biaggio

this exercise has already been done by Fairholme. I don't believe they will be willing to share their findings, however. I can just see Bruce sitting there in his home office with the Pekingese sitting on the desk furiously googling each address and valuing it based on the satellite view and some reviews on Yelp. Maybe if someone asks nicely he will just send over the file. People are nice like that, they like to share hundreds or thousands of hours of work. your imagination is vivid. But he hired consultants to go through property tax records for each piece of property owned by shld. Did BB say in an interview that the properties were valued at $100/share at one point? I faintly remember that, but that could be wishful thinking.

Just what people need , an easier way to spend their money.

re 1) They are subject to runs - policyholders can surrender their policies If a person has paid premiums for say 5 years, then they surrender their policy-does the lifeco not keep all the premiums paid? i would think this would be good for the Lifeco. Pricing + low return on bonds-i can see how these are a problem. I understand that a lot of lifeco. went under during the 1930's and in Japan during there great recession.

Sorry to hear that Jacob. Was there anything in those letters that are so top secret? I can t imagine there is anything there that we have not heard here before. He should be flattered to have them posted. It is not like he had the recipe for Coca Cola.

+3.7% YTD

re hedges, -the hedges are on the general market, correct? He can still make money (in the short term) if FFH common stocks go up faster than the general market goes up. Is this right? If so he gets to protect his capital for when he can right more profitable insurance but still get some return on his portfolio (would this return be what you guys call alpha?)

http://myinvestingnotebook.blogspot.com/2011/10/video-kahneman-market-cancels-random.html interview with author from Farnham's website/blog

I added to LUK when it was under BV as well.

there saying that there will not be any CDS pay outs because haircut was "voluntary".

"The leaders agreed on two ways to increase the firepower of the EU bailout fund, known as the European Financial Stability Facility. The methods will each leverage the fund by four or five fold, the statement said, boosting its resources to about €1 trillion." Where is this going to come from? Sovereign wealth funds? That's a lot of cash. Who has that amount of cash to lend these guys? I think I can hear the printing of money.

You re a wise man + will be richer for it. MLK cheated on his wife-is that really true? Wow.

He did superhuman work/innovation but was human. I think in general I am usually a decent person (though my work may not be superhuman), but there are times, moments of weakness, when I have been an a$$hole or have done things that I would not be proud of. Maybe it was his success + drive to succeed, at moments of weakness that led to some of these negative moments. Thank God for my failures that give me humility, otherwise I would hate to see what kind of tyrant(a$$) I would be. Don t know Jobs's story as well as others here, especially his negatives, but I can always count on this board to give me perspective I don t get elsewhere. Thanks. I agree with TorontoRaptorsFan--- I think it would be hard to be a sociopath, prick etc and build 3 successful organizations no matter how smart and what kind of visionary you are.

I bought a Kindle and have bought + read more books than ever (I have several waiting to be read thanks to recommendations from posters here). i really like it. Cheap. Value is in the content they sell me I thought it was a great model as it did not appear that they spent much on the Kindle software or Hardware (it was quite simple + flimsy but works real well) and they have to have good margins on me downloading books. I guess they are trying to get me to buy music + movies was well. Txlaw I did not realize that folks are not allowed to download to Apple tv , IPAD etc

I think they need to stick to making money selling things/books online + don t spend too much (if any) money trying to compete against Apple. i.e make money on people downloading books to their i pads.

I was told long ago that it never a good idea to short based on something being overvalued.

If l lived in a communist country for the last 40 years I would be buying hard assets too.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/19/idUS200361147020111019 Is Bank of America preparing for a Chapter 11?

Hawk, I think he meant that those protesting should be involved in non profit companies-organizing, leading, working for non profit-rather than protesting. You re right that human nature does not operate this way---if they had well paying jobs or opportunity to make a lot of money then most would not be out there protesting, though I could be wrong for some that are truly altruistic.

I am sure you guys are right. I just don t get how that should be sustainable.

Moore_capital54, the small guy (pensioners, Calpers etc) rely on these VC's to do due diligence-I guess if these VC's make too many of these mistakes they end up losing the privledge to manage money. I think they are the equivalent of homerun hitters-they strike out a lot but make up for hit with a few homers. I don't get it otherwise.

"Was Apple about twelve years ago the 40 bagger you mentioned?" I bought some when it was in double digit but sold way prematurely (wish I hadn't). In hind sight it is so obvious. At the same time I have had a lot of round trips when I didnt sell soon enough. Its what makes it fun + challenging.

"he prefers a committee of one" The IQ of a committee is equal to the IQ of the "dumbest" person divided by the number of people in the committee. i.e he is maximizing the intelligence of his committee I think having partners can work if you have defined roles that compliment each other...each partner knows there own strengths/weakness and each works or is in charge of what they are good at.

Thanks for posting. I just finished watching it on your web site. I am surprised how negative he is towards "bankers"...no consulting fees for Nassim. His risk management idea is why I feel most comfortable when management has most of their net worth invested with me so they make money with me not off me.

17M per month Parsad said. Sorry, stand corrected...still good + that's good monthly income too

Getting back to BAC What metrics do you guys favor looking at an enterprise like BAC. I found a good site regarding analyzing banks- http://www.valuablebehavior.com/banking/bank-valuation-made-simple/ According to this fellow he favors the following numbers ( I have gone thru the recent BAC quarterly numbers to provide the following ratios) pre tax pre provision earnings:$10.84b up from $8.884b non performing assets:$29 billion down from $34.5 billion total assets:$2339 billion down from $2379 billion in 2010 Tangible common equity: $127.7 billion up from $126 billion Tangible common equity/share:$13.22 up from $12.91 Tangible assets:$2.142 trillion down a bit from $2.256 trillion 2010 Real estate owned:$3.48b (http://www.depositaccounts.com/banks/bank-of-america.html) texas ratio :19.9% Shares outstanding:10.46 b up a bit from 9.96 in 201 1. Pre-provision, pre-tax earnings to average assets,(ideally should be 1%-3%) =1.5%(based on whole year estimate ~ $36b) 2. Non-performing assets and past due loans to total assets,(ideally should be 4%-1%) =1.2% 3. Tangible common equity to tangible assets,(should be 8%+)=5.9% 4. Texas ratio, (20% – 70%)=19.9% 5. Non-core deposit dependency ratio and loan to asset ratio, (theshold of 25% and 70% respectively.)-could not find these figures. These numbers appear to support a buy at these levels At the end of the day you have to trust management + there is the issue of what is in the loan portfolio, etc(blackbox). This has to be very different then investing in FFH back in the day because I don t think you have the same kind of leadership at BAC.