Xerxes

I CANNOT recommend Yellowstone enough ! (on Prime) I like midwestern folks, my type of people, even though i have a liberal tilt

Great we are going to have some "hot air" being marked-to-market on March 31. As long as it stays hot, i am all good.

Yes, this is good. They definitely needed to get some cash into the holdco and stop relying on revolving credit to fund the company's operations. It is noteworthy that this is a relatively large debt issuance for FFH and the interest rate is considerably lower at 3.95%. I have expressed misgivings in the past about FFH failing to deleverage, and this does not really change the fact that they are more leveraged than I would like and their risk management has been disappointing at times. But, it's a positive step towards at least managing their maturities and reducing the routine reliance on that revolver. SJ i think the proceeds are going entirely to refinance old debt .. and not pay back the revolver. i think Prem did mention that the revolve will be paid via proceeds from asset sale

Great discussion with J. Currie https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2020-12-17/goldman-s-currie-sees-tell-tale-signs-of-commodity-super-cycle-video Going back to the reasons as to why we had such a long bull market in bonds, economist typically point to three major points: 1 - deflationary nature of technology 2 - changing in demographic, the baby-boomers hitting peak salary in the past few decades, therefore in aggregate creating a surplus of capital at about the time when the demand for capital was diminishing (point below) 3 - last couple of decades most of the investment has been in information technology sector that doesn't require as much capital as CAPEX heavy old economy. Therefore less capital was needed, putting downward pressure on rates. I think going forward, (1) still is in play more than ever, but (2) will flip as old economy + infrastructure that have been starved for capital need major investment

Awesome interview with Grantham. Longer than the one on Bloomberg Front Row, and more interesting. The part about the comment people left for him after Front Row is pretty funny. For a value investor he has a good sense of humor, in fact i think funnier than Bloomstran's humour. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/jeremy-grantham-uncertain-crisis-invest-like-best-ep/id1154105909?i=1000477283884

ICUMD My view has been that both FIH and ex-FAH were more investment firm with permanent capital that could really make additional investment either by (1) selling another holding (2) issuing equity. The latter was out of option given the huge discount and if you are riding a macro wave, it doesn't makes sense also to sell a holding that has long term potential. Flipping asset makes more sense in a more developed economies. The missing key has been third-party fee, which now they are getting through their revamped African business re-named Helios, and hopefully through something similar with Anchorage. Major difference between the two but ultimate aim is to get that fee machine going.

So, the general idea is that we had a four-decade bull market (1980 through say 2020 for simplicity). And for argument sake let's say we will have a slow grinding bear market over the next 40 years (2020 through 2060). Fairfax long term view was that the bull market ended (or was soon to end) when they switched out in 2016, and have been keeping on the short end only. After a few false start, (i.e. The initial stages of the pandemic contributed to the pause on the narrative), lets say it is now slowly heading that way. I understand if they were to stay on the short end, they will float like a boat and ride that wave, while never having material exposure to capital loss. But at some point, let's say 20 years from now for illustration's sake, they will gradually lock in because they perceive that the rate has peaked. That "lock-in" itself could be 20 years too early, if the actual peak rate arrives in 2060. That is what I meant. These long term interest rate movements are very long term and very gradual, where you could be in the middle inning of what is actually a larger first inning (i.e an inning within inning). Think these are very much outside the scope of most observers. Even now, only in hindsight, economists are looking back to explain why we had a 40 years long drop in interest rate. But maybe none of this matters, because by then we wont be around anyways i think and/or already enjoying retirement on Planet Mars, thanks to SpaceX-Tesla consortium.

well said !

I think he is smart, hardworking but at time abrasive and in search of deciding who he is in this world. Just like Social Capital is going through different stages, so is he. He definitely looking in his own way after the retail with "All about retail" being his battle-cry. That is fair. That said the power of Twitter platform can be intoxicating, hence my comment about sheep and the Messiah. Just personally, I prefer people who keep their heads down, and just do a good job and are being good citizen. Let the society recognize you for your past good deeds, rather you needing to buy goodwill via buying call options. Goodwill acquired through derivative instrument tend to have a decaying time premium to it.

All these celebrities treat their Twitter followers like sheep and themselves like a Messiah of a sort.

wow 4x the current interest/dividend income over a long i imagine and over much larger float? As an newbie on the topic, the way i see it, the think with a long-term bear market in bonds, is that as interest rate slowly go up, and if any fixed-income investor decide to lock in those higher rate, while they naturally get higher income, they also automatically expose themselves to incur long-term unrealized capital losses as decade goes by and interest rate continues to grind higher. It is much easier to be in a long-term bull market in bonds.

The only authority worth learning from on the Decline penned a total of six volumes on the topic. I read all six something like 20 years ago, unfortunately as great historical work that was, it was not easy to pin down one element. As a side note, Asimov's Foundation Trilogy was partially based on Edward Gibbon' work. Perhaps there is a gem worth exploring in the Foundation Trilogy that can be linked to Fed M2 expansion.

That is an interesting way to look at: "Pre-tax operating earnings for nine months (excluding the $10.6 billion pre-tax write-down at Precision, which lowers book value by $10.4 billion – writing-down goodwill is not tax deductible) amounted to $19.4 billion. So, Berkshire spent over 80% of operating profit repurchasing shares at an average price 15% below where they opened the year and at 105% of average book value per share. Right, the guy is washed out." Given that most folks (in the media, here and myself included) tend to compare the size of the buyback to the size of cash pile. The way he is saying is that 4/5 of excess cash was being used for buybacks. This view however implies that Buffet does not use the same mental bucket for buyback vs. other large M&A. Buybacks are "funded" through operating earning. Any M&As (large or small) are "funded" through the balance sheet.

Thanks I can save on my printer

Just based on how confident he sounded on Q4 call, the complete lack information he provided on BB, and having the mechanics in place to do something, plus a healthy dosage of value investor mentality (must squeeze when overvalued), i think we can be fairly certain that he found a way to squeeze the BB lemon. What i do want to see is the same TRS treatment on Stelco and Resolute (on the long side), since it is unlikely that he would have added to the shares.

This a great point of view on BRK 13F. https://www.cnbc.com/video/2021/02/19/josh-brown-why-berkshires-stock-moves-arent-relevant-to-investors-anymore.html Personally, I feel that Buffet is doing what he likes best. Reading and investing all with pocket money, none of those moves says much to an outsider looking in, ... but every now and then, he goes back to work, rolls up his sleeves, and knocks it out of the park with an Apple giant-size bet ... but then reverts back to his side activity of medium-term trading.

I got a silly idea, Why can DFV not be nominated as candidate for the next edition of the book Greatest Trade Ever. They even gave a nod I think to B Ackman with a column in Barron's with his shorts.

I think the short squeeze could have been a lot worse had Robinhood didn't what i did. Looking back now, listening to some commentaries, it seemed that the wobbling in the S&P500 in January may have at least had some relation to the infinite squeeze that didnt but could happen. Like a vortex that what just slightly pulling the carpet (S&P500), due to the hedge fund leverage. Sure, this is a lot bigger than GameStop, but as El-Elrian said today at Bloomberg, market was smelling and was trying front run hedge fund who wanted to make a dash for liquidity. I'll try to find the stat of the out of wack the position where. I realize it is silly to think that such a irrelevant company (GameStop) could cause the almighty S&P500 to wobble. On DFV, i think due to the unneeded popularity that this caused (and because he is a nice person) he felt obligated toward his Brethren and not just dump his shares.

I wonder if he visits here at all. Sanjeev should recruit him ;D LOL indeed

This is a great clip that was posted elsewhere. Just watched it now. Somehow 6 months of discussion in this forum were condensed into 1 hour and delivered superbly. I think it belongs here. https://moiglobal.com/jeffrey-stacey-202101/

Allow Xerxes to reveal to you an new way to measure FFH's rising intrinsic value. In this very forum, there were: - 50 pages in the 2021 FFH Thread; and we are not even in March - 88 pages in the 2020 FFH Thread - 14 pages in the 2019 FFH Thread - 51 pages in the 2018 FFH Thread - 16 pages in the 2017 FFH Thread If this is not a technical bullish signal from the Faithful populating this forum, then i don't know what is.

This guy is genuine, he deserves every penny of his gain (sorry, should say, he deserves every million of his gain) I'll trade him for 1,000 Chamath anyday. And other high-IQ all-about-me characters that seem to be everywhere now in the investment world. If ever retail investor community needed a face as public ambassador, his would be the right one. Just a working man. I like that. My only regret he wasn't on this board and decided to be on Reddit. Opportunity cost for sure, but it is not like I would have invested in GameStop (would have put that in the value-trap pile)

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/warren-buffett-berkshire-hathaway-investment-gain-japanese-stocks-trading-houses-2021-2-1030087776 Was kind of wishing these could be a much bigger part of Berkshire.

Seeing FFH is shooting up on the same day that BB plunges, i think, in some weird way indicative that the market is looking past all these little noise about movement of equity holdings quarter to quarter and looking at the whole picture.

Thanks What i did was to sell MSTR this morning north of $1,000 per share. Wish did that last Tuesday when it soared to $1200. Need the dry power in my TFSA for other things. Outside my TFSA, i added more to that pile. So sold it at the premium, and bought the underlying. I prefer the direct exposure. That said, happy about multi-bagger that MSTR was in the past 6 weeks. MSTR was a very unique case, because it had such a low market cap and an outsize bitcoin position that gave it a high-torque, and with a rich premium to the underlying. You wont get that with Square' $50 million investment on its balance sheet against its giant market cap. I just think that there has to be reaction when the capital flows out of "sponges" back to the real economy, when the world re-opens.