patterson

Thanks, dartmonkey. Regarding the second point as to fixed income per share, I'll use Chubb as a comparison. CB has 80+ percent of its investments in fixed income, which works out to about $353 per CB share (or 1.08x its current share price). Fairfax has only about 62 percent of its investments in fixed income and cash, but this works out to $2119 per FRFHF share (or 1.29x the current share price). Further, because of the IFRS vs. GAAP difference, these losses show up as a temporary hit to Fairfax's net income, but not Chubb's, even though Chubb's fixed income duration is between 4.5 and 5 years vs. Fairfax's 2.5 to 3 years. None of this should really matter because like I said, these are only temporary accounting losses and Fairfax is positioned to take advantage of higher rates, but the market does seem to care and want to punish Fairfax more than its peers in the short term. As an example, just look at how we sold off more than 5 percent the day after Q1 earnings when it was a good quarter otherwise.

I wonder how much of Fairfax's recent price action is simply the market's expectation of, and reaction to, rising interest rates? Although Fairfax's fixed income duration is much shorter than its peers and will be hurt less by rising rates (not to mention how Bradstreet and team are poised to take advantage), Fairfax marks its bonds to market under IFRS accounting standards, while GAAP insurers do not. Also, Fairfax has more fixed income investments per share than its peers, which magnifies these temporary accounting losses. When you put those factors together, I can see why some short-term oriented investors (like people who bought late last year expecting an index bump) or quants might avoid the stock, even as it presents such an opportunity for those with more patience.

Out of curiosity, did you get a good price or did the buyer (I assume a local coin shop) insist on a significant discount to spot?

Sold a smallish (3%) position in HCC and used some of the proceeds to add to STHRF/SCR.TO. HCC seems to have gotten ahead of itself at current coking coal prices, even with the Blue Creek mine coming online without hitches. It now trades somewhere near NPV (though this is based on my slightly outdated and rough numbers) vs. about 0.50 when I bought it last year. I also see that the CEO just sold 100,000 shares ($10 m). Finally, met coal was always outside my already-narrow circle of competence. After reading the "Overdiversification" thread, I was reminded of the Buffett quote below (credit to sholland). Even though I have fewer than 10 stocks already, I asked myself whether I'd feel comfortable with 10% in HCC at current prices. If not, why keep it?

While P/B may be losing relevance for FFH for many reasons (for example, as FV/CV grows), wasn’t book value always a flawed metric for insurance companies? Wouldn’t a better measure be adjusted BVPS + float per share – goodwill (part of the cost to acquire float)? That number is (very roughly) $2450 usd per share.

My understanding is that this is just FFXDF and not the Canadian shares, so I'm not saying it will open down 27 percent on Monday. However, I'm just not sure why shares would change hands at such a price.

Does anyone have insight as to why Fairfax India would be down 27+ percent after hours? I don't see any news, but just a single 100 share transaction at 8.87. https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/ffxdf/after-hours-trades.

Haryana, I wouldn't characterize the Blackberry investment that way, nor the hedging. I hope Fairfax's management takes an objective view and recognizes and learns from their mistakes, and there are encouraging signs that they've done so. In the case of Blackberry, one lesson is not to make outsized commitments to declining businesses. However, I agree emphatically with your other points. I voted an 8/10 as someone who has owned and followed Fairfax for several years; whereas in the current environment, it would be hard not to give them a 9 or 10.

I like First Eagle Global (SGENX). It's a fairly conservative fund with a global value-oriented approach, and I have it as a core holding in accounts with mutual funds.

Bryggen, I agree with the article's conclusion that it's a good time to buy Fairfax, but keep in mind that the Motley Fool has published various iterations of the same article for years now about "Canada's Warren Buffett" and this is just the latest one.

Feeling better that I am not alone watching my FFH holding melting ;) You aren't alone. FRFHF is my largest holding, followed by WFC. I’ve still managed to break even over the past year due to large positions in mining stocks such as NG (purchased in early 2019 and sold recently for 150% gain) and SGGDX (purchased throughout 2019 and up 70%). Now, I’m trying to figure out where to go from here. I’m tempted to keep averaging into my losing positions but am afraid that I’ll box myself into becoming too concentrated. The bearish arguments provided by Viking, Bearprowler, and others are very compelling, and would probably be enough to convince me to sell if I didn't think that the things they point out (terrible investment results, low interest rates, etc) are already factored into the price. Those would have been great reasons to have already exited (as Viking and Bearprowler did I believe, at much higher prices), but they may or may not be good reasons to sell going forward. I've followed Fairfax for about 15 years and have never seen sentiment as negative as it is now. While it could get worse, I wouldn't want to bet on it getting worse, not at these prices.

It seems to have taken Chou an extremely long time to learn that you can't just buy cheap stocks without understanding the quality of what you are buying. With all due respect to Francis and Mohnish....no one needs to pay either of them for their investment management "skill" in order to own Apple or Google. I personally do not believe either of them suddenly found this "new" approach to value investing. Francis staunchly defended his former approach to value investing for more than 10 years and now he pivots and buys Apply and Google? Call me skeptical....at best. I wonder how his long suffering unit holders who bought into his previous approach all those years feel now? I owned CHOEX from 2016 until the fund shut down about a year ago. It's the worst investment I've ever made, and thankfully wasn't too large of a position. It was a lesson for me about the riskiness of declining businesses that look cheaper than they are, and the importance of quality. It's encouraging to see Chou becoming more concerned with earnings growth, but buying AAPL and GOOG here does seem like quite a pivot.

WFC, WFC January 2022 27.50 calls (purchased last week around 5.95), FRFHF.

This seems to be a play on endless QE obviously. Silver traded way up in 2010-2011 after QE2. Tempting for gamble. Silver is an interesting idea. Like gold, I think it’s very misunderstood. It’s an asset that people don’t have much use for during times of monetary stability. And it isn’t a good hedge against steady inflation in a fairly stable monetary environment; I’d much rather outpace inflation by owning businesses that grow over the long run. The price of silver, to the extent that its driven by non-industrial demand, is very psychological. Thus, it seems to be a good hedge against a very specific kind of risk: a loss of faith in the currency/fed. If you think that such a risk is not being appreciated by the market, owning silver could make sense. Precious metals are “things” that can’t truly be valued, and this explains most value investors’ aversion to them. All of the arguments for owning silver are really the same whether it’s 15 dollars or 100 dollars an ounce. At the same time, precious metals are ridiculed by much of the public; pension funds barely have exposure, if any; retirement plans don’t offer it; and most financial advisors would probably laugh at you if asked them about gold. And, until recently, a person would have needed to search for fringe articles on the internet to find a pro-gold perspective. All of these things lead me to believe that metals are probably under owned.