alpha

Funny I found the prices in Alberta and eastern BC pretty good compared to rest of Canada, I was thinking prices nearly bottomed out with the recent oil prices. And unlike the rest of Canada the real estate prices actually seem to be tied to the local wages and economic health there. I was recently looking at multi-unit buildings along the new LRT line in Toronto, the asking prices on some of the buildings would have required me to get new tenants and increase rent by 40% just to be cash flow neutral, before factoring in any required renovations. And theses were areas with lots of shootings and gang violence.

Seems like the Australian housing market is finally starting to turn, will Canada be next? https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/the-end-of-the-global-housing-boom-1.1117046 https://www.ft.com/content/cf5bcbf8-b0b1-11e8-8d14-6f049d06439c

They reached a deal to buy Hudson Bay Railroad and Port of Churchill https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-deal-reached-to-buy-repair-broken-rail-line-that-is-only-land-link/

Looks like a new interview with Li Lu and Munger in China (although I am surprised Munger is still flying around the globe!) Part 1 - Part 2 -

Hi John, my figures are not cursory. They are deeply calculated. I am just to laszy to publish the details. Soon we will see, how precise these figures were. Even today we are trading just app 1.28 x BV FIGURES ARE OUT : 145.118 $ per B (217.755 A) The calculated BV figures - published from me here in the forum at end of Q1, see above - were extremly precise. Just 0.05 % difference. Thats nearly nothing. BRK is now ( today) extremly cheap. We are just trading at 1.32 BV. The BV today is app 150.40 $ per B. So extremly up since end of 2Q driven by AAPL BAC KHC etc Great work Valuehalla!

2B deal with Seritage Growth Properties https://www.reuters.com/article/us-seritage-growth-termloan-berkshire/buffetts-berkshire-offers-loan-to-owner-of-former-sears-properties-idUSKBN1KL33U

As a shareholder I am always happy with buybacks, but I was hoping Buffet would pull out the elephant gun with that massive cash pile. He's not getting any younger, this might have been his last chance for a mega deal.

BNSF oil train derailed in Iowa. https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/estimated-230-000-gallons-of-oil-spilled-in-derailment-bnsf-1.3986622

The article I read on this story mentioned the guy worked as a risk analyst at Reuters for years and didn't really sound like a newbie. My guess is he probably found a small brokerage with an old crappy trading interface and exploited it to gain more margin. Chris Sacca tried something similar while he was in college. He found a bug in his brokerage account app that allowed him to use more margin than he was approved for as a broke college student. He ended up with 4 million dollars of debt before even graduating college because of the .com crash.

Canada is a giant landmass filled with natural resources located directly beside the largest economy in the world, and it only has ~30 million residents. No surprise the average resident will be "wealthier" than the USA, but it is also amazing how poor it is compared to other small resource rich nations.

WeWork provides offices on demand for tech startups and small businesses. It does not actually own any real estate, it leases large sections of office buildings then: subdivides the space, adds a few basic office necessities, like coffee and wifi, etc, and then rents them out through it's service on short term basis. In 2017 it lost 993 million dollars. This company is now raising more capital and being valued at 35 billion dollars! Would you invest? ;D https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-13/softbank-executive-says-wework-is-raising-funds-at-35-billion-valuation

Buffet reportedly offered to invest 3 billion in Uber but deal fell through. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/30/warren-buffett-reportedly-offered-uber-3-billion-investment-but-talks-crumbled.html

I feel like although he is right he may be shooting himself in the foot long term by commenting on China's political system. https://www.bloomberg.com//news/articles/2018-05-25/watsa-shuns-china-as-fairfax-looks-for-investment-in-india-u-s

Pretty funny the liberals view bridge building as a national security threat, but next generation laser technology is no big deal. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/liberals-reverse-course-on-chinese-deal/article34441975/

This will fit in nicely with Canada's new legislation requiring gender review studies for construction projects: http://nationalpost.com/news/politics/lawyers-stumped-over-new-gender-and-identity-provisions-for-environmental-impact-assessments

Some of the articles and statistics coming out about the GTA real estate market this year have been crazy. Like this one about a Nigerian bus driver grandma that owns two $950,000 homes but is unable to come up with 30k cash to get more favorable financing when her pre-construction investment home lost 100k in value. https://www.thestar.com/business/real_estate/2018/01/29/how-a-softer-housing-market-has-crushed-pre-construction-home-buyers-dreams.html There have been many more about middle class people losing 400-500k in real estate deals that are falling through because of declining prices. On the other hand condo prices in GTA have sky rocketed. Young buyers are now paying 600k for 1 bedroom shoe box condos.

They even removed their live youtube channel and replaced it with a paywalled video site. They also recently took over the Canadian BNN channel, which was a good source for Canadian business news.

Great interview, thanks

It wasn't long ago people were pumping this company up as the "Berkshire Hathaway of China" etc... Now in a matter of months it has gone from big overseas acquisitions to one of China's largest financial crime trials with allegations of fraud. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/28/business/china-anbang-wu-xiaohui.html

Not bad!, then: Heh, lucky for their performance fee there was a selloff at the end of 2017 ;)

Phillips 66 is going to buy back 3.28 billion worth of shares from BRK for $93.72 per share to keep BRK's holdings under 10% https://www.reuters.com/article/us-phillips-66-buyback-berkshire/phillips-66-to-buy-back-35-mln-shares-from-berkshire-hathaway-idUSKCN1FX33G

Small bolt-on acquisition for Berkshire Homeservices https://www.reuters.com/article/brief-silverhawk-realty-joins-berkshire/brief-silverhawk-realty-joins-berkshire-hathaway-homeservices-idUSFWN1PI10U

Ajit Jain reports $109 million Berkshire stake https://www.reuters.com/article/us-berkshire-hathaway-stakes/possible-buffett-successor-jain-reports-109-million-berkshire-stake-idUSKBN1F806A

Have you read about the management and "performance" fees being paid out in their latest quarterly filings?

I have noticed many first time buyers in the GTA seem to get help with the down payment from their parents/relatives who are in turn depending on the equity in their own house for retirement. A recent CIBC poll seems to back this observation up: https://globalnews.ca/news/3628596/canada-boomers-millennials-financial-help-gifts/