redwood

He just said in fairx conference call that sears worth $95/share and sears Canada worth $7.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1963971-penn-west-petroleums-ceo-presents-at-cibc-whistler-institutional-investor-conference-transcript?part=single

one more thing to be careful about is partial rollover. " You cannot isolate your after-tax IRA money and convert it tax-free while keeping your pre-tax IRA money in the Traditional IRA. When a partial conversion is done, a pro-rated amount of after-tax money (or basis) is included with each dollar converted. For example, if you have IRAs worth $40,000 and $20,000 of that money is after-tax, when you convert $20,000 of the Traditional IRAs 50% ($10,000) will be tax-free and 50% ($10,000) will go towards your taxable income. "

In q4 conference call the ceo said We also increased capital levels while providing shareholders with a higher return on their investment by increasing our dividend and repurchasing 86 million shares of common stock. However in the q4 earning news release it is showing the number of shares in fact increased during the year. Average common shares outstanding Year ended Dec. 31 (2011 and 2010) 5,278.1 5,226.8 Diluted average common shares outstanding 5,323.4 5,263.1 I am confused.

You are right....from 10Q At June 30, 2009, Alleghany had a concentration of market risk in its available-for-sale equity securities portfolio of common stock of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation (“Burlington Northern”), a railroad holding company, amounting to $73.5 million. During the first six months of 2009, Alleghany sold approximately 2.0 million shares of Burlington Northern common stock, resulting in a pre-tax gain of $113.1 million. During the first six months of 2008, Alleghany sold approximately 1.0 million shares of Burlington Northern common stock, resulting in a pre-tax gain of $78.1 million.

Alleghany (Y) has 36% of their investment in BNI (from 2008 annual report). I am wondering why they are not going up much today?

how about MO or PM? They have very high yield.

more reading for this bank.... http://www.bankdirector.com/issues/articles.pl?article_id=11589

10 CASH 27 WFC 17 KO 7 FFH 6 BRKB 2 EV 2 USB 1 MKL 1 USG 1 LUK 1 JNJ 7 FAIRX 10 VFINX 3 NBGNX 2 VPACX 1 VEURX 1 VGHCX 1 FCNTX

>>p.b in the range of 2 is probably more justified especially with the ever growing annual dividend. I thought they don't pay a regular dividend, just a "special" dividend for prem to make a living.

KO WFC FFH BRKB MKL FAIRX VFINX GLD 2 years of income in cash.