chrispy

Value Stocks podcast most recent episode covers Fairfax India for about 45 minutes. Enjoyed listening to it but the topics and conclusions are very similar to what has been mentioned here. My cost basis is right around this price level and is only a few percentage of my total holdings. I don't feel an urge to add unless it drops one or two more dollars which may not happen.

Great update. I think this gain will roughly equal the decrease in BV due to the rupee this quarter. Regardless of the short term currency fluctuations, it is a great sign.

Since June 30th IIFL has decreased by 4-5%, Bangalore has not been reappraised (I believe), and the currency has plummeted. The q2 decrease in book value was due to the rupee so that would mean book value may very well decrease this quarter (short sighted thoughts)

Nearing the 52 week low

A nice write-up that mashs together the 2017 and 2018 COBF Fairfax threads: Fairfax Financial Offers Unique Exposure At Attractive Prices https://seekingalpha.com/article/4196979?source=ansh $FRFHF, $CIBEY, $EGFEY, $FFXDF, $FFXXF, $GRVVF

Would it be possible for a private company to purchase stock in a publicly traded company and give it to an employee as a bonus to avoid income taxes? Would that still count as income for the employee?

Share price of nearly all holdings has gone up since the previous quarter's filings. I put this together pretty quickly and do NOT have great confidence in the number of shares owned by FFH. Either way, it is a good trend. Sorry for the poor formatting too... Amount and Increase in BV in millions: Ticker Shares 3/31/2018 6/8/2018 Amount % increase Increase in BV BB 9.67E+07 $10.72 $12.25 $1,184.58 14.27% $147.95 RFP 3.05E+07 $8.40 $10.65 $325.34 26.79% $68.73 EGFEY - $0.44 $0.53 - 20.40% - KW 1.33E+07 $17.50 $20.60 $274.43 17.71% $41.30 IPI 1.67E+07 $3.47 $4.65 $77.50 34.01% $19.67 USG 1.53E+06 $39.40 $41.32 $63.24 4.87% $2.94 CTL 1.85E+06 $16.29 $17.62 $32.55 8.16% $2.46 Sum $283.04

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-31/fairfax-is-said-to-prep-new-500-million-investment-in-seaspan

Agree. Chuck Akre does it exceptionally well too

Prem stated that the recent toys r us Canadian locations were more successful than the US locations. Does anyone on the board have recent experience with the toys r us stores in Canada?

Thank you for sharing. Did he discuss any topics that deviated from Brookfield and their industry?

They have short duration bonds and a lot of cash. While they might be considered a hedge, it is far from how things were a couple of years ago

So after seeing the books they must have liked SOME of what they saw in the US?

Whoa.

Thank you for taking your time to share all of this!

This very much reinforces the idea that time is the best friend of a patient investor. After 5 years most outperformed the S&P 50-70% of the time. After 10 years almost every single one had outperformed the S&P 100% of the time. One bit that jumped out at me was Davis' having 0.77% outperformance over 47 years which lead to 33% more in total return. Every little bit counts! This is similar to the underperformance that high fees will cost an investor over long periods of time. How many of these funds do you think benefited greatly by holding BRK the whole time? What were some of your takeaways from doing the study racemize besides what you mentioned in the first couple of pages?

Very well done. Looking forward to digging more into this

Petec, is that a similar concept to how one time dividends have minor effects on share price compared to consistent/consistently increasing dividends?

I have learned a lot from reading all of these great posts. Thank you. Prem mentioned in this year's letter that while they sold First Capital, none of the other businesses we're for sale. Assuming that applies to Eurolife.

I recall that if you remove the equity hedges from the 2016 report, bv grew by ~15% over the past 5 years. While it's not fair to pick and choose data, it does show that amount is possible.

Good points. That is the big question, how does this work in reverse? My understanding: Companies with the largest proportion of shares held by active owners, where the active owners are willing to sell shares in a downturn, will have an outsized decrease in share price?

Prem touched on many topics that have been talked about here. Share buybacks, the consequences of selling JNJ WFC USB, changes in their equity investment approach, and his sons $50m investment fund. It appeared to me he is a little humbled by the way things have gone over the past few years...

I have enjoyed the first half of the letter and now need to find time to read their BRK analysis. Their commentary on holding cash through various cycles and how they never plan to again once they deploy their current cash holding was very interesting. I believe it was Racemize who posted research that concluded being 100% invested almost always works out better (when emotion is removed as a variable). With regards to indexing, they continue to make one point that I dont agree with, nor does my math. If folks only invest into an index fund, then every stock in that fund goes up by the same amount. They disagree though and state that the top holdings go up the most and subsequently smaller holdings go up less and less. My math cannot recreate their finding... Anything that I am missing?

Agree with Racemize. Brookfield made the profitable qualities of Teekay very clear.

I am eyeing Google as well.