ValueDan38

Large positions in FFH BRK LUK. Hard to resist near Book Value in this uncertain environment. With many of you holding these, is this a case of "Great minds think alike" or "You pay a high price for a cheery consensus" ? Small positions in GOOG DELL CNQ and others. 8% cash.

Although my long-term investment results were clearly above average, I finally realized that in most environments I could never hope to match the few true super-stars. As a result, for the last 22 years, over half of our managed assets have been in owner-operated companies like BRK, FFH, LUK, etc. The advantages have been superior returns, relative safety and less trading, which results in lower taxes and less work. This board of many like-minded and wise members has been a good source of ideas concerning these gems. If I find any new companies managed by the “best allocators of capital”, I plan to share these ideas with you and hope that many of you will do the same for us. Dan

You are a welcome addition to the board, giofranchi. I think that your comments were insightful and your English is very good. I admire David Einhorn and would concider investing in GLRE, but it appears that he charges top hedge fund rates to manage their investments, which is many times the cost at BRK and FFH.

Thanks, berkshiremystery, for reminding us of the past antics of B*****boy and some more recent news. That was quite an experience for many of us.

The person that wrote the interesting article at Bronte Capital, concerning Bank of America, appears to be (if memory serves me) the same John Hempton of Australia who piled onto Fairfax with the shorts during the company's darkest days, a few years ago. His extremely negative appraisal of FFH completely ignored the history and reputation of the company and Prem. I don't recall if this was an innocent mistake or in collusion with the short attack.

I was very lucky :) to have stumbled upon this board soon after Sanjeev started it. At that time, it was the only board I ever joined and almost 9 years later that is still the case. The quality of our members is extraordinary. Many thanks to Sanjeev and all contributors.

As ericd1 explained, most US brokers do not charge an extra fee for trading FRFHF.PK since it trades on the US Over-the- Counter pink sheets, not on a foreign exchange. Dan

I believe that you can use derivatives to buy long-dated options on interest rates in various currencies. This is something that SHOULD BE BROUGHT TO THE ATTENTION OF FAIRFAX to protect against much higher interest rates eventually in the USD and other vulnerable currencies.