Parsad

I see low interest rates and energy prices, and constant prices in streaming, tech, cable, etc, but I see inflation in a number of places...food, home prices, auto prices (contrary to what I expected), restaurants (making up lost income and reduced business), strata/HOA fees, strata insurance, P/C insurance in general. Cheers!

Wonderful post! Please at least stay a lurker. All the best, Sanjeev

Can you please leave your politics in the "Politics" section! Lincoln County is 99% white...the Lincoln County Commissioners who made the decision are picked by the populace...what does that have to do with left or right? Geez! Cheers!

It looks like he bought at an average cost of $308 USD roughly or about $420-425 CDN per share. It says he bought in the last few days before the press release...I would imagine it was around the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th, where the stock was around $425 CDN or less and volumes rose. If he is buying there, then I would imagine he is expecting a return of better than 15% annualized or more over the next few years. Cheers!

Take it. Liberty, that too is provocation. Did you really need that come back? Can people please think twice before posting something that is unnecessary and adds no value except to rile up and stir people! Cheers!

Bill is a friend of mine. But thanks for making it clear who's the real one here. So what if he's your friend? Does that preclude him from being a deuche? Does that make me one for saying so? The reason I had doubts about whether the story was real was his casual attitude about it. His twitter was like I'm loving this guy who promotes risky and irresponsible trades. Ok, Public Service Announcement, kids, the markets are bananas right now. Here's the story about my wife's cousin who killed himself because he lost a lot of money doing risky and irresponsible trades. So be careful out there and stay safe. OK, PSA over. Man, I'm loving this guy that does risky and irresponsible trades. But he's you'r friend. So.... Watch it rb...this is provocation and unnecessary! You've got one warning...now keep it chill. Cheers! So I say nothing about Liberty. I recall some stuff that was posted on the internet and my opinion about it. He doesn't like it because it's about his friend so HE calls ME a deuche. If that's a bannable offence I have committed you don't need the warning. I'll take my ban. Can you guys all just grow up a bit?! If I give you a warning, you shouldn't fire back with some explanation...just take it and say, "My bad!" How old are all of you guys...I'm guessing most are my age or somewhere within +/- 10 years. If you wouldn't say it to someone while having dinner at their home, then don't...that's a good way to view where the line is. And again, this isn't just for you, but for everyone! Cheers!

If you didn't know when you bought, you might want to figure it out. Cheers!

Bill is a friend of mine. But thanks for making it clear who's the real one here. So what if he's your friend? Does that preclude him from being a deuche? Does that make me one for saying so? The reason I had doubts about whether the story was real was his casual attitude about it. His twitter was like I'm loving this guy who promotes risky and irresponsible trades. Ok, Public Service Announcement, kids, the markets are bananas right now. Here's the story about my wife's cousin who killed himself because he lost a lot of money doing risky and irresponsible trades. So be careful out there and stay safe. OK, PSA over. Man, I'm loving this guy that does risky and irresponsible trades. But he's you'r friend. So.... Watch it rb...this is provocation and unnecessary! You've got one warning...now keep it chill. Cheers!

If we're going to ban confederate flags, you should also ban any other flags that might offend people. It's not right to censor one view just because group X gets offended but allow another flag to go even though it offends group Y. That's bullshit. There are plenty of instances of banned flags because of what they represent. Throughout most of the eastern block you cannot display flags with the hammer and sickle for example. In Germany it is illegal to display the Third Reich flag or any nazi symbols. These laws are mainly for a few whackaoos because no organization in their right mind over there would ever display one of these flags or symbols. Keep in mind that these were actually the official country flags for these countries. In some cases for a long period of time and they are banned. The idea of banning the battle flag of a bunch of traitors that started an open insurrection against a country that led to the deadliest war that country has ever experienced isn't that out there. I'm not a fan of the confederate flag but I see no reason why the folks who enjoy that flag should be discriminated against if one is really "tolerant." We're not talking about Germany here. We're talking about the US. Would you be in favor of then, saying banning something like the flag of Japan because we were at war with them at one time and that they bombed Pearl Harbor? Spoken like someone who's never spent any quality time in NW FL or lower AL. It's not a matter of "enjoying" the confederate flag. It's a symbol of racism & those who fly it are making their feelings known. If you doubt what I'm saying, I invite you to visit & I'll take you on a tour of our beautiful beaches. It's a symbol of racism to you. That doesn't mean they see it way. Why be so intolerant? Why remove asbestos? Why not continue using lead pipes? Let's continue serving 40 oz cups of Cola to children. White hoods should be allowed like all Halloween costumes. Chloro-fluoro-carbons should be used again, because the hole in the ozone layer has closed. The world changes, moral standards change, slowly we all become more enlightened! Do you guys still call your female staff or colleagues "sweetie" or "honey"? Cheers!

If we're going to ban confederate flags, you should also ban any other flags that might offend people. It's not right to censor one view just because group X gets offended but allow another flag to go even though it offends group Y. The confederate flag's connotations go well past the Civil War and part of history. It's seen similarly to the Nazi emblems and flags. A time in history when great atrocities against other human beings were being tolerated and supported. The only place for these flags and emblems are in historical textbooks or movies addressing these historical times. Tattooing the confederate flag on your body should be viewed exactly the same way as tattooing "SS" or "Swastika" symbols on your body. Cheers! Don't you think you're being a little bigoted and not inclusive enough (I'm not calling you a bigot by the way, Sanj, just making a point)? Don't you think that everyone should feel welcome to express their "true" self at Nascar races? Yes, I know the confederate flag doesn't represent your values but it represents theirs. Why is it okay to think that your values should oppress theirs? True tolerance and acceptance means diversity - even if you disagree with it. The confederate flag doesn't have to represent slavery. It could mean southern pride or state's rights. Why is it okay to have a rainbow flag for gay pride but not have a confederate flag for southern pride? Plenty of people like the confederate flag. Is it hurting anyone when it's flown? By the way, as an Indian, I'm sure you know that the swastika isn't really from the Nazis. ;) For whatever it's worth, I don't actually support the confederate flag. I'm just trying to get to a point here about "feelings." Well, you've nailed it on the head actually Paul. The Swastika had nothing to do with the Nazi's, nor the connotation it took on under them. But to so many it has become an affront, a reminder of Nazi Germany, a reminder of millions of people killed under the Nazi's Aryan Nation objective. As such, there is a bigger symbolic reference than what the origins of the symbol intended...so for the most part, it has to go. This is no different around the Confederate flag. Its connotation is greater than the 11 Southern states under the confederacy...it's a reminder of extreme social injustices and inequality...as well as the near-death of a Nation. The confederate flag should actually be offensive to any American living today, not some banner of how great the South was! Cheers!

If we're going to ban confederate flags, you should also ban any other flags that might offend people. It's not right to censor one view just because group X gets offended but allow another flag to go even though it offends group Y. The confederate flag's connotations go well past the Civil War and part of history. It's seen similarly to the Nazi emblems and flags. A time in history when great atrocities against other human beings were being tolerated and supported. The only place for these flags and emblems are in historical textbooks or movies addressing these historical times. Tattooing the confederate flag on your body should be viewed exactly the same way as tattooing "SS" or "Swastika" symbols on your body. Cheers!

I think everyone here knows I'm a fiscal conservative, but a liberal socialist when it comes to individual rights. But I have to ask my liberal friends, are we going too far in some issues. Now they are banning "Gone With the Wind". What's next, "Forrest Gump?" I knew GWTW was racist when I first saw it as a kid, same with Breakfast at Tiffany's, but are we going to outlaw all movies and books with racist connotations? We would then have to ban books like "To Kill a Mockingbird", which would serve the opposite purpose of the book's moral outrage at racism. Banning confederate flags at Nascar...yes, I think that is very reasonable. But when you start skewing history and censoring information written in a historical context or period, you are actually moving closer to the direction of Nazi's than away. And you are talking to a Indo-Canadian kid born in Canada, whose family is made up of Hindus, Punjabis, Blacks, Chinese, Vietnamese, Italian and English backgrounds! Cheers!

Greg, I don't need a thesaurus to know you are a racist. But just so are fully aware of how racist this word is: "'This word is our N-word': Indigenous teacher asks Urban Planet to drop racial slur" https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/offensive-term-remove-urban-planet-1.5305540 Greg, I don't need a thesaurus to know you are a racist. But just so are fully aware of how racist this word is: "'This word is our N-word': Indigenous teacher asks Urban Planet to drop racial slur" https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/offensive-term-remove-urban-planet-1.5305540 Wow - now Greg is a racist. This after he is an anti-Semite. Nicely done KC. Unfortunately Greg - you are feeling the Bitter Hostility of the LEFT. When they tire of debate - they resort to call their opponents racist, homophobe, or religious bigot to shut you up and discredit you. Don't let it bother you. It's the standard tactic of the LEFT. Guys be careful that you aren't attacking people! 10 day bans apply to everyone...not just the right-wing guys! Cheers!

I would assume that Prem has about $200-250M outside of his Fairfax stock at a minimum before the stock purchase. He's stated numerous times that 90% of his net worth is in Fairfax...which would be about $1.5B or so before the stock market correction. So in relation to his net worth, it is probably the most substantial purchase of Fairfax stock that I have seen him make...and I'm going back 20 years! It was at 0.6 times book for God's sake. We had not seen that since 2003-2007. Cheers!

Are you kidding me?! The CEO of the company puts $150M of his outside money into Fairfax and you think it's an act of desperation. A bunch of us said that it was dirt cheap back around late March, early April, and we backed the truck up. Now the CEO is telling you the same thing and you still can't wrap your head around it. I would stop worrying about Fairfax's price and go back and read Securities Analysis by Ben Graham. This is a valuation and analytical issue, not a psychological one! Cheers!

Sokol owned Lubrizol before he took it to Buffett. He didn't lie to Buffett, nor did he hide the fact that he owned shares. The BRK Audit Committee says they interviewed him three times, yet there is no record that they did. The SEC investigated the whole matter, with both Berkshire's and Sokol's willing participation, and they did not pursue anything. The only discrepancy in the whole debacle is that Sokol said it was his idea, while the idea was originally brought to him by some Citi bankers. If that was a factor, then why bring it to Sokol? Why didn't Citi take it to Buffett...because they knew that there was a better chance of the idea being pursued if Sokol took it to Buffett. This can't even be construed as insider trading, because he didn't act on non=public information that Berkshire was going to acquire Lubrizol. There was no guarantee Buffett would have found the idea compelling, so his ownership of shares in Lubrizol is a non-starter. Cheers!

No, they were legitimate tools used by reinsurance companies at the time and still are. Basically it allows a reinsurer to know its maximum loss while ceding the risk to another reinsurer. The problem wasn't finite reinsurance, but that no one had a clear understanding of how much risk various reinsurers were exposed to cumulatively. When 9/11 hit, and then Hurricane's Andrew & Hugo, the reinsurance had a massive cumulative loss, and the dominoes started falling. If you did not manage your finite reinsurance risk as the insurer, you may be exposed to massive losses. In terms of the SEC investigation, they came to the conclusion that there was nothing wrong with Fairfax's use of finite reinsurance. But there were a number of managers and journalists who did not understand this and were short Fairfax or pushing a short agenda...one was an analyst for a firm in Australia at the time and now writes a blog...another was an analyst for Morgan Keegan, who was front-running his analyst reports to the short hedge funds...there was this journalist who was constantly sweaty whenever I asked him about his research on Fairfax...a journalist who used to write for the Globe & Mail and went on to bankrupt a magazine he ran while being funded by anonymous Baystreet characters...another was a well-known short fund manager who associated regularly with high end prostitutes...another was a squirmy little hedge fund manager who loved showing off his 23 Bloomberg screens...and finally two well-known fund managers essentially got away with no consequences (although one was restricted to managing his own money for years) until the SEC's sentencing period ended and he is now allowed to manage outside capital. If you can see that there still may be a bit of tension on this issue from me, you had to be there! It's a long story...one that many of us lived through, investigated ourselves and benefited from financially as Fairfax rebounded! I would happily love to beat the shit out of all of the fellows mentioned above, but I don't think I'll ever get that chance. Cheers!

With the debt, float and asset/equity leverage Fairfax uses...$30 USD average earnings is very low...I think normalized earnings based on today's book value and leverage, would be somewhere around $45-65 USD. Cheers!

I'm constantly confused by this comment about how Fairfax's "private" investments have not done well. Before, the criticisms used to be how their insurance businesses were awful...but since they are all writing below a 100% CR, now everybody says how awful their private investments are. Are they great...no...but if you look at the entirety of Fairfax's private investments (including insurance and non-insurance businesses), they have done perfectly fine over time based on the target they are trying to hit on annualized investment return. Cheers! Lumping insurance and non-insurance together merely obscures what Fairfax is good at, and what they're not. Their record on the insurance side is outstanding. They have done wonderfully in Lombard, First Capital, Gulf, probably Digit, and others. This is why I disagree with SJ on the "shithole countries" investments. Brazil in particular may grow to be another home run. In fact if I have any criticism it's that they don't do more - for example I would think Digit's model could be exported to Africa, Latin America, and the rest of Asia, and Fairfax has the footprint to do this. However, their record on the non-insurance side appears to be dire. There is basically no reporting, so it is hard to tell. But in aggregate the private businesses that are consolidated appear to be lossmaking (IIRC they report ebitda and interest costs and they sum to a negative). Past realisations have shown a couple of wins (Arbor, Ridley), but I don't recall anything that really moved the needle. The only big one (APR) was done at carrying value, which I think had been written down a little. I have (faint) hopes for Quantum, Boat Rocker, Praktiker, and maybe a couple of other little things, but I don't see any evidence of progress overall and there may be some real duds. As far as I can tell Fairfax have conspicuously failed to build a third (insurance, float, private) source of cash flows at a reasonable cost, as Markel and Berkshire have done. I would be delighted by evidence to the contrary, but without it I interpret the monetisation plan as an admission of failure. While I like the admission, the failure needs to be acknowledged. Their investment results since inception...from the 2019 Letter: Compound Growth in Average Average Total Book Combined Return on Value per Share Ratio Investments 1986-1990 57.7% 106.7% 10.4% 1991-1995 21.2% 104.2% 9.7% 1996-2000 30.7% 114.4% 8.8% 2001-2005 (0.7)% 105.4% 8.6% 2006-2010 24.0% 99.9% 11.0% 2011-2016 2.1% 96.0% 2.3% 2017-2019 12.0% 99.8% 5.6% Ok, fine...I'll compare both insurance and investments. As you can see, in the earlier years, Fairfax was getting great investment returns but insurance was not profitable. Insurance increased book value and float, but the quality of the insurance businesses needed improvement. Later, as investments didn't do as well, Fairfax had improved their insurance businesses dramatically. So overall, Fairfax's investments have actually done very well...lackluster in the last decade, but really quite good overall. Whereas their insurance business has improved massively and is writing consistent business during that last decade plus. If they keep insurance underwriting where it is and modestly improve their investment results compared to the last decade, they are going to have tremendous growth in book value per share. Cheers!

I'm constantly confused by this comment about how Fairfax's "private" investments have not done well. Before, the criticisms used to be how their insurance businesses were awful...but since they are all writing below a 100% CR, now everybody says how awful their private investments are. Are they great...no...but if you look at the entirety of Fairfax's private investments (including insurance and non-insurance businesses), they have done perfectly fine over time based on the target they are trying to hit on annualized investment return. Cheers!

Agree with Daphne! You guys need to think about the long-game when it comes to Fairfax...not the short-term. I have no idea exactly what the reasons were behind Paul making this deal and Fairfax supporting it, but I can think of something that would be in the interest of Fairfax shareholders long-term. And Prem would not do a deal if it hurts Fairfax shareholders in the slightest...he just doesn't operate that way, and he has no vested interest to do so. Do you really think Paul would pull the wool over Prem's eyes? Paul would never put himself ahead of Prem either! Here's my view: Paul wanted to slow things down. He semi-retires from Fairfax, but still sits on Recipe's board. He then acquires Torstar with Jordan Bitove, through their wholly-owned LP. Torstar has not worked out for Fairfax. Now Paul and Jordan have to turn it around or play with the underlying assets and gain some value. While presently Nordstar is wholly-owned by the Bitove and Rivett families, does anyone in their right mind here believe that they will never raise outside capital for Nordstar once Paul decides...ok, I've played enough golf and I'm done with family time after 3 months of quarantine...I need to exercise my brain again! Prem is getting older...the Hamblin Watsa old guard is getting older...Buffett made this mistake with the double-T's...good, but not Buffett and not Lou Simpson. Who is going to carry the investment load...most likely Wade Burton and Lawrence Chin. But you could allocate capital to other's you trust over time...Nordstar...Francis via Chou Funds or Stonetrust...Atlas Corp...Vito Maida and Patient Capital...etc. For now, Prem gets rid of Torstar, as they weren't going to spend their time turning it around, plus tax losses to offset gains. Paul turns it around with Jordan, and they have their vehicle. Prem can always consider injecting capital into Nordstar or a turned around Torstar later. You really think Paul or Jordan would reject capital from Prem at some point? Cheers!

Interesting...very interesting! Congratulations to Paul. Cheers!

Sure...he's reminiscent of many flamboyant entrepreneurs...Richard Branson comes to mind as well. I do know that Jonathan Favreau's original "Iron Man" version of Tony Stark, played by Robert Downey Jr, was based on his friendship with Elon Musk. Cheers!

...global insurance industry well-capitalized for Covid-19 losses. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/global-insurance-market-well-capitalized-132205981.html As I mentioned previously, I don't think the large discounts to book that some insurers are marked at will last. Buy'em while you can! Cheers!

Good luck! You know you can also just carve out one-hour a week to read and post. Treat it like any other book, article, show, etc. I know it can become compulsive at times, but that's why getting away from it for a while might be a good idea, and then when you come back, allocate just an hour or two a week at most. Cheers!