Uccmal

I think all and none would best answer the question. None has nearly as bad an underwriting record as Wells did leading up to the subprime debacle. Then securitization is not as big an industry here. Canadian Banks are protected from competition by strong federal legislation. In return they are under tacit agreement with the feds to provide job security etc. They are not as cheap as Wells relative to book value. They dont have to take as much risk to make money as US banks because of the lack of competition. Many larger forays into other markets have proven disastrous, as you know. My feeling right now is that if there is some adjustment downwards on property values then you may see the banks get a lot cheaper relative to book without actually booking alot of losses.

Well said Parsad, Less than Iv. Bunch of whining suckie babies. Welcome to the real world. With those recent earnings be grateful your getting a dollar for this turd.

I am still trying to figure out how, or if, these operations make money on an after tax basis. i.e. you buy 1 m shares of Bac at 8.01 and sell it a few seconds later at 8.02. That nets you 10000 pretax, say 7000 after tax. Your next trade you lose the same $10000 pre tax but you cannot claim the capital loss. Therefore you net (3000). If your algorithm only sells your shares at a gain you run the risk of becoming a long term shareholder. I know the trick is about beating other HFT traders but it seems to me the ultimate beneficiary is the tax man. In this case the tax collector plays the role of the house skimming its 30%. Adding a one cent tax to every share traded would kill the entire business. I must be missing the part where the programs create cash out of the air.

All well and good until you get "general protection fault" while your in heavy traffic at 100 km per hour. Or the "blue screen of death" as we call it at work. Kurzweil is brilliant, but a bit of a wack job at the same time. Did you know he takes mouthfuls of vitamins every day, in hopes that it will slow down the aging process. I bet it speeds up the digestive process requiring him to use more NBSK.

I always have mixed feelings about tech. development. Sometimes, it brings to mind the ST orginal episode "miri" where the society develops an anti-aging virus that runs amok killing all the adults but giving the unsupervised children extremely long lives. Seems to me we need social development to occur at the same time. It always helps to keep things in context. Computers are calculators, nothing more. The only reason one could pass the Turing test is by being programmed with all the right answers. Data speed or storage reaching a certain point does not spontaneously combust to become a "living being", so far. It just becomes a better, faster calculator. As to the above, what if resurrecting a plant from the distant past unleashes a dormant plant virus as well, that kills the world's wheat crops. Time to go wallow in a corner somewhere....

I will put this another way. I have had 25% after tax gains over 8 years. I have 40% thereabouts in FFH right now. Part of the reason I have had such good returns is buying FFH on various pullbacks. I expect ffh stock will grow in value by about 15% per year over the next 10 years, without taking undue risk. Can I exceed their returns on my own? Most likely, but that will be icing on the cake, so to speak.

Several years... more like 1 yr. As usual, people are missing the point of equities, hedges, protecting the insurance float, etc.

um, because you will make alot of money...without downside risk.

I see a few shareholders panicked. 0.2% of the float so far. The media articles about FFHs hedging operation always ask the wrong question, and come to the wrong conclusions about FFH. They have hedged the present and future equity holdings. If FFh writes double or triple the business in the next couple of years and invests double the amount they have into cheap equities the hedges will only be 50%. It is protection for a large and growing equities position. i.e we know they have bought more Bkir since year end. Rijk, the bond position has remained mostly unchanged. I haven't looked in detail but I would expect the plan is to hold them to maturity. They would book unrealized losses along the way, if yields rise. These bonds are paying FFH far more than if they had bought them today. Buffett is referring to investing in bonds today. If they sold these bonds and rolled them into short term treasuries interest income would tank. This money has to be kept liquid as it is regulatory capital, so the choice is long bonds paying 4.5 or money market paying zero.

I love his last comment to the globe reporter "no one in our industry has even come close [to our long term results]. No one...

30000 workers have been dedicated to winding down the mortgage morass. Some are probably in those divisions. They seem to hire regularly as well. Probably altering their geographic footprint to meet needs as well.

Cant say I expected alot. Guess we know why the dividend wasn't increased, eh? Alot of cash sitting in the subs. Explains their ability to buy more companies. Well see what Prem or Andy say about the Insurance outlook tomorrow. Perhaps a buying opportunity?

Why should it? FFH presented an offer, and everyone had a choice as to whether to accept or not.

Well articulated Kraven. I dont see why WFC would ultimately be worth more than BAC on a P/BV basis. If BAC continues the way it is then the both should be equal in 7 years, no? Imean, they do the same thing. In fact with The ML franchise, which BAC could monetize at any time in that period, I could argue that BAC will do better going forward than WFC. After a certain point I am agnostic either way as I hold both and intend on holding portions of my positions into the indefinite future.

I have recently realized the value of field research. To some degree I have always done it but I now realize how important it can be. I have avoided two bad investments so far this past year by doing field research. Le Chateau looked real good on numbers - I checked out a couple of their stores at Christmas and they were actually empty - Le Chateau is a clothing retailer in Canada. Two stores was enough to tell me to stay away. The same thing with Liquidation World in the past year. Checking out one store in a busy area was enough to tell me to stay away. Where I failed this year was in not checking out RIM and its competition very well. I had bought an IPad, and already had an older BB. All I needed to do was buy or borrow an Iphone, and perhaps a Samsung galaxy, and buy a playbook before I invested. I think that would have told me what I need to know. The total cost may have been 2000 or so but well less than what I ultimately lost. I have distinct advantage in certain non numbers areas such as a deep working knowledge of manufacturing processes, that I take advantage of frequently. Researching Banks is relatively easy. I have been to Boston and NYC in the past year and Califormia a number of times. Every time I go I have a good look at the bank branches. Are they busy? Aremost of the stores I see busy? Alot of investment managers seem to feel they have done their due diligence when they meet with management. I have no problem with this if your are trying to determine how honest they are but what can they actually tell you that they have not said publicly. IMO, meeting management is not very worthwhile and does not qualify as due diligence. To be fair I have met and spoke with several different levels of FFH staff, and was always impressed by their honestyand humility. This includes two or three fromer employees as well. These people were not top management. Talking to them showed me what a good investment it might be. I have been watching License to Drill on TV to get a better handle on oil drilling. I'll tell you this much. After watching that show I will never invest in a pure E&P play company again. Can you say gambling? I have been reviewing my good and bad investments and am realizing that the best investments I have made have leaned toward the qualitative. Taking BAC for example. Sure I have reviewed the numbers, and I pay attention to the capital ratios, but I also know that there are branches in virtually every city in America, all over the place, and that people are lined up as we speak to see a teller, put in a deposit, withdraw money from their line of credit. I have seen it happening in NYC, Conway, NH, Boston etc, since the financial crisis. At the opposite end of the pole is one of my more dubious investments SFK Pulp/fibrek. I owned this 6 years ago pre-fairfax even. By the numbers sfk has always looked to be okay, except right after the RBK purchase. That I have no idea who their actual customers are and have never actually visited a pulp mill ( lumber mills, and paper machines yes), have never met a present or past employee never seemed to bother me. It is going to bother me going forward. One thing I can say about my remaining holdings is that I have kicked the tires in one form or another in REAL life. I am also well aware of their competitors, and their indistry dynmaics. There is more to an investment than numbers.

I was wrong on the $1.00 limit. Mercer has surprised me. Cardboard, Mercer is still running pretty high leverage, but have it attached to specific plants and projects with assorted government backing. If I had to guess I would think they will do the same with the St. Felecien mill once they have control. I dont think PQ has any real fondness for ABH. If anything ABH and its messy labour relations have been a thorn in the side of the province. Given the choice I would definitely prefer to hold Mercer shares rather than ABH. Mercer is a better run company and isn't reliant on newsprint.

Good Interview, thanks. BB states that he doesn't lose sleep worrying about what everyone is already focussing on (i.e. Europe). So what is causing him to worry, I wonder? Aside from redemptions.

2 months from today. On Eric's birthday. Have you moved Eric?

And what has this got to do with the price of Tea in China? WEB been buying?

Stock should take a good jump tomorrow. My bet is TBV by April 9th. Not willing to bey anyome on it though as we know Mr. Market.

CFX just reported weak earnings. They have not started to produce power yet and are well ahead of fbk in that regard. They reduced the dividend from 0.40 to 0.25 for now. Fbk is in a far worse situation than cfx. That is why FFH, Pabrai, et al, are looking to get out of this. I say it goes for $1.00, not a penny more in the end. Fbk is at least a year from producing power, pulp prices are in the dumper, management was going to blow cash on a dubious acquisition. What more can I say.... Does anyone really believe that anyone wants this other than ABH? Getting ABH shares is no real bargain either.

lol, me too, on the tax losses. Carry back up here. And the Bac in black.

According to this most of the money has already been reserved: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/07/us-settlement-bankcosts-idUSTRE8161YD20120207

It's likely tied to my choice of volatility. The stock price is 50% of its 52 week high, and 100% going back there. Too much guessing at this game.