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Santayana

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Everything posted by Santayana

  1. The Zenith net written may not have been what we're looking for, but that 78.3 CR sure looks good!
  2. After all the grief they got over the hedges, I'm sure the last thing they expected to hear on the call was somebody complaining that they weren't hedged enough!
  3. When you look at what the overall markets did last quarter, it's hard to imagine anyone having good investment results. The California fires didn't help the overall results for the quarter either.
  4. And on a 25 year timeframe it's a 10 bagger.
  5. I'm not a chartist, but there seems to be a lot of support around the $510 USD level. It makes me wonder if they have started buying back.
  6. Lots of valid points. I'll just add that looking at a long term price history and ignoring the dividends seems pretty disingenuous. My returns in Fairfax over the past 10 years are pretty comparable to what I would have made in BRK or the S&P.
  7. Ended up doubling my holdings today. About 75% of my long equity position is Fairfax now.
  8. Wish I had been looking first thing this morning. Seems to be rebounding already, just picked some up at $355. Anyone add at the lows?
  9. LOL, thanks for that link Eric. Looks like you are enjoying life in California 8)
  10. Why do you think they have sold them already? Did I miss an annoucement? That money would have had to go somewhere.
  11. The beginnings of the crisis were pretty clear in 2007 to anyone that was paying attention. Bernanke on the other hand said it was all "well contained", there was no danger of the subprime issues affecting the larger economy. My question is did he really not see it, or was he just avoiding yelling Fire! in the theater?
  12. http://www.businessinsider.com/whitney-tilsons-bullish-berkshire-hathaway-2012-3# Good presenation, but does the fact that it's Tilson make anyone nervous? Or is he finally going to get one right?!
  13. except you just pulled 75% out of your hat. it's random. you have no idea how accurate they will be in the future and you have no idea that you can predict with accuracy of 75% what the market will do based on their forecast. I already demolished this notion by pointing out that UNP is way higher, despite two recession calls from ECRI over the last few years. It would have been foolish to sell it based on their forecast. But your idea is a good, if flawed, defense of their service. I don't think he was defending their service.
  14. That only measure the people who are looking for work but can't find it. If you advertise a new job and two previously discouraged people come out of the shadows to apply for it, the unemployment rate goes up. The perma-bears have told us time and again that unemployment is really much higher than it looks due to the number of discouraged workers who have given up looking. Now is their time to jump out and make the denial that I am making (I doubt they will, because they are called perma-bears for a reason). We just don't know which situation is causing the number to rise yet (fewer jobs or more applicants), but it should become more clear in the next couple of months. Or this may just be a temporary blip and we start seeing a decline in the UE% again. Disclosure, I'm not a permabear, just for as long as you've known me :D If only I had listened to my brother back in April 2006 when he told me about his friend Eric that had just made a huge option bet on some company I had never heard of called Fairfax. Then I'd have a lot less to worry about ;D
  15. It appears the employment numbers are in fact weakening now. http://www.gallup.com/poll/152753/Unemployment-Increases-Mid-February.aspx
  16. Flexibility around taxable gains and losses? You might not like the investment results, but book value growth over the past 5 years has been great.
  17. Not hoping for anything specific, just expect Prem to make the right choices about how to allocate capital over the long term.
  18. Funny you ask that since I sold some WFC calls today to buy more FFH. Flip the question around. Except as a speculative play, why would anyone buy WFC or BAC instead of FFH?
  19. About 20% in Fairfax and feeling very comfortable with it.
  20. My only concern is with writing all that additional business with a CR over 120. The higher rates should help that, but I'm beginning to wonder if we will ever see good underwriting results. Added some shares today at $395.
  21. We just bought a new home last month, for us things really are more affordable now than I can ever remember. I do think the article is misleading in a couple of ways though. Technically 20 years is "decades", but that's really a stretch IMO. The other thing the article doesn't go into is how many families earning the median income are currently underwater on a home and have no down payment. I think they are defining affordable purely as percentage of income without considering other factors. Real affordability would be a return to the days when a single income family could afford a home making service job level wages.
  22. I'll still have 20% of my present net worth if BAC is at $0 per share tomorrow morning. Your brother almost got shot dead while in the Eiffel Tower. I'll stay away from that crazy country with their handguns and I'll be fine (I'll be safer in LA perhaps -- he never almost got shot when he lived there). LOL.....you can still go to Paris, you just have to hedge your ticket with a kevlar vest!
  23. I think the other scenario that can result in permanent capital loss is if you need access to the capital during a period where volatility has you sitting on a loss. For the professional managing OPM that could arise from redemptions, or for the individual investor just from a need to generate cash for living expenses, especially upon retirement. In a well diversified portfolio this might not be as much of a concern, but many on this board talk about taking large focused bets. To go back to what started much of this discussion, how much effect do macro issues have on the IV of a company? I would say that it depends, with some companies especially financials, being very sensitive. So if I have a large position in a company or sector with high sensitivity to macro issues, and I hedge, I think I'm hedging against both volatility AND risk. If the PIGS all default within the next 5 years, I believe that the IV of many companies will be permanently impacted and I want to protect against that.
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