yesman182

Are you saying that if I want to know the total ownership Berkshire has in a stock I need to combine the holding in the Berkshire 13F and General Re 13F?

I have a feeling one reason they didn't buy more is because they didn't want to get over the 10% ownership mark. I suspect the ownership in ALLY will be like USB were they stay above 9%, but routinely sell off some shares to stay under 10%.

It seems unreasonable to not swap into Berkshire shares. Why pay hundreds of millions in taxes? Wouldn't we rather have Greg invested in Berkshire than sitting on a mountain of cash. On one hand I am glad Greg isn't heavily invested in one part of the conglomerate, but why not swap into Berkshire's shares to his net worth grows as the company grows. I understand Berkshire doesn't like to issue shares, but this seems like the perfect time to do it. I wonder if Greg did this in hopes that the last few remaining owners of Mid America will follow suit?

From the 10Q. In June 2022, BHE acquired the BHE common stock held by Greg Abel, Berkshire’s Vice Chairman - non-insurance operations, for $870 million. The purchase was pursuant to the terms of a shareholders agreement between Berkshire, BHE and BHE’s non-controlling shareholders. Berkshire recorded a charge of $362 million to capital in excess of par value for the excess of the consideration paid over the carrying value of the acquired noncontrolling interest.

Curious if you agree with Greg's assessment that "We think Berkshire Hathaway Energy overall is endowed with a narrow economic moat." I don't know much about regulated utilities, but I find it hard to believe someone is going to come into Iowa and compete with Mid America on price, relationship with the community/regulators or by being more environmentally friendly. Seems like the story is similar out west. I have a hard time following Greg's logic that BNSF is wide moat and the utility is narrow moat. Id be curious to hear how others feel.

WSJ is confirming what you said about the fractional trading. https://www.wsj.com/articles/robinhood-was-behind-phantom-surge-in-berkshire-hathaway-trade-volume-study-finds-11658309401?st=fi9k1yuirb7adhg&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

What is the elevator pitch on sempra?

Thanks for posting! I liked slide 21. I think those are very reasonable assumptions. Obviously a lot can change with the equity portfolio, but it doesn't seem unreasonable.

I think the overall trading volume is down in OXY, so he is still getting the same % of daily trading, but simply has less shares to buy. I didn't look closely but I suspect this is what is happening.

Yeah I think he is pretty good too.

I hadn’t thought about it like that, good point. But it seems to me that most people who are using investment managers aren't reading about the funds holdings, they are just trusting the manager.

I’ve always been puzzled as too why Chris’s portfolio doesn’t have more invested in Berkshire. I believe he said it the interview that he thinks Berkshire has an earning power of around 50 billion and will grow at about 12 annually. With his estimates Berkshire is trading at a PE of 12. He obviously respects and admires berk, so I’ve been puzzled as to why he isn’t more invested in it.

I think one big difference now is the size of Berkshires position. Although OXY seems to have crazy high trading volumes, it will be hard for Berkshire to dance out of these large positions and then into something else. I personally hope this is a long holding with decent returns over a cycle.

Yeah, I don't think anything has changed either. And if something does change, he will tell us. He has always been open about his intentions and at one annual meeting he went into great detail how you should involve your kids in the Will writing process so that if anyone is un happy they can talk to you before you die.

Hopefully its Elon.

Since he has always had a real fear of inflation, I wonder how much apple he might be purchasing. If he purchased a little at 150 earlier this year, I don't know why he wouldn't be buying now. He knew back then that rates would rise, he knew back then that inflation was high and he also knows apple has pricing power. As Charlie says, they might like it more than cash.

Curious to hear what people think Berkshires cash balance will be when he get the Q2 filling. Since so many things he was buying in Q1 are much cheaper, might we get down to the 30-40 Billion range?

Thanks for posting this. It still seems like a drastic jump whenever it started, back in January?

Barron’s recent article says $210

My 2022 normalized earnings estimate, dollars in millions: $750 - Insurance Underwriting $5,050 - Insurance-Investment Income $6,200 - Railroad $3,780 - Utility and Energy $12,000 - MSR $952 - Amortization Add Back $1,000 -Retained Earning at Investee Company $15,000 - Pre-Tax Investment look through ----------------------------------------------------------------- $44,732 Normalized earnings I calculated the look through earning at 15B. I did this by taking the portfolio share count from the CNBC portfolio tracker for each holding. I then used the 2022 earnings and dividend estimates from Valueline for each holding. So with this estimate it’s trading around a PE of 15. I’d be curious to see what others think the normalized earnings power for this year will be.

U.S. approves major transmission line from Wyoming to Utah https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-approves-major-transmission-line-wyoming-utah-2022-05-26/ Has Berkshire Hathaway Energy detailed what this project will cost, and how long it will take? It's nice to see that they are going to be deploying more cash, but I am curious if someone knows how many billion this project will cost and when Berkshire might start seeing a return.

I thought he sold JPM because Todd is on the board, not for financial reasons(just my speculation). He has said in the past that he doesn’t want things to even resemble a conflict of interest or that he somehow has “insider information”. All that said I suspect it’s JPM, although it isn’t clear why he was so excited to tell people about ATVI and AAPL but not this bank buying, perhaps because he is don’t with ATVI but not with the banks?

I think for a while in 2020, he was being conservative because of covid. And he could buy his own stock at what was certainly a good value. I don’t think he wanted to get into a chest beating match with Carl about the correct direction of the company.

Thanks for sharing. Interesting point about Icahn. I was wondering why buffet didn't call Icahn and offer to buy his entire block, for more than it traded in the market. I feel like Buffet could have purchased Icahn's shares for less then what he paid in the market, but I am sure Buffet is smarter than me, so probably not.

Thanks for sharing this. Between the OXY and buyback, the cash pile shouldn't be growing too much in the first Q!