maxthetrade

Progressive Corp. said Thursday it recorded property losses and expenses of $1.4 billion in September alone from multiple U.S. landfalls of Hurricane Ian. Cautioning that the loss figure could change materially as more claims are submitted, the automobile and home insurer said in a regulatory filing that it incurred $760 million of catastrophe losses in September, after the effects of reinsurance. Will be interesting to see how Geico has fared.

TORONTO, Oct. 13, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited (“Fairfax”) (TSX: FFH and FFH.U) today announced that all regulatory approvals required to complete the previously announced transaction in which Independence Pet Group and certain of its affiliates, which are majority owned by JAB Holding Company, will acquire all of Fairfax’s interests in the Crum & Forster Pet Insurance Group™ and Pethealth Inc., including all of their worldwide operations, have been received. The transaction is now scheduled to close on October 31, 2022.

That would be a great idea. I first heard about BRO from dealraker on the old BRK Yahoo board over 20 years ago. Silly me sold it after a double. One thinks I should have learned my lesson when I bought it in 08 again, but no I sold again after a little more than a double. If I had hold on to the shares this would be a 20 bagger...

I like DE, almost bought in early July but I was too cheap and missed the opportunity. Sub $300 this is a decent buy.

So true! I just reviewed a portfolio that I manage and marvelled at the tax free (some oddity of german tax law) WRB ten bagger, and that is without counting regular or special dividends.

I understand where you're coming from. In this case there is no future generation. All the assets will most probably go to an endowment. Personally I'm encouraging my nieces and nephew to go to the US or Asia for at least a year to get a different perspective and to learn about different cultures.

I have been thinking a lot about position sizing over the last couple of weeks because I have been offered the opportunity to manage the stock portfolio of a family office. This family is already richer than most of us could dream of. Would it be appropriate to put their money in a concentraded portfolio like my own? I don't think so, their goal is not to get rich but to stay rich under almost any circumstances. If I accept the mandate I'll probably put 70% of the portfolio in self managed equal weight indices (it's cheaper than buying index funds) and a few simple quant strategies. The remaining 30% I would put into a concentrated portfolio. This combination makes sure that they don't loose money under almost any circumstances over time (I'm not speaking of volatility which is pretty much irrelevant if you have enough money) and gives them a decent shot at outperforming the indices by a couple of percent. On top of that I can save them almost a million bucks every year in fees they pay to banks who churn the portfolio for their own profit. Disgusting.

This is pretty cool: Warren Buffett's stock portfolio is so large that unrealized investment losses in the 2nd-quarter led to a 10% decline in earnings per share for the whole S&P 500 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/warren-buffetts-stock-portfolio-large-191144181.html

Position sizing is very important! In general I agree with you but you have to take into account different goals and abilities. Would you concentrate if you're already rich and have way more than you need? When I was 25 I didn't mind to put 100% of my portfolio in one name (and did so), today I wouldn't do that under almost any circumstances. I'm not Druckenmiller, Buffett or Li Lu, so I don't invest like them. Especially Druckenmiller is an enigma to me, I couldn't invest like him if my life would depend on it. I guess I'm no good at macro investing.

KBW believes that Berkshire Hathaway will face the highest level of losses from Hurricane Ian at $1.40 billion, representing 0.2% of the company’s $469.65 billion of common equity. Behind this was Chubb, which could face $1.02 billion of losses, according to KBW, or 1.6% of its $51.67 billion of common equity. The third-highest level of losses is faced by Arch Capital Group at $732 million, representing 5.2% of common equity, followed by Progressive with $625 million, or 3.1% of common equity, and Allstate at $578 million, or 2.5%. Companies that could see the biggest relative impact to their finances include RenaissanceRe, whose $500 million loss – as calculated by KBW – would represent a huge 9.0% of its common equity. Other firms that could be reporting heavily impacted Q3 results include The Hanover, whose assumed $200 million loss would represent 6.1% of its common equity, and Everest Re, whose $563 million loss would represent 5.6% of its common equity.

This market reminds me somewhat of the bifurcated market in 1999/2000. Lots of expensive momo stocks and very reasonably priced value stocks.

Sold some Jan 24 $65 KMX puts, really juicy premium.

Seems reasonable to me, depending on cat activity of course. BTW, MS has done some analysis on the second half of years with no hurricanes in the first half of the season: Morgan Stanley reviewed the list of landfall hurricanes on the continental US from 1851-2021 to see how often there were no hurricanes during the first half of the season, noting what it might mean for the remainder of the season. Of the 171 years they examined, 48% had no hurricanes during the first half of the storm season. 52% did experience hurricanes during those same months. In the years that the first half of the season did not have a hurricane, the second half of the season typically showed a lower frequency of hurricanes as well as lower severity of hurricanes. Years with no hurricanes in the first half of the season on average experience fewer than one hurricane in the second half, with an average hurricane category of ~1.70. Years that did have hurricanes in the first half of the season experienced a higher number of hurricanes in the second half ( ~1.16) with an increased average category of ~2.52.

The stars certainly seem to be aligning for FFH's insurance biz. Reinsurance pricing seems to be pretty firm, Hannover Re said that they expect double digit rate increases, Munich and Swiss also expect higher rates. If the hurricane season stays benign we should see some really excellent underwriting results. I agree that 2-3year yields look pretty attractive here as well.

Couldn't agree more! I thought that China under Deng Xiaoping was on a path to more freedom, this has completely changed under Xi Jinping who clearly is a neo Maoist. On the one hand that scares me on the other hand if gives me hope that he completely screws up. It's time for the free democracies to wake up and deal with reality.

Exactly, there are no lost decades for stock pickers! In 1999 I had very low expectations and what followed was my best year ever in 2000. Today is somewhat similar, it's not difficult to find reasonably priced stocks today.

Yeap, really enjoyed the latest episode.

He nailed it. Unwatchable for me.

@VikingI pretty much agree with all what you said. I remember that exchange on the call and it was indeed quite encouraging. Problem is that Prem doesn't always do what he said he will do. Remember those high quality stocks (JNJ and WFC if I recall correctly) he said he wanted to hold for the long term and were sold soon after? And let's say that I wasn't exactly thrilled by the Recipe aquisition. Hence my show me attitude. But all in all I think a big buyback later this year is more likely than not if Q3 is benign on the insurance front. I think that the TRS also makes a repurchase more likely, they're definitely incentivized. BTW, just looked at your equity holdings spreadsheet in the other thread, thanks for all your work on this name!

I'm more worried about him finding another crap co he can't resist buying instead of doing buybacks.

I sure hope you are right! With Fairfax I'm in the show me camp right now.

When I go to a high end restaurant I want human interaction. I want to talk to the sommelier and want to make sure that my steak comes medium rare without some sauce on top of it. For fast food chains automation should be perfectly reasonable.

I'm currently driving a white car, main advantage is that it stays pretty cool during summer. My last car was black and it was kinda uncomfortable in summer.

Best argument I've heard against buy&hold!