twacowfca

It's somewhat of a coincidence that I'm hearing more about Crohn's lately (after hardly knowing anything about it). Yesterday my neighbor was telling me that people are getting treatment by exposing themselves to hookworms, of all things. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helminthic_therapy A more proven and likely safer related therapy for Crohns disease is drinking a suspension of pig whipworm eggs. These eggs pass through the digestive tract without releasing larvae and if that should occur the infection will be cleared because humans are not a suitable host for this parasite. The eggs can be purchased from a reputable pharmaceutical house in Germany with a letter from a doctor. For more info, order a copy of: The Complete Book of Digestive Health from fca.com

Third Avenue Focused Credit Fund is my recommeddation (TFCIX). It's safe by Marti Whitman's definition and adequately, but not excessively, diversified. They buy a lot of bank debt and other issues that are low duration. Therefore, a rise in interest rates will have a relatively small impact on them compared to most bond funds. When the high yield index declined @9% this winter their NAV went down only @2 1/2%. Their management company, Third Avenue Funds, has an outstanding record picking distressed or mispriced debt over the last two decades, much batter than their record for stock picks. Their long term record for their distressed debt picks may be about 15% to 20% per annum, although I haven't taken the time to root through their past filings and accurately compute these returns which aren't broken out separately. :)

In Ben Graham's day, there were many good companies that were beaten down to the point that they were net\nets. Good opportunities in this area today are fleeting and require much study of management's intentions to find a handfull that are likely to return the surplus to shareholders. Greenbacked.com has the best site for evaluating these mostly microcap and some smallcap opportunities. :) The value traps are the ones that keep pouring money into crappy businesses or have a history of buying crappy businesses, especially when the CEO is entrenched. These in general don't return much if any value to shareholders.

Correction: Dividends are declared in dollars, but paid in pence. I believe that the dollar equivalent is converted into pence on the x-div date and that is the amount that is paid to you on the payment date. If you convert back to dollars for your dividend payments, then there will be an FX risk for the period of time between the X-Date and the Payment Date conversion.

Great words of wisdom from Monish! His use of a checklist is a BIG idea we can all use to great profit. I have a friend who is an expert pilot, but before taking off, he takes out this plastic card that forces him to check off things that even new pilots know how to do very well. Really simple things like sticking a dipstick into the gas tank to make sure the tank really is full. Some have criticized Monish for his mistakes, but the truth is that we all make them. The important thing is that we not only learn from them, but improve our investing process. This is what he has done: use a simple tool that can dramatically improve his batting average.

Yep, I know that. So, does that mean that the liquidity of LRE on the LSE is much greater than FFH on the TSX? Both companies have most of their shares in the hands of a small number of funds other than mutual funds. FFH has a much bigger market cap. Therefore, without comparing trading volume, I would guess that the market value of FFH shares traded is greater because of its larger market cap, but the avg daily vol traded may favor LRE because of the lower share price. Thanks for the info. I'm gonna have to follow you guys on this one and buy LRE. Sounds like a good long term hold. One final thing, are you worried about the dollar/pound disparity? I mean, if the pound starts to fall against the dollar, wouldn't that affect the value of your LRE holdings? [\quote] They keep almost all their assets in dollar denominated securities. Therefore, their assets rise and fall with the dollar. In practice their share price olso tends to follow the dollar, with allowance for appreciation of their shares.

That's the same as 76 pence, right? Plus 3 pence in August for a total of 79 pence, which is about $1.2 at current rate GBP/USD rate. But keeping it simple, all in GBP, is it correct that the div rate for 2009 is about 16% at current price? [/quo LRE 's financials are kept in dollars (to match their exposure to mostly dollar claims). Dividends are declared and paid in dollars and then converted into another currency if necessary. This is a little strange because the shares trade in pence. :)

Yep, I know that. So, does that mean that the liquidity of LRE on the LSE is much greater than FFH on the TSX? Both companies have most of their shares in the hands of a small number of funds other than mutual funds. FFH has a much bigger market cap. Therefore, without comparing trading volume, I would guess that the market value of FFH shares traded is greater because of its larger market cap, but the avg daily vol traded may favor LRE because of the lower share price.

Their $1.25 special dividend went ex div in 2009 and was paid in January, 2010. :)

LRE trades on the London Stock Exchange, symbol is LRE:LN It's a member of the Financial Times 250. 99% of its liquidity is on the LSE. :)

Fidelity is great! Do it now! April 15 is almost here!

I went back to the original gurufocus article posted by Robert Miles about WEB's purported personal holdings and read it carefully. ( This article was the basis for the subsequent Bloomberg article that calculated Warren's supposed dividend income based on the information about his estimated personal US stockholdings as calculated by Miles using the methodology he described in the gurufocus article ) Miles has a disclaimer at the end of his article that says in self-justifying words that his conclusions are probably BS! I don't know if I missed this the first time I read his article or if Miles added this almost retraction later after the article was published. I suspect the latter because of the weasel wording of his disclaimer. Miles says that CEO's aren't required to report their personal holdings on the 13F and that the stocks listed in the 13F boxes that he assumed were Warrens personal holdings are likely BRK's pension holdings instead!

LRE has been an increasing share of our portfolio since we first bought it in 2006 as we've come to understand it better and better. We rotated out of most of our FFH soon after they announced their stock issuance and NYSE delisting. Prem and his team are great; we're light FFH now for no other reason than those technical issues. We used the proceeds to load up on BRK in anticipation of the greater liquidity with their stock split and the greater interest in owning it among funds with the anticipated addition of BRK to the S&P 500. Third Ave Focus Credit rounds out our core holdings. These are the great majority of what we own. :) These are all great holdings, lead by outstanding owners and managers. All but BRK are selling at BV and are likely to return lots of value to shareholders no matter what the market does. I would feel comfortable putting half my assets with any of them and then doing a Rip Van Winkle and waking up five or more years later.

There was an earlier posting referencing a gurufocus analysis of WEB's personal, US stockholdings. The author calculated that these reported holdings had a market value of $1.8 B EOY 2009. If the author's calculations are accurate, WEB's personal portfolio outside of BRK is now a much larger percentage of the whole than at the end of the last century. If this is correct, WEB's personal stockpicking has outperformed the S&P500 by about 20% per annum during the last 10 years. And we his deluded admirers from Graham and Doddsville have once again been "Fooled by Randomness" in the opinion of Mr. Taleb! :)

Yes, but most of the initially vested warrants went to the sponsors and founders at the IPO. They had the good sense to generously incentivize Brindle and his core staff with the remainder. But Brindle et al had to earn the vesting of most of these by consistently performing above their high hurdle. Now their warrants are in the money, and they are happily incentivized to avoid the downside as well as to gain on the upside. This is the way Brindle is wired anyway, so the incentive plan resonates with him and provides near perfect allignment with other shareholders. :)

My compliments, calonego, myth465 and the others who are now coming to understand Lancashire. The Lloyds record is the key to full understanding of their prospects in the years ahead. Confidence builds in the same way that Buffett gains understanding of future cash flows of companies and the superiority of exceptional managers by looking for consistent, exceptional returns over many years. Brindle's combined record encompasses twenty years without a single loss. He outperformed his peers, using very little leverage, in all but two of these years, 1986 & 2006 -- and these were start up years when it's very difficult to outperform without having the advantage that established competitors enjoy with earned premiums in the pipeline. Brindle outperformed his Lloyds peers by 17% per annum, one half percent less than his absolute annual returns during that very difficult time for most Lloyds syndicates. If we take away his first two years when he was merely a junior underwriter, his later annual returns were about 20%. Brindle's percentage outperformance and most importantly his consistently high absolute returns, outstanding underwriting, and capital management with an owners' orientation compare favorably with Warren's early record in a different sphere, investing. :)

Perhaps farther away than it's easy to imagine. Don't news reports say that the recent technological advances in drilling have more than doubled the potential economically recoverable reserves of natural gas in the US?

:). :) :) :) :) :)

The numbers are far better than you could ever dream. Look far back in time. :)

$4,000 per child this year ( including $2,000 for the previous year ) if you set up a new Coverdale account that you can self direct before April 15, 2010. :)

Maybe so, but that type of misuse might be likely to trigger an audit. For example, taking a tax deduction for donating a car to a charity is a big red flag for an audit because people would donate a rattletrap and then take an inflated deduction for it. Now, there must be convincing doccumentation for taking that type of deduction.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704300004575095942228680772.html

Reinsurance is truly an international market. Any such legislation would squeeze US companies out of an important market for limiting risk and put them at a disadvantage, forcing them to contract their business or maintain much higher capital ratios. Such legislation would be very difficult to enforce because reinsurance risk is sliced and diced and split up between all sorts of companies in many markets and jurisdictions. :)

Plus Tenn.

You will still need to spend >183 days/year in that other state... And, if CA is like my state, you'll have to establish bona fide residency in the new state before tax day, April 15, 2010.