Partner24

Interesting and a thing to remember for all the permanent pessimistic people.

Fairfax press release regarding that positive change has been written 4 years ago... Just kidding ;)

Thank you. Useful information.

He talks about the pension funds that invest in commodities. I find it frankly disapointing and sad that often, you'll see pension funds being some of the last at the parties. They'll buy things when they become more socially desirable (i.e. popular and expensive) and sell them when they become socially inacceptable (i.e. inexpensive). Who will ultimately pay the note for this bad behavior? Ask the quebecers about the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec...

In my book, it's a kind "let put some pink glasses" valuation metric. Banker: hey, you didn't paid your interest on your debt this month. Boss: Oh, but the consultant told me to not pay attention to interest when I valued the businesses. So, I do not have to pay you, right? Government: hey, pay your corporate taxes or your business is bankrupt. Boss: so, businesses have to pay taxes too?! Are you kidding me? Employee: Boss, our equipment is scrap. If you don't buy new one soon, we'll not have anything to sell. Boss: Oh, I tought it wasn't needed to replace it eventually.... Employee:... Boss:... Employee: Did the consultant told you that our salary wasn't a real expense neither?

You know you are a hard-core Berkshire shareholder, when you notice that Elizabeth Banks is reading the 2006 edition of "Of Permanent Value", instead of looking at her legs! Well, I've watched both! ;-) Cheers!

If that's true, I guess we should be better informed about it. What about counterparty risk? And what kind of cash reserves do we have to better protect ourselves against a decline of those equities? These financial instruments do not seem plain vanilla stuff actually.

I can't value all insurers, but some of them are quite cheap. That being said, while it trade at historical low valuations (price/book), some overstate their book because a lot suspect that their reserves are actually too low (some troubles ahead).

Uccmal, I know I am going to get flamed for this but so be it. You're right I'll flame you arrrgghh ;) You bring some valid point. From memory (could be wrong), his father Jack said to him when he talked about that idea something like "Why not bring a pile of money and burn in the middle of the street instead?". That being said, while it's a tough business, Overstock.com has some competitive advantages like mindshare, high customer satisfaction, etc. In the online world, overall people are getting smarter, and it becomes more expensive to generate qualified trafic to sell your products. When you have mindshare, people can just type your name on Google and get to your website or better yet type your URL and go directly to your website, wich is far less expensive than bid on keywords or try to have a better ranking in organical results on Google, Bing, etc. I'm sure there is some other stuff that I could talk about, but in the end you have to generate profits and I agree with you that it is very difficult to do so in that business. But, Patrick is a fighter, and I would prefer by far to be on his side than on the other side. I admire him a lot for what he has done both in the business and against the naked short sellers. That being said, I don't have any OSTK shares, but I will certainly not short any! Cheers!

‘I am a better investor because I am a businessman and a better businessman because I am an investor.’ Warren E. Buffett Some Wall Street guys should learn to become "better investors"...and take a cup of humility. Ballmer is not 100% critics-proof, but to call for his resignation is far stretched. Cheers!

These Wall Street guys are a collective mess. They just care about the next quarter and they don't give a damn about the long term. They should taste their own medicine and fire themselves because they underperform.

It's because Peter Eavis plan to write on FFH again :D We all held or bought through the drop from $200 to $57 back in 2003, so I think she can handle the swings. Indeed! I mean, some of long term shareholders wonder what happens when the stock drop 10% or so. Remember the last few years of the seven lean years? I remember someone who told it was like a mining stock in terms of volatility, we were the darling of naked short sellers and and Peter Eavis was calling for a cash crunch. FFH: Finally Fameless and Hundrum ;D Cheers!

We seem to redo a version of this thread every few weeks Great, people keep fishing. One day, they'll catch a tasty fish. ;D

I don't know any public conglomerate that use the Leucadia "business model". That being said, if you know one, I'm very interested to hear about it. A year or two ago, an investor asked C&S at the LUK AGM if there was any next Leucadia out there. One of them answered something like "We don't know any, but if you see one, shoot it". They don't want more competition in their field. Cheers!

It's been 2 years now that Warren Buffett published his point of view in the New York Times. Just two years, but the climate was different then. Investment community was in panic. Dow Jones was in the mid 8000's range and the S&P 500 in the 800's-900's range. Cheers! http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17buffett.html

..Be careful, she will want you to buy her a new fur coat Lol! Yes, she will tell you that she found one that's selling at a 50% discount and that it would not be a bad trade after all! ;)

100% in few A's. You might do very well for decades with B's, but in the end if you have a zero (you tought it would be 0,2, but you get 0...that's the 30% uncertainty) because of an economical storm (see 2008), you still end up with zero. 7*7*7*0= 0. Cheers!

Good question. We would need full details to better understand that (reinsurance, risks and % covered, etc.). But a priori, the odds of accidents that would imply full 9 billions coverage have to be extremely low to justify such a low premium. Cheers!

Beds are the exception ;)

I prefer by far to buy used furnitures. They usually sell for a fraction of the original cost and have years of use to help juge their quality. I sometimes hear complains from relatives who bought expansive new furnitures that got easily scratched in less than a year or so.

anders, You're idea sound interesting. I'll take a look at the story and the numbers. I've been a fan of video games, especially in the 80's. This is an industry that change fast. Think about the Commodore, Intellivision, Atari, Coleco, Nintendo, Sega, Playstation, etc. etc. etc. There is some games that last in the minds of people, like Legend of Zelda, Mario Bros, World of Warcraft, etc. but there is a lot of fads too. How can the Activision moat can be maintained over time? What will protect the company from it's competitors over a long period of time? In other words, what will happen after your honeymoon? Will it be a long standing marriage?

At Leucadia, they specialize in distressed investments, bankruptcies, etc. You really have to have the aptitude or gift for this. Yes, I hear you Sanjeev, but that second part of the letter was about the "Fortress Leucadia" and cigar butt issues. I don't know the exact words at the top of my desk, but what I understood from what I red is that Leucadia will try to find more durable and well managed Conwed Plastics kind of businesses and less financial genious cigar butts kind of situations going forward. So the puck might be in a different place than it's been most of time in the past. Cheers!

there is no real succession plan. Sanjeev, I have received a personal letter from one of the two Leucadia top managers and he wrote me that the succession issue has been a topic of every LUK board meeting over the past decade. It doesn't necessarely means that they have found a successor (?), but that means that unless that this topic is an inside joke from the board, that issue is taken very seriously by Leucadia. Cheers!

I've been following LUK for several years and still don't see what people like about this company. See page 1: http://www.leucadia.com/c-p_letters/luk_c-p2009.pdf

Well, it's good news for it's shareholders. Thanks for sharing it Sanjeev. Cheers!