Munger_Disciple

Can't imagine this being accurate: "It appears that Berkshire Hathaway’s liability in the Whittaker Clark situation isn’t capped, which would be unusual for Berkshire Hathaway, which normally seeks to limit its liabilities in these situations."

Yeah that sums it up pretty well

I am not sure about Apple; Warren said it is likely (not guaranteed) that they would end 2024 with it being the largest stock holding of Berkshire. Naturally he can change his mind especially if Apple valuation keeps going up. I think you are 100% correct about BAC. Warren was very disappointed at how they piled into LT treasuries in 2020-21, reaching for a tiny bit of yield.

The number of Berkshire shares outstanding (A equivalent) have actually gone up by 912 during Q3 to 1,407,608. Appears related to buying back BHE stock held by Scott estate.

If it's on the internet, it must be true

FWIW I don't think Warren is building a huge cash pile for an acquisition. I suspect he thinks that the US stock market is greatly overvalued and is trading at high valuation based on possibly cyclically adjusted high earnings w/o factoring into account any of the big risks. And T-bills are paying him a decent inflation adjusted return w/o any risk so T-bills will be the default until he finds something intelligent to do. I like that he stopped buying back Berkshire stock at these prices. Warren may also be "cleaning up the portfolio" to hand-off just permanent holdings to Greg to manage, and the current valuations make that relatively painless.

There is no way the Mars family wants to sell such a great business unless there are family issues with control.

Great trade!

Now it seems to have hit ATH in the US dollars as well

Definitely not necessary.

The main problem with showing returns with dividend reinvestment is that most such calculations don't take into account the tax leakage from dividends. Most people incur taxes in the range of 20%-35% with federal and state taxes in the US. So the after-tax returns tend to be lower. For this reason, stock buybacks tend to be far superior but a large part of the investor base for tobacco companies want dividends so it shall be primarily dividends with a smaller buyback thrown in.

Agree

I have been a long term BRK owner in a taxable account with significant unrealized gains so I am not inclined to sell it even if it is trading at the high end of its intrinsic value (as it is now) unless I need the money for expenses. If I owned it in tax deferred accounts and if I have a better alternative, I think it is easier to sell at these prices as forward returns for sure will be lower than they have been in the last 5 years. I think Ajit is a fantastic risk manager (better than Buffett) and is the best insurance CEO in the world. I defer to Warren & Charlie on Greg; they aren't likely to blow one of the most important business decisions of their lives. I think Ted is very good at what he does; not sure about Todd. I don't think Todd & Ted are likely to move the needle much at BRK regardless of their individual investment results. With Todd, I prefer he focuses 100% of his time on fixing GEICO.

BAC holding now below 10%, so no more reporting outside 13-F. I won't be surprised to see it be gone by the end of 2024. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/10/berkshire-slashes-bank-of-america-stake-to-under-10percent.html

One thing that bothers me about BHE is that it took BHE management almost 3.5 years to recognize and reserve adequately for the legal problems resulting from 2020 wild fires. I find it strange that the equity value of BHE was $89 Billion in Q3-2022, when Abel cashed out his stock almost 2 years after the wildfires. And now after 2 more years, we find that BHE equity was marked down by 45% from 2022. It seems to me that BHE was very late in recognizing the problems. It looks like Pacificorp hired a new CEO in 2023; probably a result of the above issues.

I also posted this on Fairfax 2024 board: https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/hurricane-milton-could-cost-insurers-60-bln-raise-reinsurance-rates-rbc-says-2024-10-09/ No one knows what the actual damage from Milton would be but this analyst thinks insured loss in the range of $60-100B for the industry. Does this imply roughly 1.25%, or up to $1.25B hit to Fairfax (pre-tax)?

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/hurricane-milton-could-cost-insurers-60-bln-raise-reinsurance-rates-rbc-says-2024-10-09/ No one knows what the actual damage from Milton would be but this analyst thinks insured loss in the range of $60-100B for the industry. Does this imply roughly 1.25%, or up to $1.25B hit to Fairfax (pre-tax)?

I found a link to the CS report that doesn't require filling out all the personal info: https://mediahandler.broadridgeadvisor.com/media/653843/GW_Report-Digital_09072024v2_Final_SSK_optimized.pdf I agree with @Dinar that it's pretty useless especially when it comes to the top of the wealth pyramid.

I am sure you are right. It seems like really difficult to get statistics on wealth. Why on earth would people voluntarily share such personal information?

Which report do you like best?

Yes, I know but didn't want to fill all the details.

Can you post the report? Thanks

That's a good point. Yes something is off at BNSF. It does look like Abel has his hands full fixing it.

Ok, thanks

Sounds cheap but why is the distribution low? Is it because they are reinvesting in new properties?