20ppy

The verdict on MSFT's case was probably impacting some immediate areas of the tech stocks and market in general, but it was not broad enough to cause the whole market to go down in my opinion. I was impacted by it myself, but I didn't think it would cause the collapse of the Nasdaq issues as the ensuing events did. People knew that the Clinton Administration was biased again companies like MSFT and the appellate court may still give different results. Had it not been the other broader impacting events, the market would have recovered from the verdict on MSFT and continues the upwards trend. Many tech investors at the time didn't know enough about the MSFT case and they didn't care, anything Internet related would make people rich was the belief.

"What was the catalyst for the 2000 tech crash, what caused the run for the doors?" 1. Nasdaq was very richly valued 2. The presidential election uncertainty/impasse 3. Then 911.

MSFT is ok for the short term ( 2 to 4 years maybe). Once the big wave of the whole world moving to smaller devices, MSFT will be mostly left behind and their revenues will begin to dry up slowly. Also, MSFT's internal company culture is too bad, it's inconceivable that they will keep their innovation going as nearly well as their competitors. So, I think holding MSFT bears tremendous risks in the long term (5+ years).

My understanding of the whole hedge was that for FFH it had a cap of ~200million for the downside (inflation happens) and unlimited upside (deflation happens). Is that understanding wrong? I believe FFH must have thought thru the risks either way...

For the folks who have already retired at a relative young age(< 50), how you people are dealing with health insurance? I face this issue while I am still deciding. I have no doubt that retirement to me means more time for family and investment and traveling, but what are the reasonable health care options without a big corporation? This is of course a worry more for the US residents. One option is of course to move to Canada.

thanks, real and pure! in the form before money descends.

I have a little different opinion w.r.t. MSFT. I don't think it's a long term buy/hold stock, if that's the start, it should not be a short term stock that I have to worry about either. MSFT's products can be winners and losers, but they should not be the bases how the stock should be valued on for the long term. I don't know what people think about MSFT's business culture, but for a high tech co. that is utmost important for its survival and well being. Unfortunately, MSFT has developed a cancerous culture and that is very dangerous for its business. If the OS business doesn't change much, then at best MSFT is a run off operation. But if the OS business will change in a big way, then I don't know what MSFT will be at all. Who can say that the computer OS business will likely remain as is for a long time? I am just not sure.

MSFT's corporate customers will remain for a long while, just as IBM's many years ago. PCs will gradually be for large corporations and academia. The paradigm shift is not that the existing PC market will vanish, rather it's the new concept that people don't have to learn anything to use a computer or device, for the greater majority of mankind anyway. So, in that regard, MSFT does not have a future as it appears, they can still try, but it will be very difficult. APPL gets it and has occupied the market and mindshare. Their iPone apps directly can be ported to iPad, and iPad Next will be more powerful than PCs. Who can afford to use anything else when all the apps are on iPad Next?

I am not sure about MSFT for the mid to long term. I tend to think that MSFT has run its course in the technology field as the Sun in a day. Its main problem comes from inside and it has been this way for a few years now. Its culture has deteriorated to such a point that even a new CEO may not be able to right it. It won't die by all means for many many years, but it will suffer in all aspects from any and all competitors because MSFT is no longer competitive. More importantly, its PC OS business (one of its main revenue pillars) will go way down almost for sure due to the fact that this time around APPL does everything about right. Mobile phone business is basically over for MSFT. Office business is still strong and will remain that way for a while, but it can't make up the revenue loss by the OS business. Search will continue to be an underdog for a long time, it won't make enough money to change the fate of the company. Game business is coming strong, but it will suffer similar fate as the OS business because they are in the same boat more or less. Once it becomes obvious that APPL and the likes are taking MSFT's lunches and dinners, it will reflect even more in the revenue and stock prices. But I am not worried about MSFT in the short term, like within a year or two.

Ben Graham ranked the threats to the financial world: nuclear war, inflation in 1963. How applicable they are still today!

It's funny that I've seen this type of discussion thread, more and more recently. My views on this follows, not that is means much to you or it matters: 1. Most part of US population lead by polititcians are arrogant towards China. In the similar fashion that they believed in the recent wars. 2. Whatever labels people use for different people only show their own limited views of the real world. Being it capitalism or socialism they use in this case. 3. The whole situation will continue just like religions do. 4. If you notice, WEB and Charlie Munger never framed a nation with these big words, they take things as are. They truely have objective mindset in judging things. We as investers need to learn this skill. 5. It was a mistake for the Chinese 30 years ago to have believed that all capitalism was bad. It proves a bigger mistake for the US to think that all capitalism is good.

OK, sounds like that was of no interest to people. At this point, the leap put options could offer some good value, oh well, maybe I will move on to something else like GE or WFC and forget about Fairfax options.

Hello, I am wondering how people now trade Fairfax options? The US Pink Sheet stock has options, but they can only be closed (with IB at least). I don't know if the TSE has options, I can't find it with IB. This is interesting. thanks

Thank you for your comment hero. OK, At the time of sale, I will receive CAD dollars, which can be higher or lower depending on the exchange rate at the time. Or, I convert FFH.TO back to FRFHF.PK at $11 cost and then sel it. That way, I will not need to receive CAD dollars, I will get US dollars directly. So basically, we will still have a choice at the time of sale. Additionally, there seems to be a desirable side effect in all of these: I will be able to keep the value constant regardless of the exchange rate of Cad/US dollars and come out with a free choice that can be favorable to my currency. Darn cool. 20ppy

Hello, I understand some of you have done the so called "North Bound Transfer Request" with InteractiveBrokers. I called them and found out that they can only do the transfer into FFH.TO, but not FFH-U.TO. Is this the case? If so, what are the implications if any to use FFH.TO in terms of dollar conversions? What I worry about is that I have to do dollar conversions back and forth. I would appreciate your comments. Thanks

You all have good points regarding the delisting. However, FFH probably didn't give it enough thought about the collateral damage. Someone equated owning shares as owning a car, no matter thru which dealership in US or Canada. Well, try buying a car and get it across the border and go thru all the paperwork and pay all the taxes, then you know. All these can be some how mitigated if some decent time is given to the US investors.

It seems to be a solid company from China... I didn't get in early, even though I had the chance. I wish I spent more time on researching the company. I hope some of you got in and are happey:) http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idCNHKG34712920091127?rpc=44

The savings from FFH delisting as some have said could be a lot, but I just don't see it as being so much as to worth causing so much confusion and pain to our long term US investors. It just maybe that I didn't get all the numbers correct. Also, it would have been much better had there been some early warnings so people can prepare for the delisting. I remember that ORH was bought by cash, because buying ORH with stock would have made it more difficult to delist because ORH buyers would mostly be US investors. Anyway, we invest in FFH with a lot of money that we believe are taken good care of, but now, it stuck me as it was not true and it was false security. By God, what if I have to go thru taxable conversions, etc, etc. Aren't these big risks that we wouldn't take at all with big chucks of our money?

Guys, does this mean I am forced to sell my FFH shares with a big IRS bill if I am with TD Ameritrade? Is there a way to not to sell shares and convert? Even if that means I have to get physical share certificate and move it to another account, it will save me money.

People place trust in gold due to back view mirror effect and their faith of it doing the same going forward. This so far works for reasons such as the fact that gold incidentally posseses many desirable and conveinient features as an investment vehicle. Value investors find it too fluid to evaluate gold, I am one of them. However gold will continue to be gold this way indefinitely, until and unless one of its nice features is broken some how. For example, if someone discovers some cheap process to produce too much gold then gold will stop being an investment vehicle in the current form. We all know the odds of that happening. So, gold at this point looks better than USD or some other fiat monies because no government is behind gold, it stands on its own merits.

Again, I think it boils down to math. Watch this and you can reach your own conclusion. I think the point of no return will have to be reached to force some new behaviors, otherwise, people will keep saying that it won't happend.

I think it boils down to math. Figuratively speaking, if the unit price of assets fell by 50% from the top, and the Japanese Government's stimuli accumulatively add up to be only about 5% in proportion to this unit price fall, then it means things are not stimulated enough For example, (real data) a 2-bedroom condo unit in Toyko is now priced at $2.5 million US, that's about 50% off from its peak. The stimuli throws at this unit say $100,000 (not real, wild guess, but can't be anything near 2.5 million), it's still short by a large measure. So, stimuli do have limits when the asset bubble is too great. I am not sure about the current US case, bubble bursts vaporized about 20 to 30 trillion US dollars, will the US government's stimuli be enough? I don't know. I do have a puzzling question, anybody knows why WB is so sure that US just won't have deflation in our life time? I don't doubt him, but I can't seem to understand why. Do you think he assumes that the US Government will throw more and more stimuli until it overwhelms the losses?

If $39 sounds fair, it seems to me that Prem's walk and talk is aligned.

Thanks Ericopoly for the valueable links, I need to study these strategies more but I sense thus far reading thru them I am not up to this level of play (too complicated for me?). Regardless, I definitely see the value of the strategies.

Doesn't such a move have huge tax consequences? I've been holding half of my positiion since March because I can't afford to sell them any more due to taxes, I'd rather hold them. But I am talking about holdings that were opportunistic. FFH is my long term holding and I won't even touch it. Let's say that you sell FFH for a gain of $100 per share. and you now owe $30 to the IRS. And then you buy in ORH and due to buy out, you gain $30 per share there. Well you don't really gain much, do you? Maybe I totally missed something here.