berkshire101

Buffett, my hero :)

My guess is that there's a disconnect between product and customer. The customer being the driver. The average drive doesn't have a good grasp for the price of say a timing belt. If it breaks, they take it to a mechanic and get it fix. The mechanic runs down to AutoZone or O'Rielly, buys the part, and fix the car. The customer pays for both the part and labor. As long as the car is fix then the extra premium paid is worth the convenience.

I say we go higher from here. Everything is mostly priced in with the exception of a blacks swan event. Then we crash 40-50% and the cycle continues :)

Great man, RIP.

Yup, yesterday. Can confirm it is gold. Good to know. I'm in California so hopefully it'll arrive soon. My brokerage sent me the digital version so hopefully that'll work too if the physical doesn't arrive.

Anyone received their annual letter in the mail yet?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-18/penny-stock-guru-tim-sykes-embraces-role-of-rich-douche-bag- I've been seeing these type of articles floating around lately. Looks like everyone is making in stocks at the moment.

Anyone know his track record?

$300,000 sounds pretty cheap compared to Michael Dell who pays $2.7 million for his security.

I just read it. Wow. I wonder how much competition there will be now since this story is public.

Added to my KW and RAVN positions this week.

Glad you guys enjoyed it. It's a good reminder of the euphoria that can occur in the markets. Happy investing!

Thanks for the additional mentions. Looks like I have some homework to do.

Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us is a good book on the matter http://www.amazon.com/Salt-Sugar-Fat-Giants-Hooked/dp/0812982193/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425686091&sr=8-1&keywords=sugar+salt+fat

It was all sunshine and rainbows back in the 90s. A must watch if you have time to spare. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY9iO2L0e2U

Will give it a read, thanks!

Try Airbnb as Buffett suggested?

Sad, RIP.

Maybe because the guy is a hack who doesn't care how many peoples lives he ruins as long as he sells a couple of extra books? Always upselling. How many books, board games, and seminars do you need to convey a set of ideas? I don't think than anyone who stood the time as a great mind ever uttered the words and if you want more detail buy my other book, and my board game, and drop by one of my seminars. Shilling for real estate during the bubble. Promoting irresponsible and reckless financial behavior that is sure to leave the practitioners worse off.... The list goes on and on! And no, you can't learn something from everybody. Some people are just wrong and even worse, some are crooks. This documentary is relevant. I don't like the fact that most of these guys incomes come from selling get rich products rather than practicing what they're preaching. But I guess there's always someone out there who wants to make a quick buck and someone is ready to sell them that "magic formula". And wasn't the rich dad poor dad story all made up?

So thankful to you Sanjeev. Thank you for creating such an amazing place to share and learn new ideas!

Is your wife a computer? Now that's funny. I wonder if there's a video of their conversation.

Wouldn't it be better to look at airports rather than airlines? It doesn't make economical sense to build two airports close to each other. I know you can't invest in airports in the United States, but there are publicly traded airports in foreign countries.

How would you begin to analyze this company? I looked at the investor presentation and annual report. Management said their goal is to grow on a per share basis. But the share count is being diluted year-over-year. However, revenue and operating cash flow are growing too. It looks like the business is selling for 0.4 book value. But are their assets worth book value though? Klarman ideas tend to be too complex and high-level for my small brain. From what I've seen, it does look interesting.

Yes. But very few people generate 5% annual alpha spread by acting vs sitting. Are you one of them? ;) No :-[ :'(

This might be off topic in this thread, but compounders are also boring to tears. Especially for active investors such as people frequenting this forum. There is no action - you just buy and hold. And hold. And hold. That's why very few people ever held BRK or FFH (or for that matter MSFT, GOOGL, WMT, JNJ, IBM ) for 20+ years. And most of the people who did that are not "investors", but rather employees or in case of BRK old ladies from Omaha. ;) Even most self admitted Berkheads or Fairheads on this forum have traded in/out of BRK/FFH more times than they casually admit. Or at least kept a non-trivial amount of their portfolio in companies that were sold much more often than compounding would call for. ;) Unfortunately action is a drug. A very difficult drug to kick for active investor. Indeed, to quote Munger, quoting Pascal:" All of humanity's (or, in this case, an investor's!) problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." The spread between 15% to 20% is the difference between millionaire and billionaires haha. So that's why it's difficult to sit quietly and do nothing. Pretty sure Buffett and Munger weren't sitting quietly in their early days.