ubuy2wron

Sure is easy to understand why Warren values his opinion.

Its a stock that keeps showing up on the "magic formula" screen. A great website if you are lazy by the way

Compliance costs might kill you but the regulations themselves will do nothing of the sort. Regulations are just laws and societies and economies which have rules based systems and fair ajudication of those rules do far better than ones that do no. Reinstating an uptick rule making naked shorts very difficult and regulating derivatives and reintroducing position limits in the futures mkts will go a long way in creating a fairer market place in which we will all benefit.

I also own GVC it appears quite cheap here I suspect that they will be picking up some of the Canwest assets. The community papers will survive in their present format as they have been based on a free subscription model for a long time most serve as just a journalistic wrapper for flyer distribution. If they could also negotiate a merger with Black out of Victoria I think you could have a Cdn institutional sized entity. Management seems to be quite focussed on keeping their head down and running an efficient operation. I also purchased Yellow pages I am not sure if it is just a cigar butt or not it is being heavily shorted and of course the short arguement is that it is a buggy whip co. however I think the impending bancruptcy of the overlevered US companies in the same space may be clouding some investors thinking. If I was driving the bus at yellow pages I would be in intense negotiations with Google to establish a joint venture then acquire the US assets no one is better than Google at monetizing revenues on a search basis which is the model I am sure we will end up with

Some might say this is just giving a little guidance something that FFH does not do. I am hoping MR. Mkt doesn't like the numbers as I would like to buy some more.

Re the observation ,the mkt has just gone up 30% its called the wealth effect. I for one belive the mkt rising is the thing that causes the economic upturn ,its not the mkt. anticipating the economic upturn it actually initiates it , it is at least an interesting theory. I think Soros calls it reflexivity

I think I understand why Warren is a large WFC investor a little better now. http://www.thediv-net.com/2009/04/candid-management-and-widening-moats.html

Ackman is long CDS on the banks and short some of the names a "restructuring" is a default ,it triggers his CDS he is just talking his book he throws dirt at Bill Gross who is talking his book. I think as a society we would be better off if we just gave the CDS holders a haircut if we have to choose victims here.

Ben, I think NRB on the yahoo board is the only person still short FFH ....LOL We have gone sideways because the shorts were wrong and they covered and a lot of long institutional investors used that short covering to reduce their positions what we have not seen yet is a expansion in the serious mkt participants who believe that Prem is worth a premium. IMO if Prem can produce decent underwriting results combined with his specatcular investment results premium pricing by MR. Mkt. for FFH is just a matter of time. It will not be the value guys who will place the premium pricing we are by definition too cheap to do that . I can see a day in the not too far distant future when the marginal price in the mkt is set by investors who are willing to pay a premium for the FFH track record.

Ben, The muni chart makes me think that the FFH group of co's are likely to generate an ok at worst quarter on the investment side ,on the underwriting side I will leave the conclusions to smarter individuals than myself however from what I have seen and heard so far there is little evidence of the mkt hardening at all ...yet. Clearly AIG has been gamed by their conterparties on the CDS transactions with perhaps tacit govt. approval who knows what is happening on the underwriting side however it is fraught with all sorts of unintended consequences imo. The largest insurance co. in the world is now owned by the federal govt. The CDS unwinds have led me to believe that the govt. is not running AIG to minimize their losses in AIG per se they are still fighting a depression is how I see it.

Class action against US Govt. ..... You betcha, BAC and Mr Lewis have been lambasted in the press. now the facts are known I believe Mr Lewis should receive a public apology. I believe that if he had walked from the deal which I believe he had a legal right to the mkt would have melted down. The shareholders of BAC would have been perhaps even damaged more, certainly the failure of Merrill would have caused a run on GS and MS the counter party exposures with a Lehman like failure would have been catostrophic for every company with wall street exposure. He was basically told to shut up and play ball if he did not BAC would have been nationalized as would most of the other players on wall street. Mr Lewis played his cards the only way he was allowed under the circumstances. His only other option was to resign and allow his bank to be nationalized by the US govt. which is entirely in the power of the fed at any time.

It seems to me that the Muni mkt has become a large bet has anyone noticed what has been going on in this mkt YTD>

Not unless they want a huge lawsuit the CEO was asked the financing question twice this am on CNBC it actually made me a little naseous watching David Faber with his cheat sheet provided by some hedgie pointing out all of the headwinds WFC is facing the answer to the equity financing was an unequivical no.

Off market transactions also have to be illegal for public coy. All derivatives should be required to be reported for public coy as well. I can remember back in 2000 and earlier when we were creating collars for nasdaq instant zillionaires who did not have to report these transactions as sales even tho they were insiders effectively unloading all of their positions the tax hit and the reporting requirement only occurred when the collar was unwound.

It seems almost impossible to police an uptick rule a no downtick rule has worked in Canada for just about for ever. The naked shorts should be made illegal with zero exemptions the swarming of the naked shorts or FTD's have hastened the demise of a lot of companies they almost were successful with FFH I believe their inability to drive it to zero was partialy a result of the fact that the companies stock was largely held by a select group of long term value investors who were extremely confident in their long thesis. I suspect the bear raids on Bear Sterns and Lehman was ultimately to trigger the CDS positions where the monetary rewards were much larger than a simple short to zero equity bet. I do not pass any judgement on the business models or management of either of those companies but they were pushed in front of the bus imo.

Peter Cundill has retired from all daily activities with the funds baring his name. Tim McElvaine has taken on a mandate with Mackenzie. Peter has perhaps one of the best track records in the value field for the last 30 years he has done it while mentoring a bevy of great up and coming portfolio mgrs, like Wade and Tim and many others. Peter has made his long term investors rich, thank-you Peter.

I have owned Leon for longer a very similar company with a similar management style

Ecco also the phrase everyone seems to agree makes me think you are perhaps missing something of major significance ,consensus opinions are comfortable ones ',they merely reflect the majority they rarely are a source of excess returns. Excess returns are made when every one runs to one side of the boat and you do not.

Ecco, "this time is different "are the most expensive words in the English language after "I love you" I have read more times than I can count phrases which reflect the this time is different position . Yes it is true that many things are different from past economic retractions however so have policy makers responses. Being able to anticipate changes in important trends appears to me to be one of the critical factors which differentiates the truely great investor from the good to mediocre investor. Prems ability to see the excess in the credit markets and invest and speculate profitably is a great recent example of this. Making major investment decisions on the basis of general levels economic activity seems to me to be overall a waste of time. There are very few rich economists. Roubini ? makes his living teaching selling books and giving speaches .

Celestica CLS bought back debt it was a net-net by the way.

I just flew West Jet for the first time will fly them again for sure that said West Jets biggest strength was AC's weakness if AC goes thru another bankruptcy it will no longer be weak.

Shooting R Milton is too kind I suggest we send him on around the world trip on AC and then turn him over to the baggage handlers and the flight attendants now that would be justice. LOL

The answer to the question is ignore the price and look to the value.

If you write down good will then the only way you can recapture the value on the companies books is through future earnings or through the sale of the asset. Goodwill write downs are particularly annoying to me it seems that companies are all too often making acquisitions that future events indicate were not justified. A good will write down should be a call to action for shareholders to get rid of the board responsible for approving the acquisitions you rarely see BRK write down good will because they understand the difference between price and value a concept that seems totally misunderstood in most boards rooms of corporate America.