watsa_is_a_randian_hero

Well, I'll say this. I'm positive you can't have an IRA own your primary residence. I'm have a lesser degree of certainty, but am fairly sure, you cannot have an IRA own your personal business, if for example, you are a sole proprietor. The reason is the IRS is trying to prevent transactions from not occurring on an arms-length basis. For example, if your IRA owned your home, you could lease it from the IRA and pay an above average lease rate. This would essentially have the effect of allowing you to contribute additional funds to your IRA. You could also sell it at a below market rate to the IRA, so the IRA has a nice gain sheilded from taxes. It would be best to consult a tax expert though.

you cannot invest money from an IRA in to a investment you control (your own company, your own primary residence, ect.). I think that rules out seeding a GP, because a GP means you control the partnership.

every day i check bloomberg near the end of the day for any announcements or news, i guess looking for something like this. today there was a nice surprise!

I looked this morning - adjusted book is down from high of near 308 to 298. not that bad. A $10 drop in book only warrants a $30 selloff (270 to 240) if we're trading at 3x book. We were only trading at 0.9x book, so we should have only be down $9.

Whats going on with the stock? This is starting to get ridiculous cheap.

Yeah I've been getting annoyed lately. Wrote June 250 puts for $3.5 in income and wrote July 250 puts for an additional $7 in income per share. At least ORH is going up. When it was near $40 I was selling Aug $35 puts and Jun $40 puts and took all of the proceeds to buy Aug $45 and Aug $50 calls. Selling $35 1 put contract generated enough income to buy 1 $45 call and 1 $50 call. Puts are priced at a black-scholes implied vol of 41% while the calls are priced at a black-scholes implied vol of 31%.

confirmed.

Yeah, I've been keeping track of it as well, but my spreadsheet is linked to CapitalIQ, so it won't really work for anyone else on this board unless you have capiq. Estimate BV on yesterday's close: $308

Anyone notice that the started trading futures on these two names on onechicago? Even Berkshire has futures traded on it now! I just noticed this now, I'll be interested to see tomorrow during trading hours how wide the bid/ask is on the futures.

To clarify, are you saying $6-8 of losses offsetting the gains, or in total, you are expecting a $6-8 drop in BV at the end of the quarter? There is no way bv is down, barring any unforeseen market crash or cat loss. Lets make some "worst case" assumptions about that 15% portion of the portfolio. Lets assume the full 15% is in only 30 year bonds (highly unlikely). The 30 year rate is up 60 bps since Apr 24. Lets assume there is $3,000 mm in treasuries, and the 30 year bond has a 20 year duration (probably high). That means $12 in after tax losses from treasuries, which would be offset by about $40 gains on bonds/stocks. Now lets assume a more likely scenario, that the bonds average duration is around 5. The average duration was 8 when we held the huge long bond portfolio, it has to be much lower now. That would mean a loss per share around $3. I think the treasury losses won't be significant. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the duration was much lower than 5 on treasuries. They could be holding short term treasuries and long term corporates in order to maintain an average duration near the 8-9 that they used to have.

Its has really only diverged from April 22. Up until that point in time, YTD, it was the same. http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=FFH.TO#chart3:symbol=ffh.to;range=ytd;compare=ffh;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined

Yeah, hes good - one of my text books was by him. He was also an adviser to Bush's white house the first term I believe.

Thanks.

The funny thing is, I bought the series BML-J in anticipation of this, but it was not included in the offer. However, it was still up 20-25% today. Anyone have any idea why? Is there speculation they will make an offer for this series as well?

Can someone email me the Q1 ORH NAIC filing? (brianmweber@gmail.com)

sold my j's this morning

Diversification is a Hedge Against Ignorance The less time one has to investigate investments, or the less control one has over his or her investments (public vs. private), the more diversified one should be.

whoops ben you posted basically the same thing I was saying but typed it out faster apparently.

Yes: Intelligent Investor, 3 year of accounting courses, 2 years of finance courses, introductory statistics, and some economics. Also, WFC and COP are both large multinational corporations and not easily understood. It may be easier to start with smaller businesses in an industry more easily understood than financials or commodities. Financials are impossible for many to understand and commodities can be difficult as well, because future spot prices can be so difficult to forecast.

anyone buying bac preferreds in anticipation of conversion offer? BML PRJ still trades @ 10 on 25 par.

The BV above has not been adjusted for the fair value of investments held at equity. Adjusted for taxes/minority interest, this adds approximately $10/share, so the adjusted BV at April 24 was $294.75, approximately. My estimate now is $301, given how the portfolio has moved.

The WSJ says "The new political makeup, after the ruling Congress party and its allies sailed to victory in national elections Saturday, suggests an era of stability that could allow the government to pursue reforms in some sectors of the economy, such as retail and insurance." Anyone want to comment on how this might effect FFH?

For ORH someones gotta go to the NAIC & sign up for a free trial (you get 5 free downloads). Please post to here once downloaded. Thanks

yeah, talking about that same thing with guys at work today. I'm in chicago, but work with a few guys originally from toronto.

How do you get to $4 per share normalized earnings. Maybe by 2012.