ubuy2wron

Ya the last ten seconds was interesting.

I think I will let smarter guys than me figure out if ya should invest in Mr Musks ventures. He certainly has lead an interesting life so far and he seems to be having a lot of fun. His persona reminds me of some of the characters in Robert Heinlein novels from my youth.

I bought some as well had order at 343 went mkt cuz it got to0 close. I put orders on this name well away from the mkt cuz I can not watch it all day long. Its surprising how often I get filled on both sides.

I have followed Glacier Media for a long time and I am close to buying again if it gets to my entry point. This company has pretty decent management and the community papers they own are of the type that Warren would buy. The company should merge with private Black owned community paper group who they are constantly bidding against when properties become available. They suffer from the same issues that every one in this space suffers from a slow decline in readership and advertising. The company has announced share buy backs and has a tight fisted approach to biz. I would like to see the company delever their balance sheet or alternatively issue a bunch of long term debt at these levels it has attracted the typical Cdn Value shareholder base who are by and large pretty patient. You have to pick your entry points pretty carefully because the lack of liquidity means that you will own this for a while if you acquire any size.

Thank You very much. I am pretty sure that the entire equity portfolio is not as concentrated but the weighting in this list in the top 5 names is breath taking.

It seems to me that lifeco's are the ultimate long tail insurance companies. Lifeco's are at least on a nominal basis cheap and pretty much hated right now. Neither Warren nor Prem has ventured into these waters even though the float for lifeco's is generally pretty massive. Are there any lifecos out there where great capital allocators /investors are driving the bus. Lifecos that have gotten into trouble have pretty much always been because they got the investments wrong not because they screwed up on the mortality tables.

I know that there are individuals who have spread sheets with the FFH portfolio from scouring filings. Anyone who would like to post a top ten cheat sheet I would be greatfull.

Most of SAC dough is Stevies money. I think any investors still with lil Steve know he is um "a little colourful" and happy with the returns.

The tone was rather subdued, compared to last year that was after the worst period ever for the P&C industry. This year most (re)insurers are facing the uncertainty of Sandy instead of the prospect of celebrating what would have been on of the best years ever. Rates will stay firm and probably harden a little post Sandy, but that's not enough to celebrate because everyone is facing low returns on their investments. The impact if low rates is estimated to be comparable to the KRW hurricanes of 2005, destroying the value of enormous capital annually. Nobody is of a mind to write business at an underwriting loss. 80% of historical industry returns have been made from investing in the past. Now everyone realizes they are going to have to make their money on underwriting or fold up. Now everyone realizes they are going to have to make their money on underwriting or fold up. DO they? If that was the case I think the mkt would be a lot harder its really the same problem in the lifeco biz. insurance rates are going up but not to a level that anyone is making any dough.

There are hedgies and trading desks that make a very nice business out of front running additions and deletions to indexes. If I was mirroring an index I would not buy the bottom 10% of the constituants because of the churn and volatility. When you are dealing with the russell 2000 for instance you can see some pretty extreme swings in prices when less liquid names get added or dropped.

Bought some today just a 2% position. I was showering when the stock was trading @ 336 only able to buy at slightly lower than VWAP.

As suggested by finetrader. Commodities (and the worst one like ATPG and I sold OSTK for this crap) And VXX Doh! Alertmeipp...after everything we've been through, you sold OSTK? Don't worry, we all have rough years, but it's a marathon, not a sprint...except for Ericopoly who will be out of the game in 2015! Cheers! Is that because Ericopoly will by that time have ownership of all of the worlds money (LOL he has had a run for the record books in the last decade)

I have visited the street you are on many many times. One adage I remember that is helpful is "you do not have to make it back the same way you lost it." You are not Edward Smith and your investments are not the Titanic (you can jump in the lifeboat with the women and children and still be a hero.)

My wife loves shopping at their stores we were recently (last June in Spain) no one does a better job in fashion retailing IMO. The founder has a very attractive daughter who looks like she will be running the show at some point.

To be fair those deals are a lot less scarce than distressed businesses. That's where management comes into play: when to hold cash and wait versus when to invest it in less-than-ideal ventures. I think a great acquisition would be Chou Associates! ;D Prem should buy out Francis and bring him back into the Fairfax fold. We all know that the money management business is spectacular if done right, and bringing Francis back in means that Francis can just grow the money management business for Fairfax. You still have the Hamblin-Watsa team focusing on investments for Fairfax. This way, Francis' business will never have to worry about succession for his family, and you bring another younger, quality, ethical manager back into Fairfax to take over as the Hamblin-Watsa principals retire over time...if they so choose! Because other than Peter Furlan and Paul Ianni, I don't know of any other young analysts at Fairfax who could just step up and fill some shoes. I'm sure there are a couple, but I don't know who they are. Wayne Cadawallader is running his own fund, so they probably need to find a Justin Wheeler type or people they already know. Paul Rivett is quite young and he's in good shape, and if you combine that with Francis, and add another person...Tim McElvaine comes to mind...I think you've got a good team for another generation. Anyway, I thought I would throw that out there just to stir up some trouble for head office! ;D Cheers! Parsad , The most valuable asset at FFH is Hamblin Watsa, they should be managing money on @ 2 and 20 basis for the rest of the world what ever conflictsthat may exist could be dealt with. FFH shareholders would be winners because of the the new, highly profitable business.

Patent litigation, you really want to make my head hurt! The companies that invested and have/had ownership of the so called valuable patents have all gone or are going broke. The Chinese companies that are accused of being the worst pirates are thriving.

"Underwriting is improving" The question is is it really improving it appears to me that we have entered a harder mkt the hardness of the mkt has been brought on not by the insurance industry suffering underwriting losses but zero investment returns for a prolonged period. I have stayed out of this name for a while I think the other name ie BRK is more attractive but if FFH gets materially cheaper I am more than willing to switch.

The Oracle of Omaha has been quoted as saying that he only buys companies that he would be perfectly happy to own if they could not be traded for 5 to10 years. Companies that an idiot could manage companies that have insurmountable moats. Hence his investment in Coke and the rail roads. Can the same be said for AAPLE. It would also be interesting if someone back tested purchasing the largest cap company in the world and holding it for 5 years what the average return has been. I suspect that the returns have been lack lustre at best. How many companies have climbed to the very top of valuations and stayed there for a long period of time and were able to increase their relative valuation over time. While its interesting to discuss AAPLE and its prospects I am unsure as to any value creation that can occur from our discourse. The focus on AAPLE should really be when do I sell it if I own it.

It seems that some here have made the start of their fortunes with large bets on FFH options. It seems that sizeable fortunes are ONLY made if you are willing to go ALL IN at some point in your life with enough capital that the pain of being wrong is great. The spoils of life only go to the brave and the foolish and history is pretty much a record of the winners not the losers I doubt if the people on the other side of the FFH option trades are posting on investment sites tales of how stupid they were in selling those call options and sharing their insight with others. What is apparent is that FFH had a VERY large margin of safety in 2006 if you assumed that FFH was not run by shysters. I was aware of FFH in 2006 and was smart or lucky enough to buy some around 100 per share I never in my wildest dreams however felt that it would be trading @ 400 a few short years later. I sure could use some insight on how to have the conviction to stay with what turns out to be a great trade or investment far too often I am second guessing myself and selling postitions that have only just begun to ripen. It is not the big losses that kept the private jet and the beach house out of my grasp but the fore gone profits from selling to early.

I was in Spain recently, this company is the best fashion retailer I have ever seen. I did a little research on the company and the founder and discovered he has a very attractive daughter who the founder has named heir apparent, if you are thinking of getting rich rather quickly..... LOL.

Mr. Milano ( no disrespect Milan is one of my favorite cities and you are contributing greatly here imo.) The central tenant of Mr Graham is margin of saftey. At times FFH has traded with a large discount to BV and a large margin of saftey if you assumed that the hedgies could not kill it. I am a huge fan of Prem and I am in awe of his investment acumen and have frquently road his coat tails as far as his investment ideas are concerned I just became a shareholder in Level 3 for example. I also believe that we are rapidly approaching a 1982 moment in the markets (prolly we have to see one more recession in N.A first is my bet however) If you put a gun to my head and said you have to buy on stock today and hold it for a decade I am pretty sure FFH would be on my list of potential purchases. All I need is a lower price on FFH to get me to pull the trigger at the current time. I would like him to succeed on his Rim purchase because it will increase the premium people will be willing to pay for FFH in the future somewhat like the Buffett premium which used to exist for BRK and because I am guessing so many of the hedgies who were short FFH a few years back are all over the Rim short.

Fairfaxnut, I couldn’t agree with you more! Well, I guess the problem is not with the strategy, but with the stock price behaviour of Fairfax’s long positions. Fairfax realized gains of almost $100 million during the first 6 months of 2012 in equity and equity-related investments, but suffered unrealized losses of almost $280 million. All in all, Fairfax’s long positions behaved significantly worse than the markets Mr. Watsa is selling short through total return swaps (S&P500 Index and Russell2000 Index), to hedge the Company’s equity investments. Historically, though, this has not been the case. Rather, the opposite has been true! Mr. Watsa stocks selection has always and meaningful outperformed the market. If we get back to the historical trend, and I am a firm believer in regression to the mean!, Mr. Watsa’s strategy will prove to be very successful. You are of course right Mr. Milano, I am sitting on the side lines re FFH at this juncture when it appears that some of his bets start to pay off I will jump into FFH if the price is attractive or alternatively if FFH gets cheap in relation to book value I will jump in right now it is neither over or under valued it is fairly valued there are lots of insurance companies with good underwriting records that are cheap right now and some with great underwriting and investment records like BRK which are reasonably priced right now.

Wow Crip, not eating has to be the easier path to winning this wager.

This thread is about Libor manipulation not JPM unless of course JPM was involved in Libor manipulation. If this spreads to more than Barclays then hopefully we will see similar board action(firing of top people) also hopefully we will see large fines and hopefully we will see some top people go to jail also hopefully it will end there I do not want to see a never ending stream of heyena like class action law suits.

LOL! That's why I'm saying to get your bid in now and get some free publicity. Next year, the lunch may go for less than $100K and no one will care! ;D Cheers! I think we should auction off a burger with Parsad