cwericb

Just for anyone interested. I received my first Pfizer shot yesterday around noon with no side effects until evening and then noticed that I had a fairly tender arm. Still a bit tender this afternoon. Otherwise so far so good. PS I requested and received a written copy of a statement saying when, where and what I was vaccinated with and will also do the same when I get my second shot.

Seriously? I think that you are missing the most important part of taking the vaccine. If you get vaccinated it is, at the very least, very unlikely that I will contract the disease. If I don't contract the disease than I am not going to spread it to others. "Would it be not more polite to just say, I got vaccine...I am protected." No, not at all because that misses the point. As I said, if I get the virus I could spread it to my family and dozens of others - that is much more important than simply protecting oneself. So the point is that if we are going to stop spreading this virus ...we need everyone to get vaccinated.

Had my first Pfizer shot this morning. Still alive and no after effects so far. Risk? Well, on one hand I haven’t heard of anyone killed by the vaccine yet. On the other hand, half a million Americans and 30,000 Canadians have been killed by the virus. You don't have to be a genius to use a little common sense and play the odds. Refuse the vaccine and you become part of the problem.

You might get more response if you post this topic under the "General Discussion" section.

"Tracking Prem Watsa's Fairfax Financial Holdings Portfolio - Q4 2020 Update" https://seekingalpha.com/article/4406115-tracking-prem-watsa-s-fairfax-financial-holdings-portfolio-q4-2020-update?mail_subject=frfhf-tracking-prem-watsa-s-fairfax-financial-holdings-portfolio-q4-2020-update&utm_campaign=rta-stock-article&utm_content=link-0&utm_medium=email&utm_source=seeking_alpha Article from Seeking Alpha.

I can comment on PEI. We have had slightly more than 100 cases to date and presently have just five active. There has been no community spread, not a single person has died and no one has even been hospitalized. If you can qualify to come to our province, you MUST be tested and self isolate for 14 days. We have been very careful and have locked down certain businesses temporarily at times when necessary and then re-opened. Given that our third largest industry is tourism (1.6 million visitors annually in a population of 160,000), we have faced a lot of challenges financially and that industry in particular has suffered greatly.. However being proactive has also had its benefits. Presently life here is relatively normal or at least a new normal. Restaurants, gyms, etc are all open. Our provincial budget actually had a decent surplus in 2020 and most businesses are operating as normal and some are booming. Real estate and construction are setting records, partially due to people seeing the province as a relatively safe place from Covid. However we have been setting sales records for several years. The fact that we can control who enters the province and having a relatively small population certainly makes it easier. However if we apply the US death rate to our population we should have had thousands hospitalized and hundreds of deaths. Yet we have no dead and no one has yet to be hospitalized.

Funny how things go though. BB seems to be holding in the $12 US -$15 CDN range. If someone told us a month ago that BB would double in the next 30 days we would have been quite pleased.

Yes! Not sure what I’m nervous of though! I feel exactly the same way. Surely to heavens Prem is selling portions daily as this rally goes on.

The Dow is down over 600 points today. Blackberry is up nearly 40% today. Blackberry has quadrupled since the first of the month. Have I lost my mind or is this just a dream? Will we soon be criticizing Prem if he sold BB a week ago for selling too soon? Anyone else getting nervous?

How quickly things change! That was this morning when we thought BB pricing was nuts. Mid afternoon and BB is up nearly another 30% ($23.00).

Dumped the rest of Chou Ass. Dumped some in October but hung onto the rest until now and has been up 15-20% since I sold in October Added to RY (Royal Bank) a few weeks ago. Added to FFH today. Started a position in BRK.B. Also started a small position in WLF.TSXV (Wolfden Resources) just for fun - have been watching this for a couple of years and it seems they could be on to something interesting in Maine, at least Altius (ALS.TO) thinks so.

Greed.

Yeah, had a friend tell me not long ago that they had "invested" in TSLA and how well they were doing. They have never invested in the market before and probably shouldn't be. I told them to be very, very careful that at these levels it was a very high risk stock for them to be in. But since then TSLA has been up nearly $200 so what do I know?

Shoot the messenger, ignore the message?

Yeah the $17 was several years ago. But if it is less I'm certainly not complaining. :)

I may be wrong but my recollection of what Prem said agrees with Xerxes ~ $17.00. However things may have improved somewhat since then.

Ditto on Chou Ass, but retained some. We also share FFH & RY

Just heard a PEI real estate ad on the radio saying that the MAJORITY of their sales last year exceeded the asking price.

"With a minority government the Liberals will not be taxing capital gains on principal residence sale." Not only would it be extremely unpopular, it would be very difficult to implement. However, if the Feds have to start giving out more billions they could reduce the capital gains from the 50% level fairly easily to help replenish the coffers and it wouldn't be that unpopular with some segments of the population. Hopefully that will not be necessary.

I would think if they did something like that they would almost have some sort of value placed on every house as of today and then tax future increase from that point. If I remember correctly in 1994 I believe they did something like that when they dropped the $100,000 deductible on capital gains Isn't it more likely CRA would simply increase the taxable portion of capital gains from 50% to perhaps 75% or something like that? Something to think about though as I am sitting here waiting for email confirmation on the sale of two small properties and a change in the capital gains rate is something to be considered.

For those wondering why housing prices keep rising, consider this: World population 1900 = 1.6 Billion 1963 = 3.2 Billion - doubled in 63 years and (increased by 1.6 mil in 63 years) 2003 = 6.4 Billion - doubled in 40 years and (increased by 3.2 mil in 40 years) 2020 = 7.8 Billion - increased by 1.4 million in 17 years People have to live somewhere. "Billion with a b! Aside from poor covid response, Canada has been desirable to live for sure." Oops, millions corrected to billions.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all. Hopefully by the end of next year Covid 19 will be under control world wide and being vaccinated will ensure long term protection from the disease.

Trying to figure out if you are an optimist or a pessimist :) I would guess that it will be late spring (?) perhaps before I qualify (advanced age and all that) but am in no rush. Be interesting to see if there are any unexpected reactions in the meantime. Good luck with the tetanus shot.

Before long probably, haha & you?

In our area vaccinations are starting Wednesday morning.