shalab

Ballmer is not 100% critics-proof, but to call for his resignation is far stretched. Have to agree with this - Ballmer wants good things to happen to Microsoft, there is no question about it. When he took over from BillG, Microsoft was reeling from a disastrous fight with the DoJ and another one with the EU and a third one with the Korean government. It is to Ballmer's credit that he dealt with these in a way that it is no longer consuming headlines, the cost of these fights was tens of billions of dollars in fines, cost (business and opportunity) and then untold restrictions on Microsoft's businesses. The beauty of the Buffett/Munger model is that they have been very ethical in their dealings and have had to spend the least amount of money in lawsuits. Good ethics makes for good business and less trouble. Ballmer hasn't sold his Microsoft shares unlike Gates. He is paid a nominal salary and doesnt take stock grants. That said, the Microsoft hiring, promoting and spending hasn't been prudent in the recent past. Also, their model to sustain new innovations hasn't been stellar - it could have been done a lot more effectively than it has been done.

http://www.dataroma.com/m/home.php Thank you Sanjeev for this pointer - it is in my to read list. http://warrenbuffettresource.wordpress.com/ Nice site, very informative, I must say this is better than Schroeders - thank you for sharing.

Yeah, at 30 yrs, it doesn't even come close. Can you please explain your thesis? You can compare random things - e.g: compare Microsoft and LUK or AAPL and FFH over random time periods which doesnt make sense.

scorpion - not sure what is your thesis...

>Fairfax is similar to BRK, but not entirely. FFH seems to be in that 1967 - 1970's Berkshire stage, buying insurance companies and increasing float. FFH is like the BRK of the nineties in terms of market cap. It is already at 10 billion. However, one has to respect what Prem Watsa has accomplished. He was an immigrant from India with little/no background in finance and then he built a company which has made money for so many and inspired many more. Comparison to Berkshire are not fair. It is a lot different than Buffett, who was into finance from the age of seven and would have succeeded no matter what.

From Schroeder http://www.aliceschroeder.com/blog/todd-combs-monthly-returns

He paid 8.54 per warrant. ( 1.2 million warrants at 10.245 million dollars ). You can now buy it at 30% discount to Chou.

Life insurance in-force does not equal float. Life insurance in-force is the face amount of all outstanding policies plus dividends. Float is a small fraction of $113 billion. You are right - the float here is likely a small amount probably in the low single billions like the equitas deal.

McLane is expanding http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ajajwcaVUNNw

Sun Life's reinsurance business has 70 employees in offices in Canada, the U.S. and Ireland. The unit assumes risks from life reinsurers and has life insurance in-force of $113-billion. 113 billion in float is a huge amount - not sure the terms of the transaction...

For all the brk fans - I think someone like Hamblin-Watsa running BRK investment operations would be a very positive thing. Or Klarman or Berkowitz. The BNSF investment is a good one - similarly increasing stake in KO, Dr Pepper or Pepsi would also be a good thing. The BYD bet, I am not sure of it but Charlie may turn out to be right. China is not UK and definitely not Germany - so it remains to be seen how this will play out. The corruption index is also interesting - while Singapore is one of the least corrupt countries on earth China is one of the most corrupt. Also, the way Chinese system is going to evolve is going to be interesting. ( hopefully it will integrate well with the community of nations )

Similar to Sanjeev's poll, let us do this poll to see how people's portfolio is doing. Also, let us highlight the winners and the stocks that didnt move. ;D For me personally, 0878.hk was a winner this year gaining 55%, I cleared SNS(BH) early on in the year with gains for the duration I held the stock, BRKB gained this year. FFH has lagged SP500 this year but has done better than SP500 for the duration I have held the stock. Similarly WFC has greatly lagged SP500 this year. cheers!

I third this :-). I have done my analysis and will be happy to share it with the board. There is plenty of liquidity in most of these issues not to impact anyone.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/18/pf/investing/buffett_ben_stein.fortune/

This means that BRK can be a 400 billion company in another 8 years at 10% compounding.

It is no news. Goog has 80%+ share of the search ad dollar market share although the search market share may be lower in the U.S

>Unfortunately it's bad timing as China is clam down hard on land usage and real estate, they had to do something to show they're serious. The very fact this is coming out is kind of odd - you typically see it resolved before it hits the news - especially in a country like China.

>I don't quite get what you guys are complaining, but it has relatively little impact to BYD in terms of production, earnings, or enterprise value impairment This is not a good sign. In a country like China ( or many other countries outside the US as Microsoft found out painfully with the EU ) - you dont win fighting with the government. The fact that government is after you even in a minor way may be an indication of larger things to come.

Thank you Sanjeev - my memory is off on this one :'(

From Lion Fund annual report in 2009, ( for 2008 ), I got the below: Our overall performance in 2008 was minus 28.1%. Over the last 9 years, The Lion Fund has achieved a rate of return of 13.6% compounded annually.

Bronco - do you own fmmh.ob?

Looks like the short theory is playing out well. The rest of the market went up but NFLX went down.

With the antitrust case that seems not well grounded, it looks like this is pretty attractive.

This article is pretty interesting. The Credit Suisse Research Institute today launched its inaugural Global Wealth Report, which finds that the global wealth currently held by 4.4 billion adults has increased 72% since 2000 to reach USD 195 trillion. Driven by robust economic expansion in the emerging markets, the Credit Suisse Research Institute estimates that global wealth will grow 61% to USD 315 trillion by 2015. At the top of the wealth pyramid, there are over 1,000 billionaires globally, of which 245 are in Asia Pacific, 230 are in Europe and 500 are in North America. Moving down the wealth pyramid, there are 80,000 ultra-high-net-worth individuals (average wealth per adult above USD 50 million). Of the 24 million other high-net-worth individuals (average wealth per adult of USD 1 million to USD 50 million), just over 800,000 are in China, around 170,000 are in India and over four million are in the rest of Asia Pacific. Below this, more than 330 million individuals have average wealth per adult of USD 100,000 to USD 1 million. Switzerland and Norway have emerged as the richest nations in the world in terms of average wealth per adult, which stands at USD 372,692 and USD, 326,530 respectively. They are followed by Australia, which is in third place with average wealth per adult of USD 320,909 and Singapore with average wealth per adult of USD 255,488. Figures for Australia and Singapore have both doubled in the last decade. https://www.credit-suisse.com/news/en/media_release.jsp?ns=41610

I mine my own ideas but I wanted to check out fatpitch. Paid $15 for a month and nothing happened - even after sending a couple of e-mails That said, I am into BNE - I think it should work out ok...