DooDiligence

Now that's funny ;D

MO Jan 2020 $52.50 Calls at $8 and a tiny bit of CMCSA last Monday.

I think Howard Marks' treatment of "Margin of Safety" is wayyy more important. Makes Klarman's book look amateurish.

He probably has a stack of 1st editions with unclipped dust jackets & is doing a pump & dump on Amazon & FeeBay. I doubt I'll ever read it again since it was mostly common sense.

WEB's says in nearly every letter to shareholders that we can expect combined ratios to deteriorate, and yet, insurance operations continue to perform. He's one of my favorite pessimistic optimists. Make Berkshire Great Again!

This tool is very commonly used in dictatorships. Just read Orwell. Those who grew up behind the Iron curtain know this very well. Happens in investment discussions too... Not always consciously ... I say Berkshire entirely too often.

Keep us on contract & pay us more & we'll look the other way? http://ww2.cfo.com/auditing/2018/05/do-big-four-auditors-unfairly-raise-fees/

"A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth." This statement couldn't be more relevant in todays political environment.

Maybe one day, it’ll be changed to BANG? Disclaimer: Not to be taken seriously (or is it?)

+1 I came to that conclusion as well between 2009 and 11. After messing around with lesser names and ideas. Downside protection for the really long term is rare. My conclusion is that they simply don’t exist elsewhere. Not just that I cannot find them. The secret is to have lower expectations while taking the downside protection. You have a huge leg up on me in that you’re doing this as a student. Mine happened in my middle years and the messing around cost me. No big regrets, pleased that I learned that then, not now or later. Good luck to us. Students come in all ages. DooDiligence is in his mid 50's or something like that Yes, that was actually funny! The difference between young and more mature students: Young students: Strugling very hard, and result-oriented to get IN to the hamster wheel chosen as preference. More mature students: Working more balanced, but still result-oriented [still hell bent] to get OUT of the hamster wheel chosen ealier in life. If such a student has some guts, that person is actually designing and building the future job for him/her self! -Right, Jeff? Absolutely! I’m majoring in classical guitar & minoring in piano but plan on reversing that after the Fall semester. The guitar has to be forced to play this stuff, whereas it simply flows from the keyboard. As to employment prospects, I’m doing live & studio sound reinforcement for other students / performers & am slowly investing in equipment (picks & shovels instead of joining the gold rush.) The puzzles presented by music theory instructors are just icing on the cake & every day in class is an absolute joy. I try to help struggling / working students where I can, with the hope that a few of them will remember me after I’m gone (in another 25 or 30 years?!?) Sorry for the thread derailment. Thanks to all for helping me hang on to my grub stake! —— Forgot to add, I’m 56.

Thanks to all for the thoughtful responses. It took me quite a few years of reading before I finally started buying BRK (began watching it around $80. & 1st purchase was around $190.) I'm a full time student with no active income other than a Pell Grant & a tiny scholarship (hopefully, scholarship awards will grow.) I've shifted my philosophy from trying to find upside (a dubious endeavor for me), to Howard Marks "downside protection", and in this respect, Berkshire is the only company I understand well enough to feel comfortable with. I can't see BRK's businesses being reproduced for 1.3 +/- book, and in the event of a large downturn, the strong shareholder base plus buybacks seem like good backstops for the equity. I understand that the non-wholly owned investments can fluctuate, and I may be wrong, but I look at these as lagniappe. If the tax cut isn't permanent, the increase in economic goodwill should give this juggernaut a bit more momentum to sustain a possible future reversion to higher tax rates? --- On another note, will the decrease in corporate tax rate increase competition by spurring a lot of new business start-ups? Seems to me like it would, since the hurdle is so much lower.

Would you please explain the implications of the new tax law in regards to buybacks? This is an honest question & not an attempt to be inflammatory. I really want to understand, as I am slowly building BRK into my largest position.

Actually zero people on CoBF have posted their portfolios and (audited) returns. The annual return threads do not include portfolios and are mostly anonymous polls with very few people posting their returns explicitly connected to the poster. Even the ones who post their returns, don't post their portfolios. So your request is IMO out of line. The OP clearly stated, Which begs the question, "so what are you holding?" I'm not the only one here who raised the question but you apparently have some kind of axe to grind with me so grind away.

I feel like I've steered this discussion off the rails here, although I'm surprised the discussion became so toxic. That was not my intention when I posted in this thread. I did want to point out that I like Berkshire's wholly owned insurance and utility companies, however I did not like the makeup of the common stock portfolio, and tried to give a surface level criticism of the positions and my thoughts on their prospects. I didn't want to set off a firestorm--it doesn't seem unusual or out there to think stocks like KO and AXP are not exciting or value picks today. If you disagree, that's fine....eventually we will find out. TBF, I'm not particularly thrilled with the management of KO (IMHO they seem to be going off the rails with brand line extensions & executive pay.) Can't really comment intelligently re: AXP except to say that I think Chenault was a douche. https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-how-amex-lost-costco/ --- The point is that you boasted returns & provided nothing solid to back it up. Nearly everyone on COBF will demonstrate their gains & mistakes with unflinching honesty. (That's why I respect this place so much.) If you make a claim regarding your returns (especially when you've been dogging WEB & Chuck) then put up some evidence.

I'd consider that off topic. <10% of my personal portfolio contains securities with a large enough market cap to be relevant for consideration for Berkshire. I'm pleased but not satisfied with my returns, and they have outperformed the S&P 500 and Berkshire by a comfortable margin. Could you be a bit more evasive?

That's why I keep a spare Heloc or two around... Good idea, I should secure one of those. What do they usually charge if you don't use it? Nothing. That's in Canada though, may be different in the US. Prime plus 0.5% is the rate, interest only payments. 5% hurdle, 7% +/- with inflation (possibly significantly more?) I remember back in the late 70's, how my Grandfather loved his low interest mortgage. --- "In 1970, inflation was 5.5 percent. By 1974, it was 12.2 percent, and then it peaked at a crippling 13.3 percent in 1979 [source: Jubak]. The stock market ground to a halt. From 1970 to 1979, the S&P 500 returned an average of 5.9 percent annually. But when you subtract for inflation (average 7.4 percent annually), the market lost value every year. The annual return on bonds was 2.6 percentage points lower than inflation [source: Jubak]." https://money.howstuffworks.com/stagflation1.htm --- Probably better off staying unencumbered, especially since I'm a dubious stock picker at best (but it is Berkshire, right?)

That's why I keep a spare Heloc or two around... Good idea, I should secure one of those. What do they usually charge if you don't use it?

Actually, it'd be a 1st mortgage. But yeah, I get it that rates would probably be higher & who'd loan to a student with no income, especially when I told them what I was doing with the $$$.

I think you guys are overconfident. BRK has fallen 50% top to bottom 2 or 3 times in its history. It can happen again. And if Warren was dead, there's no guarantee it would recover from 50% drop. ::) 0.6x (+/-) book would be AWESOME! I'd probably mortgage my home 4 that. You clearly forget that when stocks owned by BRK fall, book also falls. I did indeed :-[

I think you guys are overconfident. BRK has fallen 50% top to bottom 2 or 3 times in its history. It can happen again. And if Warren was dead, there's no guarantee it would recover from 50% drop. ::) 0.6x (+/-) book would be AWESOME! I'd probably mortgage my home 4 that.

More Berkshire. Up to a 10% allocation at cost. Should just go all in but I'm a grazer.

We had an intangible property tax here in Florida which was legislated in 1999. It was calculated using a crazy formula involving investments, interests in LP's & receivables, among other things. I would receive a form every year, which I promptly threw in the trash. Nobody ever came to dun me & it was finally repealed in 2007.

https://buffett.cnbc.com/video/1995/05/01/afternoon-session---1995-berkshire-hathaway-annual-meeting.html ‏ Link courtesy of, ValueInvestingBlog @NeverLoseMoney on FinTwit, duh?

The entitlement society rolls on. Casual speculators will learn their lessons the hard way, eventually. Everyone else will spot opportunities at the wake.

http://uglymule.com/images/CamelRider.jpg I bought the Giza pyramids back in 1998 & here's me & my agent getting ready to go to the closing. He was much better as a sales agent than he is as a property manager. I still haven't received any rent checks & think I've got squatters. BTW, nice mullet, huh?