Partner24

Smazz, maybe in some way, but take it another way the "real" Michael Jackson like you call him may still live for decades to come. Cheers!

RIP Michael Jackson

And oh, I know that they are not really around anymore, but that's just another nail in the coffin of the short's thesis against Fairfax. Hello guys, do you hear us? :P

Gosh, I tought I would be the first to post it ;) Another bad chapter is over! By the way, regarding this SEC conclusion, talk about not being too soon...

Ahaha nice chart Omagh! :D Human psychology and investing in the stock market 101. Cheers!

Whats going on with the stock? This is starting to get ridiculous cheap. Well, I don't know why it's going down, but anyway my brain, my will and my wallet clearly know what to do ;-)

Neither me Crip, but anyway it's good news. Cheers!

I'll not talk about if Berkshire should pay a dividend or not, but you ask a good question. Well, if he consider it to be a good measurement stick enough to write it in the Owner's Manual, I 'm sure he believes that it is useful to use it. And if not, it would be silly to do that and Buffett is VERY FAR from being silly. It would be like to write yourself a norm that say "If I don't run 100 meters in 11 seconds, I'll have to stop eating hamburgers" and then, when you get 13 seconds, say "Well, that norm was bull**** and I'll keep eating hamburgers" It would be a relevant question to ask at the next AGM or for a student to do so in one of the Buffett meeting.

Experience is learning from your mistakes. Yes! There is people who make a lot of mistakes, but don't realize they made some or don't remember them. So, I guess that some people have more experience after 5 years of investing than some have after 20 years of investing. But I would add this. Experience is: - be able to be candid enough with yourself and be able to realize that you were wrong (not the market, the managers, the economy, etc. but you). - identify as clearly as possible what went wrong with you (the mistake) - memorize it next time you buy or sell something and... - learn from mistakes of others too! It's a very cheap way to gain experience ;) I'll call this "deep value experience gathering". Ah! :)

Well, I've been saying that since 4 years now... I hope that you're right! My family would be happy ;D

That's small change ;-)

I like this kind of mental exercice. Thank you for posting it. I'll begin to plunge and answer your question very partially (I may be wrong) I have one chance out of three to win each time I play (1 chance to win, 1 chance to breakeven, 1 chance to lose). The odds that I will win every 5 games (5.0.0) are 0,4%, quite small. If I have to bet 100$ for each tournament and the person who get (5,0,0) win a 30000$ sum from the house, the odds are slightly in my favor and the house will goes bankrupt over time. I'll check this out for answering your question fully. Cheers!

Ahah good analogy Crip.

Interesting analysis of bubbles and why Wall Street model doesn't work to prevent and avoid them, and will very likely not in the future neither. Thanks to David for the link. Cheers! http://www.businessinsider.com/2008/12/why-wall-street-always-blows-it

Here are the results. - 54 voters (none have sent me email to vote for less than zero). - Highest votes for a given range: 16-20% - Mean: 17,3% Thank you for voting! Cheers!

BAM is an interesting diversified conglomerate. It's jockey is doing a very decent job. But it has one anchor : it's size. It's not as large as Berkshire, but it's significant. If I would like to own a conglomerate in this "big size" category, what would I prefer to own over the long term? Berkshire or Brookfield? To me, the choice is easy to make. Just my opinion.

Good question Viking. There is risk and there is the pricing of risk. Two years ago, market was underpricing risk. Now, market is overpricing risk. Maybe not in all cases, but in the case of munis backed by Berkshire, they did get a juicy return at a low fundamental risk. I mean, it's even safer than if they bought Berkshire bonds directly because they are not the first payers. Who would have tought that you would get this for an approximately 9% before tax yield equivalent? In the case of several canadian companies investments, that's a very different story. In the case of most of their largest US equities, these are mostly fundamentaly strong companies at intrinsicaly cheap prices. Can all of these investments go lower in value over a short to medium of time? Absolutely. Still, are most of these investments are fundamentaly a good deal? Ultimately time will be the final judge, but I'm optimistic that 5 to 10 years from now, we'll take a look at what Fairfax has done since the fall of 2008 and conclude that it was brillant. But......only time will tell.

Interesting comments from Prem. Thank you very much Omagh.

Happy birthday Sanjeev and thanks for the good work.

how come there is no negative? Oopss. I tought that I had only 5 options available. :-[ But if someone think that it would be less than zero, please email me to "post" your vote and I will keep your name confidential. I will adjust the final results with these votes. Cheers!

Please don't try to be overconservative, just the most likely range of return that you truly think. Also, keep in mind that this poll is anonymous. The results will be shown in 5 days. Cheers!

I have a suggestion. Why not try to offer the board members the opportunity to donate voluntarely until we cover the costs (hosting, URL, etc.) of operating this site? I think Wikipedia use that way to finance itself. We could post a barometer with the goal (500$) and the funds raised to date. Just a suggestion.

I wish I had invented this humoristic tool, but I think I first saw it used in an investor presentation (a Sanjeev one?). Anyway, that's a good idea to use it if you want to lunch a new reinsurance analyst service. It's worth as much as predicting the short term stock price of a given stock. Oh wait, maybe I'm overestimating the power of stock price predictions here so it would actually give you a hedge ;) Cheers!

Ahaha Crip same for me with what's happened with the Canadiens this season.

Well, guys, at this point the best thing to do would be to put a popcorn bag in the microwave, open a beer and watch The Weather Channel. ;) And to entertain us between the tv ads, I have found this terrific tool that some of us have already seen to help us forecast what will happen with ORH stock this year :o http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8NP85xJ2nMc/SOMX0-Kr1AI/AAAAAAAABLs/Bt4u0umLSn8/s320/weather+forecasting+stone.bmp Cheers!