NoCalledStrikes

If Attila the Hun was an All-American on the Cornhusker's D-Line, Warren would have something nice to say about him.

The value the brokerage firm reports to the IRS, is the value of the conversion on the day of the conversion. Whether the account value goes up or down after that day does not affect your taxes owed.

I went to a stock chart comparison and entered KO, BRK.B, SP500, against WGRNX. All were better investments than WGRNX. Frankly, I was surprised at how poorly he has done since his fund opened nearly 10 years ago. I have always enjoyed reading David Winters' commentary, but he should have dropped his argument once Warren corrected him for the way David incorrectly figured the potential dilution. (Winters basically treated the options as having a zero strike price).

The state of Texas provides a nice query tool on oil and gas production at http://webapps.rrc.state.tx.us/PDQ/generalReportAction.do Here are the 25 largest counties by oil production for 2014. The top of the list is a handful of counties in the heart of the Eagle Ford whereas the oil in west Texas oil is dispersed over more counties. County Oil (BBL) Casinghead (MCF) GW Gas (MCF) Condensate (BBL) KARNES 6,040,302 8,164,278 10,127,042 1,813,437 LA SALLE 4,553,370 7,636,096 10,617,070 406,257 GONZALES 4,195,605 5,048,957 39,966 445 MCMULLEN 3,035,397 3,883,021 6,288,578 422,605 DE WITT 3,034,905 8,325,337 10,991,739 1,417,116 ANDREWS 2,974,334 4,718,145 55,079 581 MARTIN 2,489,804 4,610,263 1,330 14 ECTOR 2,483,278 5,324,114 359,553 1,297 UPTON 2,473,298 7,678,086 1,683,147 32,973 DIMMIT 2,376,600 5,385,074 15,206,536 1,869,658 MIDLAND 2,290,844 5,833,950 551,166 14,704 GAINES 2,038,883 1,719,355 515,713 1,267 YOAKUM 1,874,422 2,022,920 27,601 0 WARD 1,806,262 3,402,245 1,451,351 4,591 GLASSCOCK 1,701,797 6,512,906 76,504 1,323 REAGAN 1,589,021 5,366,855 43,637 701 SCURRY 1,403,527 3,123,119 0 0 ATASCOSA 1,375,854 1,087,095 303,615 2,334 REEVES 1,321,546 2,859,779 2,862,214 76,714 HOCKLEY 1,244,154 767,329 8,152 192 HOWARD 1,071,015 2,669,156 23,919 595 IRION 1,026,048 4,570,067 207,248 2,581 LIVE OAK 963,205 2,083,658 7,167,523 694,896 CRANE 880,934 3,556,744 623,498 5,730

2014: +12.74% 2013: +51.7% Looking at the difference between 2013 and 2014 and the impact AWILCO had on it explains why I think one year performance measures based on the position of the earth relative to the sun rather than measurements based on market cycles are somewhat nonsensical. Had I sold all my Awilco on 12/31/2013, my 2014 numbers would have been much better:) But had I never bought Awilco, my 2013 numbers would have been about 15% lower. Since I sold a fair bit of Awilco stock in the spring of this year when my first holdings went long-term and the dividend was so rich along the way, I did ok, but boy did I give back a lot later because I got too greedy and held the remainder too long. Repeat after me: Drillers are always and everywhere cyclicals. Winners : Deep in the money BRK leap calls (60's and 80's) that I bought in Dec 2012 which expire next month Losers: JGWPT, I blindly followed Kerrisdale Capital's write-up on JGWPT and thought I saw an undervalued company. In hindsight, I was blinded by my success with Kerrisdale's UHAL writeup. But whereas UHAL is a real business dealing with rational customers providing a useful service, JGWPT is a financial operator selling a product to mostly financially illiterate people who truth be told in most cases shouldn't be buying the product. Dumb, dumb, dumb, it didn't pass the smell test, and complicated financials are out of my circle of competence, but I bought it anyway.

I finished the book last night. I still found it too positive and cheery, but I must give the book its due for teaching me more about how decentralized Berkshire is. I've always heard Warren joke that Berkshire leaves the companies alone to the point of abdication, but I don't think I really appreciated how much truth there is in that statement until reading the book. If he spends more than a couple hours a year thinking about his little companies like Dairy Queen or Ben Bridge Jewelers, I'd be amazed. Still, I would only recommend this book for Berkshire fans who want to learn more details about some of the less publicized subsidiary companies. For more critical analysis I would recommend the Lowenstein and Schroeder books.

BG - I never owned a position in my IRA that generated over $1000 in UBIT so I didn't ever encounter the issue of crossing this threshold , but I probably never had more than $100K in MLPs in my account at one time. I never did anything with the K-1's because I never crossed the $1000 threshold. Additionally, if you do cross the threshold, it is the custodian of the account that is responsible for paying the taxes to the IRS on an IRA, of course the custodian will charge you the tax paid and a fee for filing it. I bought my MLPs for capital gains with a plan on holding them for no more than a couple years, but then as I mentioned previously I never expected interest rates to stay this low this long..

I received this book for Christmas and am currently halfway through it. I am finding the book too positive. Its like reading something written by a corporate IR department. While I really enjoyed Cunningham's editing of Warren's annual letters, in this book every day is peaches and cream in the Berkshire empire and any mistake that happens at BH is just a temporary setback. I feel like I am reading a hagiography.

I've never had a problem with a MLP in an IRA, but then I've always had plenty of depreciation left in my holdings. If my holdings were 10 years old, my depreciation would be less and then I might not have seen it as such a good idea. Currently, I have no MLPs as I keep on thinking interest rates will go back up someday... For me, an MLP in an IRA is easier to deal with than dealing with multiple state income tax filings. YMMV.

I would like to know the base rate on divorce for marriages with pre-nups:) I think oddball's comments are spot on. Anybody thinking about asking for a prenup should be questioning if they are marriage material in the first place.

I can buy foreign stocks directly at Fidelity on my non-IRA account, but for my Fido IRA I must buy the pink sheet equivalent. While the liquidity buying directly is infinitely better, the foreign exchange conversion fees at Fido are pretty high, so its a wash. For the markets IB serves, you are better off using IB and taking advantage of their much more reasonable FX charges.

Buy him a share of BRK and FFH and let the compounding begin!

I always thought it would be best to consolidate my brokerage accounts, but I buy a lot of illiquid and oddball stocks and I never cease to be amazed by the differences between brokers. IB is probably best overall for me because if you have to place several orders to fill your order, you don't get hit by $8 for each 100 shares. (The market makers seem to only want to sell 100 shares at a time when I place an order for 500 shares and then they move the price down a penny or two to see if I will follow them, if I change my order to chase them, other brokers charge me another $8 if I change the order price, but IB only charges no worse than a $1 minimum if I change the price.) If you trade large caps this isn't an issue. While IB is cheaper, I don't like paying a half penny a share commission on a $2 stock. If you need to buy 10000 shares to buy a meaningful position in a low dollar stock this starts to add up. Fidelity has better fills, I can place a market order for 500 shares always get a good fill in between the bid/ask. However, if its illiquid and I place a limit order at the ask, invariable the mm will sell me 100 share and then move the ask up a penny, then I either have to hope I get filled by the end of the day or pay a new commission if I change the order. IB let's you iceberg the order size or do other tricks to hide your intentions, but Fidelity doesn't. I have a Coverdale at TD Ameritrade which the other brokerages don't allow. Often with illiquid stocks I have to call them to place an order. Its a real pain in the butt, but then the other guys don't offer Coverdales. I presume they do this to prevent hackers from taking over accounts and running up stock prices in the hacked accounts for the benefit of their pal on the other side of the trade. I wish they would just put in two factor authentication and let me trade illiquid stocks on line in return.

I believe the CIO of Janus was a former Gross deputy who apparently left on good terms with Bill.

Those bonds may be senior in one of SHLD's food chains, but I think Eddie has created many food chains, and you want to make sure you pick the bonds that are in the chain that survives such as the one that has the Kenmore and Craftsman brands.

The investing routine I was using while working a day job was very efficient in prioritizing my investment research on my most important ideas. I had limited time and would use it wisely. However, once I retired early to do more investing and pursue other interests, I found I lost my prioritization focus and initially spent too much time on the marginal investment activities that I didn't have time for before, rather than spend more quality time on my best ideas. For me, developing a daily/weekly routine to keep myself focused on what's most important remains key.

Thanks! I remember as a kid on family vacations seeing the little squirel sign for blue chip stamps at the gas stations in California. Alas, my family was a S&H green stamps family, so I don't have any only stamps hanging around as collector iterms.

I'm not so sure, to Winter's credit, his turnover ratio is very low from 10-15% over the last 5 years.

I know Warren is talking his book at the AGM when he says that the highest ROI he ever gets is from buying jewelry at Borsheims to give to his wife, but there is some truth in that. Hey, some of that jewelry he bought her in the mid-60's could have easily cost 500 shares back in the day or a cool 100 million in today at 200K/share, but there is no prize for being the richest man in the cemetery.

Its uncanny how after 9 years, Wintergreen's cumulative return to investors in his fund (84.40%) is almost identical to the return from the S&P 500 (84.99%). Technically, Winters himself did measurable better than the S&P, but all his out-performance was absorbed by his fund's not insignificant 1.85% expense ratio. Yet, he has the nerve to claim that he knows how to look out for shareholders better than Warren. What a joke, his 1.85% expense ratio on 1.25 billion in AUM = 23.1 million/year for Wintergreen. Meanwhile, the last BRK proxy I read had Warren charging his fellow shareholders only $500,000/year. If David Winters is lucky, his investors aren't reading his tweets and picking up ideas on what to do with managers who aren't looking out for their shareholders.