Spooky

How did Berkshire’s operating results look? Any signs of weakness in their underlying businesses? I’m on the road and can’t check.

Let's see if this downward momentum has legs. I'm hoping we get some better opportunities from here.

Also some more Fairfax.

Because its fun. Broadly I agree - who knows why the market does what it does on a daily basis. Stocks go up. Stocks go down. But in the long run they tend to go up. Also, I am trying to understand what is driving sentiment / investor psychology.

Sounds like opportunity awaits.

You think this is the start of the collapse of the "super bubble"? Or maybe just the unwinding of the AI euphoria?

Anyone know what is driving the big sell-off today?

Warren also mentioned that their phone was starting to ring in 2020 but the Fed acted so swiftly and decisively to give firms access to funding they didn't need capital from Berkshire.

The horror! Stocks should never go down /s

Really interesting paper and discussion, thanks for sharing. I wonder if it is possible to put together a list of the criteria those 17 stocks have in common to survive for such an extended period of time. Perhaps it would be easier to invert and come up with a list of the items they don't have or do which killed off other companies.

Any recent news driving the share performance lately? Haven't found anything but this mini value / small cap rotation has been excellent for my portfolio.

My man! My top two are Constellation and Berkshire as well with FFH now at number 4 or 5.

Indeed, his commentary made me think of a number of themes discussed on this board. Some of his points just make perfect logical sense - of course given the magnitude of the debt now the rise in interest rates is stimulative, interest expense is about 4% of GDP which is flowing into private parties' hands. I just hope that Mosler is wrong and the natural rate of interest is not 0%. This seems to cause too many financial distortions and asset inflation.

Thanks for sharing this. I wasn't familiar with Walter Schloss but he is my kind of guy. I found and enjoyed his 16 criteria for making money in the stock market: https://www.grahamvalue.com/blog/sixteen-factors-make-money-stocks-walter-schloss

Thought the latest Odd Lots was pretty interesting: MMT's Godfather Says the US Government Is Spending Like a Drunken Sailor https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mmts-godfather-says-the-us-government-is-spending/id1056200096?i=1000661504184

Great idea. I was thinking of doing the same with the S&P 600.

Are you Mark Leonard?

Pulled the trigger on a small starter position in JOE with the dip today.

Thanks for sharing! Really impressed by Bruce and his attitude. Especially the part where he talks about how he wants all Joe shareholders to do well, not just him, and he is taking no salary or shares. Contrasting this to the behaviour of Shari Redstone at Paramount is pretty eye opening. Also liked his goal of at some point distributing shares of JOE to the shareholders of his fund similar to what Buffett did with Berkshire. His ability to be so heavily concentrated in a single position is also impressive, he must have absolute conviction. Think I need to get on the Joe train. The part of the podcast where he was talking about regulatory confiscation / nationalization was pretty interesting. Wonder if that is the reason he has been selling down his position in Berkshire. Wish Greene had asked him to expand more on his comment about preparing for potential turbulence in the future and the change in behaviour if a single nuke were to go off. Seems like he is expecting some interesting times ahead.

Very wise. This is the realization I am coming to as well - I don't want to devote the limited time I have on this planet focused solely on the pursuit of generating more money / returns. I want to spend time on meaningful and fulfilling pursuits, focusing on my relationships with family and friends, my health, reading philosophy etc. Is my portfolio perfect? No, but as Munger would say it is good enough to hopefully compound at a respectable rate of return without any tinkering from me safely over the next decade. I see the behaviour of some of my friends that have more wealth than me and it is crazy - always trying to play short term games and follow the hot money, buying Tesla or Nvidia or the hot stock of the day or being super risky lending out money for second mortgages when all they would really need to do is park their money in some diversified ETFs and they would be set for life. Better to just try and tune out all the market noise, be invested in good companies / index funds for the long term and enjoy life. Sitting on your assets also has the inherent advantage of reducing taxes and transaction costs.

My mind went to GMThebeau right away as well. Haven't seen him posting here in a while, hope he was banned.

That AC Milan team with Maldini was so classy.

I don't have a mortgage and am currently debt free. The flexibility / psychological benefits are underrated in my opinion but that just could be me. Many people around me in Canada are over leveraged and the rise in interest rates is causing significant stress among a number of friends. Meanwhile I feel a sense of zen / calm just saving each month, watching my wealth compound. I have a healthy dose of cash which is earning interest. My rent is capped and if something goes wrong I just need to give my landlord 60 days notice and I'm out of here. I am also not tied to any specific location so if I wanted to pick up and become a nomad it is pretty easy. Thought this article on debt by Morgan Housel was interesting: https://collabfund.com/blog/how-i-think-about-debt/

Agree with this - it seems like a decent gauge of the "animal spirits" in the market.

Thanks for the response Viking. I agree that Fairfax buying back a significant amount of its shares below intrinsic value is excellent capital allocation. I also like that they are fishing where the fish are in Greece and India etc. There are many different ways to nirvana. Berkshire exploiting the opportunities available to it certainly contributed to their success but it was more a factor of their philosophy and changing their investment approach as they got larger - moving away from Ben Graham style value investing to buying wonderful companies at reasonable prices and recognizing the inherent advantages in just letting their investments compound over long periods of time. Also, some of Buffett's best investments were just sitting in plain sight available to anyone like when he bought Apple. Does Fairfax need to make this switch too? I'm not sure. I would like to see them shift more of their portfolio out of bonds to equities - focusing on cheap, safe, high-quality stocks combined with the consistent use of leverage through float. Hopefully the investment landscape co-operates.