Spooky

Why not just stick with the investing framework that they developed? Invert and eliminate all the companies that don't meet their criteria. Pretty good description of their framework here: https://investmentmanagementinsights.substack.com/p/graham-and-dodd-annual-breakfast

What's on your radar these days?

That's good. I found out because I received some interest income from some lent securities and I opted out right away.

For anyone using Questrade I just found out they automatically opted everyone into a securities lending program where they can lend out your securities to short sellers etc. Needless to say I am pretty pissed they did this without me opting in.

He's such an inspiration. I hope I can be 1/10th as sharp as him at that age. Really missing all his wisdom these days.

Agreed! Let’s go

I voted for Carney. If he didn't become the liberal party leader I probably would not have voted. With the US becoming more isolationist and anti-trade I was hopeful that Canada could go the opposite direction, embrace free trade and try and diversify its export markets. The conservative party just started copying the US - leaning into "Canada first, for a change" which doesn't make sense. Trade is beneficial for both parties and Canada is a small exporting nation. I also liked the idea of bringing down inter-provincial trade barriers and investing in infrastructure to allow us to get our goods to other international markets. The above is going to take a long time to materialize but it also feels like we are losing momentum and falling back into our old habits / political squabbles. As Canadians we are in a fight for survival in this new world of mercantilism and might makes right. We need to put aside our differences and start working together for the nation to reach its full potential. Its good that Carney is traveling abroad to build relationships but we also need to be laser focused on domestic issues - bringing down the cost of living / doing business so we can be competitive, making investments to spur innovation and grow productivity, reducing taxes and the size of the state to allow the private sector to allocate more resources, etc.

Exactly John, some magical thinking happening. The reality is that if you strip out data centre activity the US economy is not growing on a nominal basis. There was a pretty interesting article in the FT debating if the US has Dutch Disease related to regulatory capture by the big tech companies: https://www.ft.com/content/95a77bb1-10c5-4dbc-ad8c-213c17131332

5% GDP growth seems …. quite ambitious.

We have had a persistent productivity gap versus the US of about 20% for a long time. If we were able to fix that our quality of life would improve pretty significantly. The problem is that most people don’t want to abandon our more generous social safety net and the tradeoffs inherent in a more US style system. I can sympathize since there is more to life than GDP. One thing to watch out for in all this analysis is everyone is using per capita figures. It would be interesting to look at the figures keeping population constant - there is generally a long lag between people immigrating and embedding fully in the economy. Canada has also let in much more migration relative to its size than the US. Not sure the picture will be much prettier though.

This is great. More money managers should put their money where their mouth is. If you can't beat the S&P500 then why should you get huge fees.

Please no dividend! It is more tax efficient for BRK to keep the funds. Also, as a foreigner, I will get hit with withholding tax on top of regular tax since these shares are mostly in taxable accounts. Not paying a dividend is a selling point for me.

The guy is a hockey playing Canadian from Alberta...

13F has them buying some GOOGL. The one that got away...

Just look at stuff like OpenAI's Sora and Meta's Vibes - unlimited AI generated content. The cost to create content will come down dramatically and erode Netflix's scale advantage.

Full disclosure I no longer own Netflix. I sold it (probably too soon). Feels like we are on a path to unlimited free content.

Sounds like we should get into this insurance game! How hard can it be?

This is really interesting, thanks for sharing. Something seems quite ambitious with HHIC's proposed figures ... out of the gate they will have a 94% combined ratio and 20% ROE, higher than BRK with less invested in common stocks...

My initial take on Buffett holding more A shares is to give Greg a longer runway where the company doesn't have to worry about activist investors forcing a management change or the threat of a hostile takeover. It is a similar rationale when Tom Murphy and Capital Cities bought ABC - they needed a 400 pound gorilla in their corner to prevent the new company from being put into play. In that case Buffett even gave Tom Murphy proxy power to vote Berkshires shares. I like it, it should allow Greg to take a longer term view.

Greatness does not come about through accumulating great amounts of money, great amounts of publicity or great power in government. When you help someone in any of thousands of ways, you help the world. Kindness is costless but also priceless. Whether you are religious or not, it’s hard to beat The Golden Rule as a guide to behavior. Amen

I feel similarly - my whole investing life has been with Buffett and until recently Munger as guiding lights. Not sure if there is anyone else out there that can take up their mantle of providing timeless wisdom, not even just about investing.

Thanks Wabuffo! How / why has the Fed set the lower bound of $3T for bank reserves? Is it tied to the size of the economy / demand for money? If the balance sheet were to contract or expand rapidly, would there be an impact in the real economy?

https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/c5e84f6d-edc3-4c17-a28d-b37ebc8fbc39 Quantitative Easing is back! Can any bond wizards explain the implication?

The EPS chart is definitely interesting. This is lining up with some of the current reporting out there that companies like Amazon are basically stating they will not grow their workforce going forward. Something to watch for sure. If this does happen though there will be huge societal consequences that we are not ready for.

I'm not sure we should look at the market level like this and take it as gospel - we all know Mr. Market can be manic depressive.