maxthetrade
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Posts posted by maxthetrade
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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.
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1 hour ago, CorpRaider said:
Also, we should make an insurance brokers thread?
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...
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I like DE, almost bought in early July but I was too cheap and missed the opportunity. Sub $300 this is a decent buy.
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5 hours ago, Gregmal said:
Bottom line is owning assets beats not owning them.
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.
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14 minutes ago, SharperDingaan said:
Our primary objective is training, and not a minimum return. We're in it to make money, and fund various objectives - but it's really all about transferring skills, and walking the talk. Our best return is an investment blowing up, that requires the uncles expertise and experience to fix - hence crypto and UK housing development as desirable long term investments.
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.
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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.
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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
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34 minutes ago, Viking said:
And so we are all taught that concentrating is dumb, stupid, idiotic, gambling…
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.
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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.
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6 hours ago, Sinbius said:
Do you consider the market on average cheap
This market reminds me somewhat of the bifurcated market in 1999/2000. Lots of expensive momo stocks and very reasonably priced value stocks.
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Sold some Jan 24 $65 KMX puts, really juicy premium.
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8 hours ago, Viking said:
Can we now reasonably say that the base case is that Fairfax should be able to earn about US$100/share moving forward?
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.
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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.
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On 9/2/2022 at 11:18 PM, Viking said:
China is a wolf in sheep's clothing (politically and economically). It is run by a communist government and its core values are diametrically opposed to those of Western nations. This was ignored for decades… China’s political and economic clout was small so who cared? That is no longer the case today: China is a political and economic gorilla. And for some strange reason it has also decided to shed the sheep’s clothing. The wolf is now in plain sight for all to see.
Western governments and companies are slowly and finally starting to understand the reality of China. It is a formidable adversary who plays by very different rules (THERE ARE NO RULES in a communist system… think about that). Liberal democracies are at a big disadvantage (in terms of playbook).
Over time, political and economic relations between the West and China will continue to get worse. For 2 reasons:
1.) the West has woken from its stupor and recognizes China for the threat that it is
2.) China has decided it will kowtow to the West no more - in economic, political and military terms it has reached ‘critical mass’
So that means game on.With chips, the US is not poking China in the eye. Rather, the US is simply recognizing the current reality and acting accordingly (better late than never). We now have Cold War Book 2. The West vs the authoritarian block (lead by China).
Western companies operating in China better get their heads out of their ass. Nvidea is just another example of what is coming for companies who refuse to deal with reality.
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.
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On 9/7/2022 at 12:45 PM, Parsad said:
That was a decade for stock pickers and value investors. The indices had a very nice run for the last decade...now things turn the other way for a bit. Cheers!
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.
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22 minutes ago, Parsad said:
House of the Dragon keeps getting better and better each episode.
Yeap, really enjoyed the latest episode.
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He nailed it. Unwatchable for me.
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@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!
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8 hours ago, SafetyinNumbers said:
With the stock at a big discount to book and a fraction of float, it has to be a short list of what Prem could find interesting enough to buy with stock.
I'm more worried about him finding another crap co he can't resist buying instead of doing buybacks.
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20 hours ago, Viking said:
Why so confident Fairfax is done issuing new shares? Because that is what Prem has been telling us for years. In the past new shares were issued to fund Fairfax’s international expansion. Today Fairfax is happy with its global insurance footprint. There will be no more large, transformative acquisitions - just small bolt on acquisitions like Singapore Re in 2021.
I sure hope you are right! With Fairfax I'm in the show me camp right now.
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1 hour ago, petec said:
I am not sure the QR code ordering at table actually works - nobody who goes to a full service prefers it to talking to a human, in my experience.
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.
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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.
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Best argument I've heard against buy&hold!
Buffett/Berkshire - general news
in Berkshire Hathaway
Posted
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.