Parsad

How is that my definition? Icahn owned the stock...owned a ton of it...and then sold it because he lost the proxy fight. Now the company is making a fortune. Where exactly in that do you think your facetious comment fits in?

I would think that is pretty accurate Peter. Not too many well-known female analysts, and she was pretty smart and had a very good idea how to value Berkshire. Cheers!

That being said, I guess that means he made some money for his shareholders as well. Of course. And it won't be long before he is by far the largest shareholder. At that point, the name change would actually be suitable. ;D Maybe the compensation agreement should have come before the name change. Cheers!

Interesting NY Times article on Goldman, Copper River and Overstock.com. Cheers! http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/business/goldman-sachs-denies-claims-it-led-to-copper-rivers-demise.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&partner=yahoofinance

After the weekend debut of "The Hunger Games", Icahn missed out on huge profits - present and future! Cheers! http://www.cnbc.com/id/46848714

Prem brought Bill to our dinner last year, as well as the vice-chairman of KW, Mary Ricks! They met with shareholders and answered questions. Cheers!

Nope, I was right the first time. The bulk of the distributed gains in the previous years were mostly short-term. Still pretty darn good! Cheers!

Actually another correction...I took a look at the notes in the 2011 annual report, and the bulk of the distributed gains were long-term, not short-term. This guy gets better and better. Haven't looked at the other annual report notes yet. Stay tuned! Cheers!

Actually, I take part of that back. I just looked at his annual report again, and his unit value is after the distribution, so he actually did incredibly well. I think the article takes into account the distributions, thus the 40.5% annualized. But a good chunk of that would probably be short-term gains and the annualized return would be significantly lower than the reported 40.5%, but much higher than the 22.7% I calculated. They are very good returns, and as I said...definitely worth watching! Cheers!

It can make a huge difference depending on how much realized gains are passed onto the investors. On a pre-tax basis, the numbers will look very good, but on an after-tax basis the investor may end up paying alot of the gains in tax. It looks like they paid out a shitload of gains in 2010, 2011 and 1st half 2012...over 40% of the gains in 2010, over 35% in 2011 and nearly $4 a unit in just the 1st half of 2012. Compare that to someone who just bought and held FFH during the same period. On an after-tax basis, I don't think his investors did enormously better than in our U.S. fund during the same period since inception. Almost certain they did not do better than Allan Meecham's investors as well. Still, his numbers are good and he deserves to be watched. Cheers!

Am I mis-reading something between the article and annual reports? I actually get his annual return ending December 31, 2011 to be about 22.7% annualized since inception. Which is fantastic nonetheless, but markedly different than the 40.5% annualized the article states. His unit value ending December 31, 2011 was 28.74 and his opening unit value was 10.00 on November 9, 2006, so over roughly 5.15 years that works out to 22.7% annualized. Cheers!

Yup! There is a best manager every year in the media. Cheers! Those kind of returns in one of the most brutal 5 years in decades are impressive. Micheal Burry had similar returns after 5 years. I don't know how long one has to be a manager before he or she is officially good and not lucky but what would worry me as an investor in his fund is his Madoff-like secrecy. I wasn't picking on him. I was picking on the title of your thread! ;D Cheers!

Yup! There is a best manager every year in the media. Cheers!

Yes, this is something that I really need. I read so much on my iPhone. Apparently it will have a 4.6" retina screen and will be available in the 2nd quarter...I'm guessing 3rd, but that's what this article says. Cheers! http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/mobile-technology/apple-orders-bigger-46-inch-screens-for-next-iphone-report/article2377639/

Hardincap, there is your answer. Bac has 12 per share of TBV and over 20 BV, once goodwill can be assumed ok. Rather than waiting for BAC to buy back shares, you can buy as many as you want at a price cheaper than BAC will ever get. you're missing my point. I WANT bac to buy back shares at these valuations alongside me. Would you rather they blow through capital to buy back shares or actually strengthen the business? Unless you plan on selling your shares shortly after, I would think you would prefer the latter if you are a long-term shareholder. It's a leveraged business that had serious issues just a year and a half ago. Everything is not ok. They are recovering and it will take another year to truly have a business that can compete head on with JPM and WFC. They are not in the same league right now, but will be if they continue to build capital. If they do what you are asking, then they are risking a step back if economic conditions deteriorate or litigation and losses are higher than provisioned. Cheers!

JPM does not have billions in litigation coming up, and their business is not going through a complete restructuring. BAC's turnaround is more than half-way done, but they need to drive earnings forward while dealing with the overhang of litigation and loan loss provisions from the previous leadership group. The more solid the balance sheet, the more confidence the markets have. Look at what one stress test did for them! Can you imagine if they plow right through 11% in Tier 1 Common before their main competitors? They added over one whole percent in the 4th quarter, so the cash flow and assets are there to get the job done. Once they hit that, the stock will move up and then they can spend their cash flows growing their business. Cheers!

Use Fairfax as a guide. Prem took care of the business instead of buybacks, and the stock price followed. BAC needs to make sure their balance sheet can withstand almost any liquidity crisis that would hurt their peers...so is it better they buy back shares or focus on strengthening their balance sheet? My choice is the latter, and the stock price will follow over time. Buybacks should only happen once you've taken care of everything else and have excess capital, and then at that point you have to decide if your stock is cheap to intrinsic value and there is no other better alternative. You don't buy back shares just because they are cheap, but because there is no other use for the capital that would provide a better return. Currently, BAC can use all the capital they can get to quell any sort of innuendo or rumour. Look at how one comment created such a whirlwind this week. They just need to shut the critics up and give them no excuse whatsoever, and that will happen after 2012. Just like it did at Fairfax! Cheers!

Warren, to his great credit hasn't said anything publicly about the rift with Alice. Warren's instructions to Alice were to tell it all, including the personal stuff, without sugar coating anything. In this, she followed his instructions. After publication, the other women in his life disliked having the unflattering parts of his life exposed for the world to see, especially the sadness of all the circumstances about his first marriage and Susan's death. It was especially hard for them when Ms Schroeder departed from her usual objectivity and characterized the other women in Warren's life as "Daisy Mae's", meaning bimbo groupies. That was the straw that broke the back of their patience. Warren then had no choice. It was risk the wrath of one woman being scorned or having every other woman in his family and circle being mad at him. I also think the parts about his wife upset him a bit. The long-held theory was that Buffett was the womanizer and cheated on Susan, when in fact Susan had drifted apart and left Buffett. From what I heard, he did not want that to come out and his children were upset with it as well. Regardless, I thought the great aspects of the book were overshadowed by the soap opera like inferences Schroeder kept making...his crazy mother, his need to be loved, his relationship with Susan and Sue Graham. Too much psychoanalysis! Cheers!

They want to end all doubts about capital and Basel III, so they are going to just continue to build the balance sheet this year. When they apply to return capital next year, they won't have any issues. Cheers!

Not bad. Some commodities looking good, and some getting killed. Intermodal looks nice! Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-22/north-american-rail-freight-carloads-for-march-17-table-.html?cmpid=yhoo

I think you've got it exactly right Compoundinglife! If you recommended to a family member or friend on why they should read a book on Buffett, and they read this article, how compelling does your argument suddenly become to them. In effect, the article does such a disservice to the individual whose investing life and results could be dramatically improved. I think that's why it's such a shame that the individual who wrote the article, who actually spent an enviable amount of time with Buffett, walked away only with the thought of how hypocritical his advice is. Quite a tragedy actually! Maybe we've been looking at this all wrong, and Alice deserves our pity, rather than our scorn. Cheers!

Ah, that's not Alice...don't know why guys think so, or did Shalab and Kraven just create a mess! ;D Incidentally, on Alice's own blog, from her January 11th entry: "...Another reason I have not written much lately is that there isn't much I want to say about Buffett or Berkshire. At some point, people have accomplished enough in their career that they should get to rest on their laurels, meaning that it isn't appropriate to comment on every little thing they do and say. If anything important happens, I'll write about it -- probably for Bloomberg -- and post the link here..." She took her own advice for about two months and then she wrote this diatribe. My whole point was exactly what she finally got into her head for a while. At some point, the poor slob has done enough for society and others to just deserve to go out in dignity. You don't need to de-robe the guy, just because you can. You can call me a fanatic...but Buffett changed (maybe saved is a better word) my life! I get to do exactly what I want every day and if I died tomorrow, I would be a happy man. So would Prem, Francis, Tim, Mohnish, hundreds on this board and I know a couple thousand more. We owe the man...so we do take offense at times. Cheers!

Focus, lean, mean...continue to build up capital. Cheers! http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20120321-709055.html

If she was as vicious as you paint her as, why would buffett's own son like her? Which son? Howard didn't like the way he was portrayed. From what I understand, both Susie Buffett and Howard Buffett didn't like the way their mother was portrayed, and that was the bulk of the reason Buffett's relationship with Alice deteriorated. As well, I spoke to a few other Buffett authors in Omaha shortly after the book came out, and they were all taken aback by some of the details in the book. You can call them fanatics too if you like, but the general tone of those around Buffett or knew the man was not positive on "The Snowball". Cheers!

1) Would you say her notoriety as an analyst increased significantly after Buffett started to solely speak to her at Berkshire meetings, or would you say it decreased? Had you heard of Alice before that? Would you say her notoriety after writing "The Snowball" increased or decreased? 2) She took a pay cut to write the book. How much do you think she made from the book, or her speaking engagements after? That's like saying Buffett took a pay cut after leaving Graham-Newman to start the Buffett Partnerships. And by the way, its got nothing to do with the so-called "fanatics". The fanatics read the book and really none of us complained much about the gossipy side of the biography. It's the stuff after the book that has really left a bad taste for many people. No one is saying Buffett isn't flawed, but Alice seems to be intent on kicking him around when he gave her such access that most other authors could only dream of. Her job was to write the biography, warts and all...not pound the man with her fists every other article. Cheers!