Parsad

Do not fall in love with stocks, be it Berkshire or Fairfax. Prem is my mentor, but if somebody wanted to pay me 2.5 times book for Fairfax, I would sell in a heartbeat. The market provides the opportunity of exploiting inefficiencies that whole business ownership does not. If you are a passive investor, always base your decisions on price, quality and risk/reward. That will secure a retirement better than any one investment. Cheers!

That's right ubuy2wron, I forgot! Cheers!

Yeah, the same thing happened to Martha Stewart, except it was an officer of the company who told her the information. In Cuban's case, I believe it was an employee, but not one of the officers. It's still non-public information that he traded on. Cheers!

Mark Cuban's SEC investigation for insider trading is coming to a head, and he has five professors who support his stance. But the comment from one of these professors in this Globe & Mail article is mind-boggling to say the least! One of them, Alan Bromberg of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said he researched the case after being contacted by Mr. Cuban's lawyer, Ralph Ferrara, and came to the conclusion that the SEC has gone too far. "It's like if somebody from company X called you and mentioned there's about to be an acquisition at a very attractive price but asked you not to tell anybody," Mr. Bromberg said. "You might say, 'Well, sure, I never spill information I get from prospects or contacts,' or you might say, just as a courtesy, 'I'll keep this information confidential.' Does that make you an insider? We don't think so." Insane! Cheers!

An absolutely fantastic interview with Wells Fargo's CEO. Any WFC shareholder will love this interview...a superb leader! Cheers! http://www.startribune.com/business/45799642.html?page=1&c=y

I love the guys at Hamblin-Watsa, but I wonder who had the Abitibi idea! Hey guys at Hamblin-Watsa, alot of us shareholders are going to give a beat down to the fellow who came up with that one. We're rolling up our Fairfax annual reports as we speak...and those babies are thick! ;D It would be pretty funny if it was Brian. Cheers!

I would say Buffett-mania has offically jumped the shark! Cheers!

Pretty cool Marlin! I wish the stats on here showed that stuff. Cheers!

Geithner discusses California...no TARP funds, but they will assist California only in certain ways. The bulk of the effort has to come from the Californians themselves. Buffett talked about Prop 13 a few years ago, which has created some of this mess as well. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aaizmTjKpTlw&refer=home

Makes me think of the old line: "when the student is ready, the teacher appears." Wasn't that from Kung Fu Panda? ;D Cheers!

Thanks Kawikaho! Also, obviously lifestyle plays a part as well. Unless things get horribly worse in the job market, most people will continue to want to live in the LA or Bay area, since the quality of life is so good. While people will leave, over time more people will come back. I'm sure at the state level, most will get help from the federal government, but municipalities will fail except where the state's will intervene if they can afford it. Cheers!

I totally agree Rabbit, but at least Lewis' critical articles are more fascinating than anything Doug Kass spews about Buffett. Lewis does it with a bit more flair, which makes for better reading. I didn't like the Snowball either...it sounded very much like Lewis. But like Lewis, Schroeder also does write very well, so I kept reading even though I didn't enjoy the tone of the book. Cheers!

I think the most important thing is that they show an interest and act on it on their own accord. I've talked to hundreds and hundreds of people about Buffett and Ben Graham when they ask me about stocks and investing. Yet, I only know of maybe two or three that actually went and bought a book on them or researched them on the internet. And when someone does, I'm actually taken by surprise because I know it doesn't happen often. One of my brother's young friends knows I run a fund, and asked for some advice. I discussed Buffett with him and Ben Graham. I didn't think much of it afterwards, but a few weeks later, he came back to me with some more questions. I found out he went out and bought two books on Buffett and The Intelligent Investor on his own. I've probably said the same thing to a couple hundred people in the last two-three years, and no one has done that...yet here was a young man who did. I'm much more willing to give him much more of my time! When I first started learning about Buffett, I heard recommendations about the Intelligent Investor. I bought it, but it was difficult to get through in a first read, so I read other books and did other research. I then went back to it and re-read it once my base of knowledge was a bit better...it was much easier to grasp. Since then I've probably re-read it 10-12 times and referenced various passages on many, many occasions, but I did it on my own. No one asked me to read it or struggle through it. And I think that is the most important lesson for any investor...they have to have a real interest, otherwise they are wasting their time, as well as yours. Jimmy Pattison is a famous businessman in Vancouver, and he's acquired many businesses when people did not want them...very much like a value-investor. He started his company with one car dealership 50 years ago, and today is worth about $4-5B with businesses in various sectors. There is an old, legendary story of him firing the lowest producing salesperson at his auto dealership each month. One Christmas many, many years ago, he had to fire a salesman. He explained the situation, and the employee broke down sobbing. He explained that it was Christmas and his wife and children were expecting a cheerful holiday. Jimmy broke down with him, and they both commisserated while they sobbed. After they cried, he turned to the employee and said "I still have to let you go." When asked years later why he did it, he explained that if he did not, he wouldn't be doing the employee any favors. The employee would continue to struggle in an occupation he was not terribly good at, and he would continue to make low commissions. By firing the employee, it forced him to look for alternative work where his talents may be better served, and he could better provide for his family. In a twisted way, his logic is perfectly correct, even though perhaps he could have waited until after Christmas. The moral is, if someone has difficulty reading the Intelligent Investor, you probably aren't doing him or her any favors by steering them to some Robert Hagstrom book. Cheers!

Gurufocus.com has an aggregated BRK and FFH portfolio article. A few grammatical errors, but you'll like the gist of the article. In particular, how they praise the team at Hamblin-Watsa. Cheers! http://www.gurufocus.com/news.php?id=57161

Vallejo has already files bankruptcy, but they say there are roughly 10-12 municipalities in California alone that are on the brink, as well as another ten or so that are fighting for their lives. And that's just California! What about Florida, Michigan and Georgia? Cheers!

I think the possibility of municipal bankruptcies is enormous in the U.S. today, and the possibility of state bankruptcies is very real, although I think the government would step in at the state level. Jack Cafferty from CNN discusses the possibility of California going under...I thought this would make an interesting debate. Even the best case scenario is that there will be massive layoffs and huge reductions in services across the state. If you thought DMV lines were long before, you ain't seen nothing yet. And California isn't unique here, others will follow. Cheers! http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2009/05/20/what-would-it-mean-if-california-went-bankrupt/ http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/20/news/economy/california_budget_crisis/index.htm?cnn=yes

Fairfax short interest is now down to 264K shares or about 1.55% of float. That number is about comparable to WMT's short interest of 1.48%. How times have changed from a few years ago. Cheers! http://www.shortsqueeze.com/?symbol=ffh

Parsad All solutions are correct. I'm guessing you meant to say, "the simplest of solutions is often the best one." Yours Jack River Yes, that's correct Jack. Thanks. Cheers!

What a terrific little article! Wish I was there. Cheers!

Michael Lewis reviews "The Snowball" and discusses Buffett. Starts off very rough and critical, but actually finishes with a surprisingly unpredictable admission by Lewis. Cheers! http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=12ef5554-1023-4be9-ad93-681003b280ef

The simplest of solutions is often the correct one. Why don't politicians grasp this? Cheers!

Yahoo has a special offer with Airmiles in Canada, where if you install their search/toolbar you can rack up airmiles every month. So I installed it and I've been using it for a couple of months. I have to say, and this is very much a non-techie sort of assessment, but Yahoo's search engines alogorithms are far inferior to Google's. So many times I've searched for a website and Yahoo cannot hit it, yet Google catches it probably 99.99% of the time in the top two hits. I'm not entirely sure why Microsoft is willing to spend billions to try and buy Yahoo. Unless they can improve on the search engine, it would always be inferior to Google. It's very much like Pepsi trying to buy Cadbury Schweppes to take on Coke. Just not going to happen! I understand that Yahoo has a market in-place and considerable brand recognition, but it seems to be an expensive proposition to compete with Google. They would be better off going into other areas like Twitter, Facebook, etc and building moats there...akin to Pepsi buying Frito Lay, rather than compete head-on with Coke. Cheers!

Coke Chairman and CEO Neville Isdell was on CNBC with some very interesting comments. I think he's got a very good understanding of Coca-cola's business, moats and operations, compared to some of his recent predecessors. Cheers! http://www.cnbc.com/id/30823836

Article from the LA Times on the Wesco Meeting. Cheers! http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-perfin17-2009may17,0,713897.column

Every year we have our shareholders dinner at Joe Badali's, and many of you thank me for holding it. Our wonderful representatives who come from Fairfax and speak to all of you, the terrific hats everyone got last year...they all happened because of one person...no, not Prem. Her name was Jo Ann Butler and she's the one who deserves all your thanks. Anything you liked about our dinners, she probably came up with the idea other than the location! Jo Ann is the first person who receives correspondence addressed to Prem. She read my first letter to Prem sometime back in 2001. Along with Francis, they set up my day at Fairfax's office back in 2005, which eventually led to Alnesh and I starting Corner Market Capital and the MPIC Funds. During the heyday of the short attacks, she would read the board religiously and forward messages to Prem whenever shareholder's seemed to be getting erroneous news from hedge funds, analysts and the media. Jo Ann always looked after Fairfax's shareholders! The first person I would see every year when I went to Toronto was Jo Ann. Every day after the AGM, she always went back to the office to work, but would arrange for me to come by and bring whoever was with me. She would let us tour Fairfax's office, including their library room...each year without fail! Afterwards, she would usually give me tickets to the Raptors game. Last year, because I took Calonego and Peter Lindmark to the office, she gave me four tickets to the Blue Jays game. I've seen Reggie Miller's final game of his career, a Blue Jay's game that went into the 13th inning, and one year Doug Gilmour sat right next to me. For those of you that aren't hockey fans, Doug Gilmour is a God in Buffalo and Toronto, and he was Jo Ann's favorite player. I usually talked to Jo Ann every few days either by email or phone. She was a die-hard Leaf's fan who absolutely loved the game. We always talked about hockey. Before she worked at Fairfax, she used to work for the father of our director, Andrew Cooke. I remember a couple of years ago when Andrew, Alnesh, myself and my friend Ajay Desai went to Fairfax's office to meet Francis, we stayed in the smaller boardroom for about three or four hours, made our own coffee in the kitchen, and sat chatting to Francis. Jo Ann would pop in, sit down with us, and then rush back to her desk...business never stops at Fairfax! She was a damn tough Newfie, who had a very soft heart. I'm sad today, because she didn't win her last battle. She passed away on the 12th, and going to Toronto just won't be the same again for me. I hope she knows how much she helped me. How much I appreciated everything she did. It helped to change my life in ways where I'm just bewildered each morning. I get to work with my cousin Monday to Friday...the cousin I grew up with like a brother. We have our own company and we are managing two investment funds. I get to do what I dreamed about, but at one point had no idea that it was my dream. She helped me find it, and each day I feel so fortunate to be doing what I absolutely love. I'll miss her dearly!