KFS

Fairly certain this fellow is a regular on this board. Well done. It's completely incorrect to associate growth in Fairfax with book value adjustment: expert - Video - BNN (bnnbloomberg.ca)

Block compares Go Digit to Lemonade to illustrate his assumption that Digit's market value has obviously plummeted "into the toilet" over the last few years. Lol.

Another video interview of Carson Block discussing the MW short..... Fairfax Financial: The Oracle of Nothing - Zer0esTV: Video channel for short sellers

Well said. Even there is merit to certain "accounting gimmicks" in the MW report, the impact feels pretty silly and pointless in the overall picture. Even if you discount the book by 30%, it is still trading cheaper than peers. And then you have other items like the big pet insurance sale ($1.4 billion in 2022 ??) that seemingly came out of nowhere. If anything, Fairfax might have been guilty of understating itself. Consider incentives/behaviors. In 2020, Prem stepped in with his own money and purchased a whopping $150 million worth of shares during the fear and uncertainty of covid. He knew the intrinsic value of the business. FFH has made significant buybacks. Since the recent runup in stock price, Prem hasn't sold any shares, the company hasn't issued shares, and they still hold the TRS position. This would be very weird behavior for a company that is allegedly desperately trying to overstate its value via "gonzo-mode financial engineering." The cash flow is what matters to me. With the amount of cash that will be gushing into FFH over the next few years, it would be pretty entertaining to watch the stock drop 30% only for the company to jump in with monster buybacks. One can dream.

I've received the same notification from Fidelity. 0.25% obviously isn't much, but could amount to a couple hundred extra bucks per month if you have significant holdings. What exactly is the downside to enrolling? (If there is one.) Is this easy money with no downside?

Half way there! .... Take my hand and we'll make it I swear!

This is quite fun!

Right-- That was kind of my point. These specific items are important to a degree, but overall investor sentiment is the driver.

FFH had a P/B of >1.2 as recently as 2018. It's not clear to me that any of the items above were fundamentally better for FFH at that time. Curious how one would explain this.

+31% USD --- Long FRFHF throughout the year and added opportunistically. (Cheers, @Viking) --- Long BRK —- Smallish positions of Fairfax India and MKL --- At various times during the year, short MSTR, AMC, GME, and TSLA (both directly and/or via puts).

Congrats Viking and thank you for the excellent analysis on this company over the past few years. I seriously can thank you and others enough (glider, petec, etc.) for all the work you guys have done and shared on this board. I had been a quiet reader of this board for several years, and made a huge purchase of FFH during covid, shortly after Prem's large personal purchase of the stock, and made an additional large investment earlier this year. At this stage, Fairfax has had a meaningful impact on my personal financial situation and has probably shaved several years off my expected retirement plans... (I do not have an ultra-high income -- a 36 year old chemical engineer working in operations at a nuclear power plant.) Fairfax has "accidentally" grown to about 66% of my overall portfolio. Normally, I would rebalance to reduce the risk of being so far overweight in one security, and I may still do that only as a matter of principle, but given the future prospects and intrinsic value of the company relative to the (still low) stock price, I could just as easily stick with the full position for now... I think we are just getting warmed up, and I'm very much looking forward to what the next few years will bring.

Yeah, I'm on board and will contact them as well. I've been pretty tempted lately to pull some money out of Vanguard just to be able to buy additional FRFHF...... I imagine if enough people threaten to pull money off their system they'll hopefully do something about it.

Excellent, thanks.

Fair point. I guess I tend to assume Bradstreet & gang would be able to make some intelligent decisions if/when the opportunities arise, but of course you may be right.

There are obviously many factors impacting Fairfax's stock price as discussed endlessly on this board, but I think it’s worth remembering FFH’s price/book ratio over the past several years -- like many insurance companies -- has been fairly well correlated with interest rates as you can see in the two 5-year charts below. Just looking at some random data points over the past 5 years: P/B 10-year % July 2017 1.15 2.30% August 2018 1.20 2.95% October 2018 1.25 3.15% August 2019 1.03 1.80% Feb 2020 1.00 1.50% (just prior to covid crash) April 2020 0.70 0.65% (just after covid crash) August 2021 0.86 1.28% March 2022 (today) 0.76 2.16% Today, with the recent increase in rates, it sure seems FFH stock has not responded in the typical way…. As perhaps other factors are weighing heavily on the stock, or the market is simply asleep in failing to acknowledge this rise and the impact it could have on the company’s earning potential. Today the 10-year yield is at 2.16% and rising, and yet the P/B is lagging behind, still ~0.76. FFH’s insurance business/float has increased quite dramatically over the past few years, and one would expect rates to be an even stronger factor going forward, yet here we are. Like I said, there are obviously many other things affecting the stock as you all know, but I think it’s worth being aware of this historical relationship vs. the apparent lapse today...