Cheers!

You must have clicked on the "plus/minus" sign on the side of the "General Category" bar. Look to your right, there is probably a "plus" sign that says "Unread Posts". Click on that and you'll see the sub-categories (BRK, FFH, General Discussion, etc). Click on one of those and you get the subject list for that sub-category. Cheers!

Well, to put it as plainly as possible, and perhaps it's a compliment, but he's a media whore. He markets the hell out of his name, brand and funds. So, is that a reason to dislike him...no. More distasteful than anything else. But I've heard from others, and my own personal experience, is that he's not the most amiable personality to new people he meets. Perhaps, because he meets so many, or perhaps because those people are less desireable if there is no economic incentive or something else to engage him. I don't know. There isn't another investment manager in the "value" community that I know of who has such a polarizing effect on people - The Sarah Palin or Maury Povich of investment managers? What do they say...if they ain't talking about you, then you're either dead or irrelevant. Cheers!

Sorry Alertmepip, what is the problem? I don't understand from the post. Cheers!

Why does he go on that show? Just so stupid. Cheers!

Just a bunch of his major holdings got hammered...Grupo Prisa, Resource America, Citigroup, General Growth, Iridium warrants, Winn-Dixie, Seagate, JC Penny, British Petroleum, Delias, Sears Holding, CIT Group, Howard Hughes, etc. Cheers!

Own. But all the eggs were in one basket, so you cannot compare the end result to the fund result, where the consequences, risk mitigation, limitations, etc are completely different. And that was my point to Moore, that you cannot look at results in a vacuum. So called "alpha" only cares about the final number, not how it was derived or the risk involved. Cheers!

I think when you get guys like Grantham saying things like that, it simply means they are as confused as everyone else about what they see. It's been a tough five years for investors, and maybe even a tough twelve years, and so people are rightly puzzled. Again, this just goes back to Ben Graham. Nothing that he taught would have been fundamentally different in either that five year or twelve year period. It would have worked for both, just like the last 75 years. Cheers!

I would like to see them increase it by 25% a year for the next few years. I would much rather see a large, consistent quarterly dividend, rather than a special dividend. I would also like to see share buyback like they've been doing over the last few years, as long as they are buying them back cheap. Other than that, some of the things they are trying are very appealing to me. I think Windows 8 may be a bit of a game changer, and the recent slew of patent acquisitions and deals with cellphone makers looks to be promising. Growth in their gaming business, along with the acquisition of Skype create some interesting synergies in what Microsoft's service offerings will be going forward. They won't dominate Google or Apple, but it seems as though Ballmer is giving Microsoft some longevity and the ability to steal market share from the non-Googles and Apples. Cheers!