zarley

Yeah, i saw that too. Incredible that he'd come out that explicitly.

The Omaha.com live feed is very good. Better than the tweets I think.

For those who don't subscribe to the WSJ, google links to the full story: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124113732066375503.html?mod=googlenews_wsj This struck me . . .

That link rogermunibond posted looks like it will be as close to a running transcript as we'll likely get. It would be so easy to stream the festivities online and/or host a stream/transcript in an archive. I wonder why companies don't bother. Hell, you could pay an intern $15/hour to just type the Q&A into a live chat stream (or, dare I say twitter). For those of us who aren't attending that would be the next best thing.

Not sure if the link in the OP was deleted for some reason, but here's a link to the collection of videos they have posted: http://www.bengrahaminvesting.ca/Resources/videos.htm Very good list of speakers.

Aside from Whitney . . . Hehe. I rememeber watching the video from Charlie's appearance at Cal Tech last year and some guy got up with a long and winding dissertation of a question. It was Whitney, and Charlie could barely hide his annoyance. I have another meeting that afternoon, but I'm inclined to skip/change it so I can head to Pasadena.

Anybody have the information (when/where) for the WSC annual meeting? I'm considering attending, but haven't seen any information on it. Thanks in advance for any help. zarley Edit: With slightly better google-fu, I found it here: http://www.wescofinancial.com/page7.html Wesco's 2009 Annual Meeting of Shareholders will be held in Ballroom "D" of the Exhibit Hall & Ballroom Building of The Pasadena Center, 300 East Green Street, Pasadena, California, on Wednesday, May 6, 2009 at 2:00 p.m.

I don't think there's a lot of correlation between the moves in the common and the preferreds. ORH.A only traded a few thousand shares this week, and nearly all of that volume was on Tuesday. The big jump for ORH.A was on Wednesday on less than 1,000 shares. I own a little ORH.A and don't think about the price much at all. I'll just take the 11% yield and wait for them to get called, or bought back. It's kind of like a bond I fully expect to hold to maturity.

Posted at Seeking Alpha: http://seekingalpha.com/article/130961-odyssey-re-still-selling-at-a-discount?source=yahoo Much of it should be familiar to readers of this board. ;D

"The Massachusetts state pension system fired Jeremy Grantham’s firm as manager of $230 million in emerging-markets debt after losses from asset-backed securities dragged down returns." PLUS "GMO’s emerging-markets debt strategy is overseen by William Nemerever and Thomas Cooper." EQUALS HEADLINE: "Grantham Fired by Massachusetts Pension After Losses" God, I hate headline writers.

I hadn't seen that before, so thanks for posting it. I really like Klarman's writing style. It's engaging while being very direct, factual, and unpretentious.

No worries. I took a look at the 1997 letter (the earliest letter linked from the BRK website) and that same language is in there near the end. Makes me wonder when he started putting that in there and what motivated him to add that reminder/warning. http://www.wescofinancial.com/cm1997.pdf

Yeah, he's included something like that in every letter I've read. I don't take it for much beyond face value.

Buffett was on CNBC this morning. Here are links to the transcripts (with videos): Part 1: http://www.cnbc.com/id/29595047 Part 2: http://www.cnbc.com/id/29595412 Part 3: http://www.cnbc.com/id/29595537 Part 4: http://www.cnbc.com/id/29595993 Part 5: http://www.cnbc.com/id/29596414 Part 6: http://www.cnbc.com/id/29596605 Part 7: http://www.cnbc.com/id/29596955 Snailslug quoted a couple of interesting points. Obviously, there are many more. On Derivatives: Emphasis mine. I think this puts Buffett in the "regulated derivatives market" camp.

Conference Call transcript from Seeking Alpha: http://seekingalpha.com/article/121766-fairfax-financial-holdings-q4-2008-earnings-call-transcript?source=yahoo&page=1 I can understand why people are put-off by all the discussion of why underwriting was bad in 2008. A CR of 110 is just not very good, and saying that if all this bad stuff we insured against didn't happen and if exchange rates didn't fluctuate, our CR would have been in the mid 90s is a little weak. Yes, it was an unusual year, but at some point you need to stop talking about all the hows and whys and just continue to work on improving that part of the business. On the bright side, Odyssey's numbers look reasonably good (CR of 103.5 without adjusting for catastrophe losses). zarley

Interesting. Thanks for the link to the spreadsheet.

The intrinsivaluator: http://creativeacademics.com/finance/IV.html Conservative estimate = $117k per share. IMO, that's an excellent starting point for a simple assessment of BRK IV. Your collection of IV estimates might be better if they had source links, or something to back them up.

From the shareholder letter: and a little further down . . . This portion of the derivatives discussion made me wonder just how much money Buffett and Munger saved Berkshire by exiting General Re's derivatives business when they did. Buffett notes that the costs at the time were $400 million in losses, and that was in a functioning market for derivatives. How many billions in losses would have been incurred had they not taken the actions that they did, and instead had to deal with these contracts in the market of 2008? In addition to being a cautionary tale about the risks of derivatives, it's a reminder that the decisions they make today will be paying off for Berkshire many years down the road. At the time they were exiting the General Re derivatives business, booking $400 million in losses looked like a giant mistake on Buffett's part. From today's perspective that $400 million loss looks a lot better; it saved Berkshire billions. zarley

As I write this, Wesco (WSC) is trading at $233. Market cap is now around 1.66 billion and BV per share is probably north of $2 billion, or $280 per share. The last reported book value is $2.6 billion, but it's the Q3 number. I just lopped off $600 million to account for unrealized investment losses in Q4 and Q1 2009. I've never given a lot of thought to buying Wesco, but these prices are making me take a look. Thoughts? Edit: I just reread Wesco's earnings release and in it, Munger accounts for the decline in investments. BV is basically $2 billion given the declines in the equity markets. So, my guess was reasonably close, and WSC still looks pretty cheap. http://www.wescofinancial.com/1208ER.pdf zarley

Ah, I see. Thanks. That's referring to payments on CDS, not the market puts. Maybe a hairsplitting distinction, but I was simply thinking of the puts and was confused about the possibility of making current payouts on those. Paying small amounts on CDS makes more sense. I'm looking forward to WEB's discussion of the derivatives contracts in the annual letter. I'll be enjoying it with my coffee in the morning. ;)

Arbitragr, I haven't read anything about those loss payments you mention. Do you have a link to something describing them, or giving them context? As of the Nov. 7th quarterly report, BRK hadn't needed to post any collateral for the puts. zarley

Not sure if this was the only official discussion of it, but he mentioned it in the shareholder letter.

My god. The only thing worse than that little gem is the comments that follow it. It's days like this I feel like I'm living in an alternate universe. Who are these people who feel compelled to comment on that, but clearly have no clue about BRK or Buffett? My alternate universe also has major media outlets that wouldn't publish that little piece of tripe or employ someone who is so willing to post that kind of nonsense. :P

Link to Q4 conference call transcript at seeking alpha: http://seekingalpha.com/article/121766-fairfax-financial-holdings-q4-2008-earnings-call-transcript

So, BRK.b is down close to 10% today and around 25% just this month. I bought a little bit yesterday at $2,400 and am considering buying more if things go much lower. But, I'm trying to figure out what is happening and why are people dumping? Any theories? * Fear that Wells Fargo and GE may get nationalized or otherwise go to zero. * Indiscriminate dumping of financials and insurers One observation from the TMF board is that the A/B conversion ratio is well outside of normal and that an 'A' holder could sell, buy back 30 'B' and pocket close to $6,000 in cash. Obviously it looks like the selling is forced/panicky and that the conversion spread is unsustainable. Who's selling? Why? Can it really keep going down, given the already huge discount to value? Other thoughts?