WideMoat

Third sentence seems key--you say, "I would sell if tax concerns didn't matter." Seems like you are getting twisted in the wind by a host of other factors. Certainly I would argue that your other hedge proposals add incremental risk for your existing position rather than decrease it. If you hedge with a different underlying, you need to make a judgment about future correlation to your current "problem" position. The last sentence seems precisely wrong. The one thing you need is to hedge this stock specifically. Reducing exposure is the way to do this, via full sale, partial sale, long put options in that stock, collars, etc.

Volatility on TLT is very high right now, so those TLT puts would be expensive to hold outright, unless volatility stays high for the duration. Also the bid/ask is wide on the long dated puts, so use limit orders. Looks like the tightest bid/ask on the close for the January 2021 put series was the 150 strike, 4.5/5.95, with 5 last trade. That's a 22% implied volatility, 23 delta. A higher probability trade on entry would be an at the money put spread.

Yes, same.

"Involuntary bankruptcy"... currently being litigated, Georgia Northern Bankruptcy Court.

Just looking at the open interest in the Jan 2017 series (600 call contracts and 1200 puts), it would be tough to make the case. You could create a FLEX option, the minimum size is 150 contracts. You can definitely find a market at the right price, what did you have in mind?

Insurance results were down... "Our insurance businesses generated after-tax losses from underwriting in the second quarter of $38 million and after-tax earnings in the first six months of 2015 of $442 million, representing declines from the corresponding 2014 periods. Underwriting results in the second quarter and first six months of 2015 of GEICO and BHRG declined significantly from 2014." Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance had a $411 million operating loss for Q2, compared to a $9 million loss in the year ago period. Also, less investment gains... "After-tax investment and derivative gains/losses in the second quarter and first six months of 2015 were $123 million and $1.04 billion, respectively, compared to $2.06 billion in the second quarter and $3.24 billion in the first six months of 2014. In 2015, after-tax gains from investments declined approximately $1.7 billion in the second quarter and $2.7 billion in the first six months as compared to 2014. The declines reflected the impact of after-tax gains recorded in 2014 (approximately $1.1 billion in the second quarter and $2.0 billion in the first six months) related to the exchanges of Phillips 66 and Graham Holdings Company common stocks for a specified subsidiary of each of those companies, as well as lower investment gains in 2015 from other investment dispositions."

Annual letter from Mr. Gad for Paragon: http://pgntgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2015.pdf

I would argue that you should be a politician. Basically all Buffett has done is found a really inefficient and incredibly difficult way to tax people and use the resulting taxes to fund health care, foreign aid etc. The same thing Buffett did is accomplished much more effectively by taxing people and funding things through government. One Deng Xiaoping is equivalent to a thousand Warren Buffett's. I enjoy this forum but sometimes I feel like everyone on here is going 120mph and I'm struggling to go 25mph. I have absolutely no clue what this means. Well on this forum, you can find wisdom and sophism, but since they have the same Greek linguistic root, don't worry--they are really just the same thing. ;)

Looks like they now have some financials... http://finance.yahoo.com/news/sed-international-holdings-news-release-183900117.html "For the six month period ended December 31, 2014, consolidated revenues were approximately $69.5 million. Gross margin was $6.0 million, or 8.6% of sales, and the company incurred a net loss of $0.9 million. As of December 31, 2014, shareholders’ equity was a deficit of $6.8 million, compared with a deficit of $5.9 million at June 30, 2014. The Company continues to proactively work to restructure its legacy liabilities, which approximated $17.5 million as of December 31, 2014 of which over $12 million have been settled or subject to settlement agreements at discounts to face value."

I suspect they are selling futures today to fix their spread. Jan 2016 futures closed at 55.34; so buy today in the cash market at 48, fill your tanker, and take a year off. $7 per barrel on 2 million barrels gross, less vessel expenses.

MCO GOOG Two that Buffett has publicly named.

Just got a chance to look at the 10-q. Cash up to $55.8B. Value of equity securities basically unchanged QoQ--from $116.9B at 6/30/14 to $116.4B at 9/30/14. Saw the Burger King preferred mentioned, but had to go to the merger docs to get the specific terms: "In connection with the transactions, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (“Berkshire”) will purchase for an aggregate purchase price of $3,000,000,000 (USD), (a) Class A 9% cumulative compounding perpetual voting preferred shares of Holdings (the “preferred shares”) and (b) a warrant to purchase Holdings common shares (the “warrant”), which shares issuable pursuant to the warrant will represent 1.75% of the fully diluted common shares of Holdings as of the completion of the transactions, at an exercise price per Holdings common share of $0.01. The warrant may be exercised until the fifth anniversary of the closing of the transactions. Berkshire has informed Holdings that it intends to exercise the warrant promptly following the closing of the transactions." http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1547282/000119312514398471/d786007ddefm14c.htm So much cash, and apparently, so little to buy.

So Lightstream is... not fat? I see proved reserves--after tax and discounted at 10%--having a NPV of $2.56 billion (p.18). Those reserves assume Edmonton par of $92.64 per barrel in 2014 and $89.31 in 2015. They assume nat gas at $4 per MMBtu in 2014 and $3.99 in 2015. They assume an exchange rate of .94 USD/CAD. Let's assume that we time travel back to March and rewrite the reserve report using today's prices. Crude is lower today, nat gas is roughly similar, CAD is lower.

From my seat, it looks like the hire is all about raising money. "The Company transitioned to a new Chief Restructuring Officer in an effort to reduce costs and increase its focus on obtaining new financing for the Company." [Emphasis added.]

There is an additional problem with indexing as well--that the major indices are float-adjusted. See, e.g., [http://us.spindices.com/documents/index-policies/methodology-sp-float-adjustment.pdf] Companies with significant insider ownership now have significantly less impact on index returns than the past. Murray Stahl, Steven Bregman, and Horizon Kinetics have been talking and thinking about this for some time.