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GFP, how do you know the days when they traded i.e. that the first trade was on Tuesday?

Oh my! Anything to back these strong statement beside your personal feelings. Actually, mind you, do you have any thoughts about CAT losses, which you know.... was the topic of the thread.

It's not perfect, but here you go. SP500_YTD.xlsx

I suppose that WB sees these companies like Google as the media companies of last generation - Cap Cities/ABC. They do bear striking similarities if you're familiar with WB's thinking in the 70s. But these companies have to behave. Trolls, bots, and fake news are a problem. The old media companies didn't have problems like theses. If the problem gets too big it doesn't matter if it doesn't make sense to break them or what's the best way to break them. They'll do it with a cleaver and let them figure it out afterwards.

The other CEOs could just read the annual report it's pretty much all there.

NoCalledStrikes wins the value investor of the day award! Points arbitrage for BRK weekend is probably the best points arbitrage on the face of the earth.

I'd say look closely at your thesis as an atheist. If you think you're asset rich in resources you may very well be wrong.

I never did AirBnB in Omaha, but I like AirBnB in general. For a hotel. I liked The Sheraton Omaha. The rates are usually decent (considering) for the Berkshire Weekend. It's not far from Borsheims. But it's away from the downtown. However they run shuttles to all Berkshire events and breakfast (which isn't bad) is free for Berkshire shareholders. The bar actually has good beer (a problem in Omaha) and they know how to make good cocktails. Rooms are great.

I don't think that BRK will get less profitable after WB passes. It may even get more profitable as the smaller subs get whipped up into shape. I think that the smaller subs carry some sentimental value for VB and he cuts them a lot a slack. That won't be the case with the new management. The new management will also probably be more aggressive and more open to 3G type deals. On the flip side, without WB there will probably be less BAC type special deals and/or the terms will not be as usurious. On the investment side T&T seem quite capable. They were into Apple way before WB started blasting it with his elephant gun and Precision Castparts was a T&T deal. I agree that their size will make it more difficult for them to grow. But they somehow managed it the past. See the past 10 years. If they do reach that point where it gets too hard they'll start to return some capital. So what? That's far from the worst things.

OK, that article is dated March 10, 2008. With the benefit of hindsight I'd say that it did not age well. It also doesn't make sense. In my opinion the article doesn't even make a case to short BRK. A reason not to own it, maybe, but not a short. The only bit that actually carried some weight was valuation. In March 2008 BRK was trading at 1.75 book. That was definitely pricey and in my view overvalued somewhere in the range of 15-25%. But then in March 2008 pretty much everything was overvalued. Those that were worried about growth back then consider this. In the 10 years that followed Berkshire grew itself by 150%. Assets in q1 2008 were 281 Bn. In q1 2018 they were 703 Bn. And they did that in a very conservative way. That's impressive! Even more impressive was GEICO. Q1 2008 premiums - 3 Bn. Q1 2018 Premiums - 8 Bn 167% growth. When it comes to Berkshire, I don't even mind if the company somewhat under-performs the S&P. When you're investing you're getting paid to take risk. In my view Berkshire's risk is below the S&P risk. If it somewhat over-performs the S&P I'm getting paid handsomely for the risk I'm taking. But then I'm probably not as greedy as some on you.

Just off the top of my head American Express (more than once), Coke, and Wells Fargo were also fly into them positions. It's Warren's style when he figures a really good deal. He can't help himself.

Over the past 10 years, I've seen two kinds of collapses. First is sky high valuation followed by disillusioned shareholders. Second is stock moving lower first, and value investors screaming bargain all the way down, while E continues to deteriorate. I think AAPL is in the second basket. The problem with valuation with P/E is that you have to be damn sure that E is going to go up, not down. AAPL is changing reporting standards. That's a tip off that the next few Es will be bad. It seems AAPL got a whole lot more popular(especially around here) once Warren capitulated and bought in big. You'd think there wasn't even a bear case anymore the past year, which is odd because there was the entire way up when Icahn owned it. Just my lazy guess, but Buffett's buying spree probably put $50 a share on this that wouldn't have been there otherwise... There were people here joyfully buying AAPL way before Buffett got into it. I foolishly wasn't one of them. But in the past even if I wasn't a believer in Apple, I came close to buying a few times just because it was so damn cheap. Of course a stamp from Buffett would move the thesis. Berkshire has never made a mistake with this much capital. I'd venture out to say and Buffett will agree that the Buffett buying spree happened because that extra $50 or more per share should have been there.

Picked up more BRK, WFC, AAPL

This thread isn't in the politics section, so this is all from a historical perspective and let's leave it at that. The Guilded Age refers to a historical period in America, not globally. It was during the latter part of the 1800s. The Belle Epoque in Europe overlapped the Guilded Age. However the Belle Epoque went on for longer (until 1914?) whereas it is clear that the Guilded Age was over by 1900 in the US. The Guilded age was marked by income inequality and its most defining feature were the giant Trusts. The great reset was the period that followed - the Progressive Era. You can safely say that the progressive era started with Teddy Roosevelt becoming president. Though one can make an argument that it stated with the passing of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. This period was marked by trust-busting, increased regulation, increased labour protection and unionization, increased environmental protection and conservationism.

I LOVE CARNAGE! GIVE ME MORE! LET THERE BE BLOOD IN THE STREETS! ;D

BRK, WFC, AAPL. Not as much as i wanted because Jurgis was buying today moved the market.

By selling shares to me at 2014.10 :P

You've can be such an asshole. You've spiked my limit orders are 204.10. >:(

I think they're in there buying shares. See that spike from 204 to 205 about an hour ago on good volume.

I do have a relatively simple (and to my knowledge correct) explanation. It does require 3 bananas, unfortunately, but the good news is that you only have to finish one at a time. Anyway: First banana: When a recession hits, central banks tend to reduce (short term) interest rates. Their intent is to stimulate economic activity by doing so. Second banana: People anticipate the above, and so when they think a recession is coming, they expect interest rates to go down in the near future. Third banana: When people expect interest rates to go down in the future, long term bond yields tend to decline in relation to short term yields. This is just DCF math. By putting these pieces together you should be able to see why yield curves tend to invert when people expect a recession is coming. Let me see if I can build on that and try to take it down to a 2 banana. You can think of a rate for a period as a collection of rates for smaller periods. So a 3 year rate is actually 3 1 year rates: a one year rate from 0 to 1, a one year rate from 1 to 2 and a one year rate from 2 to 3. The fed lower rates during bad economic times. So let's say you have an inverted yield curve. Say in my example above the 3 year rate would be lower than the 1 year rate. That means that unless the market is wrong the 1 year rate in year 2 or 3 or both will be lower than the current 1 year rate. Which further implies that the economy will be doing less good than it does now. So an inverted yield curve it's a bad omen.

Maybe it's not fully inverting. But it's flat as hell!

Yea, all utilities will have to lower rates. It's baked into the formula. I also agree with the view around the fiscal issue. The have to close the gap by at leas 2% of GDP. The republican fantasy is that they'll do it through cuts to Medicare and Social Security. But that just ain't gonna happen. So taxes go up. But yea I don't think they'll make up all of it through corp taxes. I think that they'll pass some monstrous tax package that's a million pages long that will basically nick everything a little bit to make up the amount needed.

Part of me wants to agree with you, but I really don’t know. For me this is one of the most fascinating questions out there. They are. Even the unremarkable ones can be unremarkable in remarkable ways.

Good luck buddy! I feel for you. I deal with tax authorities in a number of jurisdictions. The IRS is by far the worst! But I hope it works out well.

I'd say that the companies will keep most of the lower corporate taxes. Most of the tax cuts would be competed away and passed to the consumers under a system of perfect competition. However under a system of perfect completion most companies' valuation would be book value. But that's not what you see out there in the world. In fact we're pretty far from that.