villainx

The new Google Finance is sooooo useless. Who would use it? Serious question, has anyone stated this is an improvement or would be happy to continue using it?

I've used Feedly for a while, there's both an app for iOS and a website. Recently I've installed Evergreen, an alpha Mac app that is fast and lightweight and free: https://ranchero.com/evergreen/ Do you have any notable issues with Feedly? I use it, and it's not as great as Google Reader, or Digg Reader, ... it's sufficient for the most part.

I assume one of the trait of smart people is that they know to stop and listen. Along with being humble and all that good stuff. Not smartest in the room in the braggart type of way.

I get more of the amazon pop up malware on my phone when I'm signed on.

Amerco is smallish market cap wise. And that family controlling interest seems convoluted. Otherwise, yeah, it seems like it can fit somewhere in the Berkshire family.


 I wonder how many stories there are where the passenger next to Munger (or whichever economy flying business/investor leader) realizes it's Charlie Munger next to him/her.

I wonder if foreign or foreign exposure companies would be more likely now that taxes are "normalized" or less disadvantaged? Or if that was one of the reason why it hasn't been?

I thought Buffett already prepared folks for the bad optics by saying the next CEO would be granted some option based compensation. So... it should be - relatively - massive. But shouldn't be such that it would be impactful for shareholders. I guess also, by the time the next guy/gal after the next CEO, BRK will be very, very different, that's when some of the institutional stuff will wear then.

My question/point with regards to compensation is that whoever becomes the new BRK CEO won't be content with $100K. Buffett, I believe, said something along the same line. I don't think BRK future compensation will be so out of line but it would be significant.

I think it was Morgan Housel, but someone said that the past 15+ year BRK outperformance could be due to BRK not having the typical hedge fund fee structure. However, I'm assuming a lot of the sub CEO's are fairly compensated, so ...: 1) is that assertion true? if BRK top dogs got typical hedge fees, would performance suffer? 2) more relevant, post Buffet, would compensation impact BRK in a meaningful way? I guess I look at some of the supposed mini BRK, and they have been motoring a long with - I assume - more than fair compensation to management. Just wondering.

Nice.

Add me as one who is head scratching for how bad the update is. It went from serviceable (perhaps elegant) to useless. They didn't beta this thing? Benefit of the doubt question, is there any good/positive with the update?

My main thought is that Brookfield (via sub) recently bought some gas station type thing too. There is some magic there or predictability of business or something?

I don't know how it works for institutional investors or hedge funds but I have gotten as high as a 40% rate lending shares on my Schwab account. Always made me wonder what Schawb was charging the borrowers. Majority of time it has been in the single digit percentages. I know that in IB you can setup your account for lending and split the interest with them 50/50. I don't believe Schawb discloses what percentage of the total take they are giving you. Anyone know what precautions brokers take to protect against massive sell offs? If cmpr is down 50% in a day and the sales by IB account holders is greater than the total shares lent though ib, what happens? Wait for gov bailout?

I've been following MX too. Been tempted to pick some up several times, but laziness and insufficient understanding has stopped me.

I bought some too, large part due to this thread. So I appreciate what everyone shares. And so far it's been fairly civil.

I don't see any harm in raising the offer if it makes sense. Not raising the offer for future deals or principle is just silly. Buffett and Berkshire are investing, as long as it makes sense, if they had too, which is not saying they have to, raising the offer by a little isn't the end of the world. This is also against the backdrop that Berkshire has a ton of cash and they expressed numerous times that they were glad to pay up or were too strict on sticking to a price. The cash shouldn't compel them to burn a pocket hole, but it's still there nonetheless.

Including the breakup fee ... is the new bid even higher? I don't understand. Must have something to do with debt covenants?

Elliott appears to want $400 million more, but it may be affected by whether the judge rules that NextEra is entitled to their breakup fee. NextEra, understandably thinks it is owed the cash but they probably could have closed the deal if they were willing to budge on the ring fencing they knew the regulators wanted. If Elliott "wins" and both Berkshire and NextEra get $270m, then Elliott doesn't really "win" until their equalization plan results in a capital gain down the line. Thanks. That's what I thought, which seems a lot of work for small bump.

I asked this before but how much higher is Elliott hoping to get. The difference in the competing offers seem relatively small.

That's right, it was the Brit and AW minority stakes that I was thinking of. As well as perhaps growing the capacity to not have to rely on OMERS or other partner investors - or is that actually to Fairfax's advantage? I am not familiar with how much cash Fairfax would need to keep around, just wondering what would be theoretical size of any repurchase.

so far, i enjoyed all the discussion. helpful and informative.

You mean Fairfax? Has Fairfax ever meaningfully repurchased (and wisely too)? Is there still issue with their debt?

Trying to understand what's going on, Elliott is trying to get the bid $300 million higher? This amount seems to barely move the needle, especially with the % that would go to the hedge fund.

No one has speculated yet on what/where the dividend income was from, is it common knowledge?