sdev

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-22/top-women-in-india-banking-proving-icici-s-factory-for-ceos-gender-neutral.html Not directly related to Fairfax but I thought the article and video was interesting.

fun read :)

Ditto, big fan of Gundlach.

Thanks for the link, great talk.

Am I the only one that noticed that the CFO is a fellow boardmember?

Wow, familiar names involved in that ;). Confused how owners subscribed for shares in january just over $1 and shares are almost $4 now.

Hesitated to post this, but think it's time well spent if you have an hour: http://www.talkpoint.com/viewer/starthere.asp?Pres=134567 It is the Jeff Gundlach's latest webcast to investors including slides. He does a great job at quantifying where we stand, mostly from a credit perspective. A lot of us talk about things like..stocks aren't cheap/high yield is too high etc. His presentation looks at exactly what is going on in the credit markets versus now, versus what was being done in 06-07. Very eye opening. In addition, I think his fixed income investment strategy is completely unique and not being replicated by others. Yields 8+%, holds half the portfolio in bonds that do well in deflationary scenarios and half the portfolio in bonds that would do well in an inflationary scenario (handpicked Prime and Alt-A MBS priced way way below par). He would always do a much better job than I do in explaining it, so watch the webcast!

I hope for our sake (shareholders) that they aren't forming relationships from visitors on the web. Who cares if the website is boring and simple...if somebody is serious about learning about Fairfax, all the pertinent information is there. How come those that are complaining about it aren't howling about BRK's website, or Leucadia?

He didn't appear to be very wise and seemed ignorant. Not protecting Buffett but Steinhardt just seemed like a waste of space.

:o Any lessons to learn from this?

Has anybody heard about Jamie Rosenwald and his firm?

I just read some of Francis Chou's old annual letters, and I'm sure that many of you already know this, but for those like me that did not before...it looks like Francis just missed the boat in his mutual fund on buying corporate CDS by a matter of months because of regulatory approval. Had he been legally able to act when he saw the opportunity (like Fairfax was able to), I bet a lot more people would be singing praises about him. Fun learning more about his history.

Anybody follow Jeff Gundlach and his story/bond fund? I apologize if I'm naive about it but I think his total return fund strategy is interesting and unique. He is long Ginnie Maes and non-agency backed MBS to position himself in what he says as protected from inflation and deflation. Said that if inflation hits, the beat up MBS will rise in value as the value of the debt is easier to pay off and if deflation hits, the govt backed bonds will protect principal. His fund yields about 8% from the blended cash flows of the MBS and Ginnies. No idea if this is a good/bad strategy, but I haven't heard of others positioning themselves like this. Any thoughts? His story is a fun read: "Firing the $70 Billion Dollar Man" http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/10/news/companies/TCW_Gundlach.fortune/index.htm

http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/equity-index/international-index/nikkei-225-dollar.html 8400

Let me guess, you're getting the chinese water torture treatment from atp oil and gas?

Wow, those old posts are incredible to read. Somehow I landed randomly on the page where Sanjeev did a simple valuation of their public holdings and demonstrated the market valuing FFH at less than (-500m). Can't imagine what that time must have been like!

Carrying cash ain't a bad hedge! It's cheap too! ;)

Taxable bonds (annualized return) 12.6% (5yr) 11.9% (10yr) 10.0% (15yr) :o :o :o Pros.

I have definitely not been around these guys for more than a fraction of the time that you have. However, I'm not that worried about it being "dead money" seeing as it's not trading for a multiple of book value right now. I might be optimistic about their continuous overseas expansion, but I dont think that it's a stretch that they continue to increase the book value at a reasonable rate over the long term. If the stock doesn't follow book value, eventually I'd assume they would start buying back stock. Does that logic seem flawed?

Crappy if you define long term as 1 year. In that year they have made some great acquisitions and over the long term, it will continue to do well.

BTW, I've lost 18lbs in the last two weeks --Eric You must be losing a lot of fluid? Are you bleeding? Fat has about 3,500 (working from memory) calories per pound. In 14 days, you haven't lost 18 lbs of fat. Wish more people would read about refined carbs.

I'm way more excited about the long term growth they are setting their core business up for via all the quiet international and domestic expansion.

Would love to own owner managers that did 15% till the end of time. I'd rather relax than work so hard churning and burning.