cwericb

Perhaps this has been mentioned already. You are pretty well fully invested, the market tanks and you are thinking of how much money you have lost, people start telling you what a great "investment opportunity" it is.

"The vaccines could be purchased with the enforcement savings from decriminalization of prostitution. That cost (enforcement/incarceration) is born by all but is due to the moralists insisting on these vice laws." But hey, here in Canada Peter MacKay, Minister of Justice, has announced that he is going to outlaw and completely stamp out prostitution. Good luck with that Peter, it isn't refered to as "the oldest profession" without good reason. It drives me crazy that we spend billions tilting at windmills and think we can use legislation and the police to outlaw all guns, stop prostitution, and ban the use of drugs like marijuana. Did we not learn anything from the prohibition era?

Happy Birthday and another Irish blessing - May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you're dead!

Crip, I have also been tempted to dump FFH in the past simply because there have been times when we have seen some pretty large swings in the price. But you just never really know which way the share price it is going to go and if I sold out and the price went up instead of down I would find it hard to make the decision to get back in at a higher price. So I decided some time ago that FFH was a long term position for me. I have three - FFH.TO, RY.TO & BOX.TO and all have been good to me. From their past record and their ever increasing long term diversified investments I have confidence in the company’s growth and upside potential. But as Prem has said, returns may be “lumpy”. Additionally I also get some protection against a market downturn through their hedges. So It offers a decent potential for growth, some protection on the downside and on top pays about a 2% dividend which is as good as I can get in any guaranteed investment. You’ve been invested in FFH for a long time so you know all of this. Many times I have asked myself the same question as you until I decided to just put FFH on the back burner. When there is a substantial dip, rather than getting disappointed or questioning my strategy, I pick up a few more shares. I suspect that you are like me. I look at 500+ and wonder if I should cash in my chips, but then I remember that I have already made the decision a some time ago to just ride it out and see where this takes me. So far the ride has been good.

Hope my little bit helps, keep up the good work!

“Knowing that I have something in my portfolio that will mint money in the event of a severe downturn makes it a lot easier for me to be aggressive in other areas without worrying.” - zachmansell Exactly. Not being nearly as sophisticated an investor as many here, I feel that FFH is a good and simple way to help protect myself in the event of deflation and gain on the upside at the same time. So, for me at least..... 1) it provides an uncomplicated way to hedge against the downside. 2) it currently produces an annual dividend better than a GIC 3) in the seven years since I bought FFH the DOW has risen by 16% while FFH share price has increased by 122%. What about the future? Who knows, but FFH has made a lot of interesting investments, developed a world wide reputation with increased visibility, improved their insurance performance, and have expanded their presence in the global insurance industry. Works for me. Wish I owned more. eb

Just FYI that article was written back in Mid-January and I believe it was discussed here at that time.

Altius and a little Alderon.

Perhaps I am the only one confused by this, but I thought I would throw this out there in the hopes of improving the board. This board is Canadian based but has a world-wide membership. This can sometimes lead to confusion and misinterpretation when readers do not know what country you are from. For instance: Stock prices - are you talking about Canadian dollars, US dollars, etc? Recently there was confusion in a discussion on mortgages as rules differ substantially from country to country. The same applies to political discussions. On the topic of the Ukraine, I don’t know if we have any Russian members but their outlook might be rather divergent from that of an American. Stock symbols. CFX in Canada is Canfor Pulp, in the US it is Colfax. Or the reverse may be true. Blackberry in the US is BBRY but in Canada it is BB. Many here have set their country in their profile, but there are a lot of members who have not. Some may have not done that intentionally for their own reasons but if this is simply an oversight it can be easily rectified by.... Going to the menu just below the top of the page, click “Profile”, Then click “Forum Profile”, then select “Country”. Now your country flag will appear below your name whenever you post. eb

I probably should have made myself clearer. I agree that there is little to compare between Blackberry's situation and the situation at The Brick other than the fact that both companies found themselves in serious trouble. My point was that I believe that among Fairfax's many talents is an expertise for selecting the right people to go into a troubled company and make some bold moves and turn the company around. The Brick was nearly in a state of collapse when Fairfax put Gregson in. He successfully made a lot of sweeping internal changes at The Brick and it was definitely not just a situation where the economy came around and thus business improved. The Brick was failing long before the financial crisis hit. Between 2007 and 2008 share price fell from about $10 to $2-3 as they cut monthly distributions. (Unfortunately I know this the hard way). So far Chen seems to be making the right moves and the market seems to approve of what he is doing. Time will tell.

Like Blackberry, a few years ago The Brick was seen to be in its death throes and many thought the company was down for the count. Fairfax stepped in with financing, appointed Bill Gregson as CEO, made some major changes and had The Brick back on its feet within a couple of years. I have every confidence, despite what many here may think, that John Chen is a key step in the rescue and reformation of Blackberry.

Hayten, this board would be pretty boring and really, it wouldn't be of much use if we all agreed on everything. :)

My two cents: 1) This board is not 100% perfect 2) Of the 1800+ members there’s probably 900 different ideas of the perfect board. 3) Everyone has the right to form a new board. But form a new board and then find how many more think they could do a better job. 4) Once you have more than one board the community becomes fragmented and diminishes the value of both boards. Who has the time to follow several different boards? Could the board use improvements? I’m sure it could. But this is a work in progress that has evolved over the past dozen years. For those who want to create a new board I have three questions. 1) How many hours a week do you anticipate personally monitoring your board? 2) How many years would you commit to managing and improving your board? 3) How much of your own money would you devote to building and maintaining it? For those who are unhappy with this board you could try www.stockhouse.com Perhaps this thread should have startedthis way, "Is there some way we could volunteer to help Sanjeev improve this board."

"In canada, the most common mortgage term is five year fixed which will likely be problematic for those that stretch themselves during this abnormal low rate period. Talk about asset liability term dismatch." Also the mortgage rate goes up with the term which is another problem in itself because it is an incentive for those stretching their budget to opt for shorter term mortgages (say 1 or 2 years or a floating rate) to get the lower rates. Longest amortization rate in Canada has been reduced (by law) to 25 years (40 years in 1998. Also, minimum down payment has been increased from 15% TO 20%, but there are tricks that are used to get around that. One might think that, since the longer the term, the higher the rate, that this could be a clue that interest rates may well rise.

“ Would they pay more because interest rates are low? Nope.” Unfortunately the answer to that may well be yes. I deal with people building new homes on a regular basis and I have told this story here before, but it bares repeating. I used to ask theses young couples how much their new house was going to cost and I was shocked that very few could tell me. The conversations would go like this: “So, how much is the house going to cost in total?” The couple would look at one another with a blank look on their faces and the reply would be... “I don’t know, but our mortgage payments will be $1,200 a month.” “Yes, but about how much will the house cost to build?” “Well we never asked about that, but our mortgage payments will be $1,200 a month.” “Look folks, if you pay $400K for the house today you will have always paid $400K for that house, but that $1,200 per month could well be a lot more than that in a few years” “Haha.... well that better not happen!” After running into that line of thought time after time, I don't bother asking anymore. The only explanation I can come up with for this attitude is that these people have been used to leasing cars and don’t understand the huge difference between leasing a car and buying a house. But as to the original question, unfortunately there are a lot of people out there who only look at the monthly payment and for an old dude like me who has paid as high as 17.5% for a mortgage I just shake my head at these 2.5% mortgages. Mortgages have practically no room to drop, but the the potential rise is unlimited.

I looked at some of Hurst's crap and I hope that Sender's not relying on his "collection" for retirement income. My sister fancies herself as somewhat of an art connoisseur. One day I put a bunch of dots, lines and squiggles on the screen and converted it to a jpg. Emailed it to her and told her it was something Alex Calder had done. She thought it was just wonderful. His colours were so bright and the juxtaposition of the lines were 'just right'. Some people's taste is all in their mouths. While Fairfax has not recovered any monetary value, there is some satisfaction to see that Sender has squandered a good portion of his ill-gotten gains on what most of us would see as worthless junk. Of course he could always invite Steve Cohen over to enjoy his collection - better than going to the crowbar hotel.

He who has the last laugh laughs best?

"Mr. Sender, 45 years old and a prominent collector of contemporary art, repeatedly has said a 2006 lawsuit against Exis by the Canadian insurer Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. had hurt Exis's ability to raise money." http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303942404579360550785047372?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303942404579360550785047372.html

Jeez, my problem is the direct opposite. Probably greed causes me hold on to stocks long after they hit their highs. SFK/FBK being a good example. Bought a substantial amount at .50 then some more at about .90. Then watched it run to $2.00, but I let it drop back to about .85 before I finally dumped it. I have also held stocks and let them go to zero. Now this isn’t the “grocery money” and holding long term major positions in stocks like FFH, RY and BOX.UN has done quite well for me over the years, but I really have a hard time selling anything. I have thought of using down limits but I have quite often seen sudden dips and a quick recovery that would have triggered an unwanted sale. Part of my problem is probably due to the fact that my time to spend on this is relatively limited. Anyone else have a habit of hanging on too long?

Nor do I wish to engage in a pot debate. But who among us does not regularly engage in things that are “bad” for us. In fact I sometimes think that if I like it, its not good for me. Sugar, alcohol, red meat, and well, just about anything most of us like. I would not see pot as being much different. However, I have to agree that the idea of smoking anything is probably not a good idea. Brownies anyone? Sugarless of course.

I don’t smoke pot, but I strongly support its inevitable legalization. In the 1920's we had the prohibition on the sale of alcohol which lead to an era of violence not seen since the days of the “wild west”. Once alcohol was legalized and controlled it was generally realized that you cannot refuse to give the public what the public wants. After all we do live in a democracy. Yes, pot can lead to hard drugs. But that is because it is illegal. Therefore pot must be procured from the same people supplying hard drugs. It is in their best interest to upgrade pot smokers to addictive, and more profitable drugs. This is not rocket science. We tie up our courts, our law enforcement and our jails wasting billions of dollars punishing people involved in its growth and sale. But the worst waste is the waste of lives by incarcerating the many young people involved in its growth and sale and leaving them with criminal records. In many cases might not these people be future entrepreneurs? Alcohol is addictive and there are few among us who do not know good people who are alcoholics. Contrarily, pot is not addictive and there is good evidence that it has medicinal value. Vested interest groups such as law enforcement and distillers are wasting millions lobbying against it but they are fighting a losing battle because you cannot refuse to give the people what they want.

Contrary to this topic, what does the board need more of? Humour. Sometimes we just gotta lighten up a little because some here take themselves way too seriously. Uccmal and Kraven both understand that quite well.

One thing that tends to tick me off is people who don’t understand the difference between facts and their own opinions. You may be 100% certain that something is going to happen, but that is usually just an opinion until it either happens or doesn’t, only then is it a fact. As has been said, "Opinions are like a**holes, everybody has one."

Yeah, well its -18C or 0 F here today and and a foot of snow and high winds for tomorrow. We've had winter here since mid November and normally we rarely see snow before January. I've spent a fair amount of time in Cuba. Ten years ago on my first trip there I was very surprised to find that there were no incandescent bulbs to be seen. All bulbs had been relaced had been replaced by CFL's and that was in 2003.

Our city government was also of the opinion that the heat generated by incandescent bulbs was wasted energy and expense so, in their infinite wisdom, they replaced all our traffic signals with LED's. Now, because the lights generate no heat, they have to have a crew and a truck with a cherry picker (boom) to clear the snow off the lights. Not only does that pose a traffic problem in itself, but if often a useless exercise because if it is still snowing, 5 minutes after they clear the lights the snow blocks them again. To complicate matters, because the snow is usually accompanied with wind, this means only half the lights at an intersection are usually blocked with snow while the traffic from the other direction may not have a problem. It can make for some interesting driving. There has been some talk of equiping the lights with electric heaters. Yup that will save energy. Aaaa, progress....