berkshiremystery

How Sad Will SAC Capital's Redemption Song Get? Bloomberg/Business Week June 3, 2013 http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-06-03/how-sad-will-sac-capitals-redemption-song-get

Hedge Funds Wagering on Fannie Reincarnation: Mortgages http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-04-08/hedge-funds-wagering-on-fannie-reincarnation-mortgages

Paulson leads hedge funds lobbying to privatize Fannie Mae http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20130502/BUSINESS05/305020039/Paulson-leads-hedge-funds-lobbying-privatize-Fannie-Mae Paulson & Co. is among funds that met with members of the Senate Banking Committee and with staff members in the House of Representatives, said two of the people briefed on the matter. Claren Road Asset Management LLC and Perry Capital LLC also have lobbied, said those people and a third person. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the meetings weren’t public. The funds’ proposal is similar to one being circulated by James Millstein, the former Treasury official who oversaw the restructuring of bailed-out insurer American International Group. Millstein’s multiple-step blueprint calls for recapitalizing the two mortgage companies, eliminating their implicit government backing and selling off the Treasury stake. He would also create a new U.S. agency to reinsure loans. Millstein said his plan could leave taxpayers with $100 billion to $190 billion in profit.

Fairholme makes $500 mln bet on Fannie, Freddie preferred Fund manager Bruce Berkowitz's Fairholme Capital Management is making a big bet on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac preferred shares http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/05/29/usa-fannie-freddie-idINL2N0EA1JY20130529 ------ Bruce Berkowitz Of Fairholme Takes A $500 Million Stake In Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac http://www.gurufocus.com/news/220216/bruce-berkowitz-of-fairholme-takes-a-500-million-stake-in-fannie-mae-and-freddie-mac Berkowitz wrote the following to CNBC with respect to his newly revealed positions: "Taxpayer dollars expended by the government during a time of national crisis will be fully repaid, and equitable treatment of taxpaying shareholders, including community banks and insurance companies, must be restored. "The government's ability to fully recoup its investment and restoring value to shareholders are not mutually exclusive. This is the American way. "The time to restructure Fannie and Freddie is upon us, sustaining our nation's economic recovery requires it. On behalf of the hundreds of thousands of Fairholme shareholders who helped to rebuild American International Group,Bank of America, CIT Group, General Growth Properties, MBIA Inc., and others after the Great Recession – we stand ready to do our part."

Fannie Mae’s 2,000% Year, Briefly http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2013/05/29/fannie-maes-2000-year-briefly/?mod=yahoo_hs On Wednesday, mutual fund investor Bruce Berkowitz of Fairholme Capital Management told CNBC he had invested $500 million in the preferred shares. Volume in the shares exceeded 230 million shares, the highest in three years and nearly six times the average daily trading. A representative of the Fairholme Funds’ shareholder services confirmed that the firm bought roughly $500 million in preferred equity of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac FMCC -38.70%. He declined to elaborate further.

Some new lecture video from Guy Spier @ The Manual of Ideas He talks about Google, Amazon, Ferrari, Verisign and chocolates http://s24.postimg.org/wwkqdle9x/image.jpg

Incidentally, welcome back Lotsofcoke! For those of you who don't know, it was Lotsofcoke who took me to my first Yellow BRK'ers party back in 2001, where I ended up meeting Buffett. The rest is history and this board pretty much exists because of that. Cheers! OMG! :o :o First the John Lennon watching the wheel song at ScionCapital,... and now Lotsofcoke. ... something is happening in Area 51 ;D The boards long lost Phoenix has risen from the ashes! ;D ;D ;D Welcome back Lotsofcoke,... ;D Some long lost remote satellite over the northern hemisphere has reponded again. I personally can be very grateful to him through the tumultuous years of 2002/2003,... I guess without him this board wouldn't be like it is today. Lotsofcoke was like a satellite light-house guiding the board members through the mist with deep knowledge. I was always wondering in the last years if he might sit somewhere undercover in the Royal Thomson Hall. 8) Welcome back!

For fund administrators in the Caymans, I would recommend Maples. Very easy to work with. One choice might be OCRA, but I guess they are a big incorporator. I have forgotten when I heard about them the first time,... maybe some ad in the IHT or FT. http://www.ocra.com/ http://www.ocra.com/jurisdictions/index.asp http://www.ocra.com/jurisdictions/caymanislands.asp ----- Some research about hedge fund administration firms, but honesty,... I personally have no clue or knowledge about who is good or bad. You might rather clone Mohnish's or Allan Mecham's service providers. http://www.hfalert.com/ranking.php?rid=194 http://www.risk.net/hedge-funds-review/feature/2246288/citco-fund-services-tops-hedge-fund-administration-rankings https://www.evestment.com/resources/blog/blog/2013/04/02/twelfth-hedge-fund-administrator-survey-continued-industry-consolidation-shifts-rankings http://www.viteos.com/documents/evestmentHFN_AdministratorSurvey_2Q2012.pdf http://www.globalcustodian.com/pressrelease/pressrelease_article.aspx?id=57952

Congratulations to your 7th anniversary of the funds and your marvelous returns beating the market. The next 7 years will probably outshine the first years, if slowly a wider crowd discovers the funds. You might even miss your startup years then.

He is definitely a person to keep an eye on his net worth. Long term it will grow even more. I only feel he sold his Paypal stake too early

They are not only good for retail investors. It seems that Vadim Perelman, with his Baker Street Capital hedge fund is some big institutional client. Source: http://pgcnz.blogspot.de/2012/01/baker-street-capital-v-kerr-stupid-is.html

;D ;D ;D LOL,... And your 1 share trade did almost double the market cap,... now around $28.97M

It's easier to watch... http://holdings.nasdaq.com/asp/OwnerPortfolio.asp?FormType=OwnerPortfolio&CIK=0001568820&HolderName=ARLINGTON+VALUE+CAPITAL%2C+LLC NEW positions: LUK SOLD positions: FFH SD

You made my day... LOL +1. ;D

The coming political battle over Bitcoin http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/15/the-coming-political-battle-over-bitcoin/ On Tuesday, Dwolla announced that it had frozen Mt. Gox’s account at the request of federal investigators. It’s the first federal action against the currency. CNet has confirmed that the asset seizure was initiated by Homeland Security Investigations, a division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Among other things, that agency has the power to enforce laws against money laundering and drug smuggling. ----- The Feds Are Cracking Down On Mt. Gox (Not On Bitcoin) http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/05/15/the-feds-are-cracking-down-on-mt-gox-not-on-bitcoin/

This seems to me some odd little baby puppy acquisition :o $15.5M market cap 63 employees Hartville Group, Inc. http://www.hartvillegroup.com/ Hartville Group, Inc. (HVLL) @ Yahoo! Finance http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=HVLL http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/advchart/frames/frames.asp?symb=Hvll&insttype=&time=&freq= Hartville Group, Inc. (HVLL) @ EDGAR database http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001126960&owner=include&count=40&hidefilings=0 There are no SEC filings available since early 2009, because they filed some termination of registration request with the SEC. (Approximate number of holders of record as of the certification or notice date: 163) http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1126960/000095015208010804/l34985ae15v12g.htm http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1126960/000095015208010804/l34985ae15v12g.htm ---- EDIT: Seems some really unnoticed odd cigar butt,... there is almost no liquidity in the share trading. Last year they traded as low as 5 cents on Dec. 12th, 2012, with only 400 shares changing hands. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=HVLL&d=4&e=16&f=2013&g=d&a=6&b=16&c=2003&z=66&y=66

I already thought that I have some Safari or iOS advertising bug on my iPad,... LOL. But now everything works perfectly again on my iPad. Use it almost 99% of the time to access this site. I also just donated $50 CAD to help support this site. Some unbelievable bargain for such a place. I only hope some fellow board members also find the same courage as me to press the Paypal donations button near the top of this page at -->> "Home, Help, Search, Donations, Profile, My Messages, Logout". I probably think any little amount will be nicely appreciated. Cheers!

Imo, one of the best compendium of value investing wisdom out there. :) Cheers! giofranchi Probably the main reason is, that Tilson lacked integrity while investing in Fairfax. At first, he behaved like a kitchen cockroach jumping on the tail end of the short and distort campaign, and some time later after realizing how wrong he was, he changed his mind going long. Have you ever seen some bipolar Buffett.

Good thread. Lets count the systematic ways it's easy to lose in the market. 1) Buy high, sell low. 2) Trade frequently. Now someone else's turn. :) --> you can't underperform the market over the long run --> Because all information is known to all. But want all investors to know everything ? Have all investors seeked all available knowledge ? The knowledgeable investor An investor surely can't lose long term against the market, with the following conditions: a) someone purchases stocks with some deep margin of safety,... and b) someone stays away from the crowd, a lurking Mr. Market, The Blind Watchmaker An investor will surely lose long term against the market, with the following conditions: a) someone purchases stocks randomly without knowledge of Graham & Dodd,... and b) someone stays in the mindless mass crowd of investors, a drunk Mr. Market

Personally I never care much about the market sentiment, if you invest with some considerable margin of safety, strong balance sheet, extreme low P/BV, etc. I'm currently looking at my old Dec. 31, 2008 statement. With a heavily concentrated portofolio, 97% in equities, only 3% cash, I personally finished my account in this harmful year in the black, while all the major indexes had crashed. So on a relative basis, I was for myself, some accidental black swan and did stare with disbelief at my numbers. As a private investor, I was way, way ahead of 99% of all institutional investors (Dec. 31, 2008: DJIA. -33.84%, S&P -38.49%, NASDAQ -40.54%). Also currently, I own prudently selected companies with some significant margin of safety. If they would crash all together, I would be very, very happy, because they could repurchase shares cheaply.

Oh,... you mean Uccmal. This didn't went unnoticed by me,... but he was at this pre-pre-dinner event and that was for me quite informative with some rare stock idea. So in a sense he didn't miss everything. He probably only wanted to keep his head much clearer as he said, so he missed something but not everything. ;)

Nope, unfortunately nothing exists anymore from the old predecessor board. http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/old-msn-berkshire-hathaway-shareholder's-board-archive/

Here are two letters written by Buffett on Walter Schloss from 1976 and 1994. Thanks to John Huber for uploading them. Cheers! http://basehitinvesting.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Buffett-Letters-on-Walter-Schloss.pdf Source: http://basehitinvesting.com/warren-buffett-letter-on-walter-schloss/

The ratio is not perfect, as explain below. But it was good enough for Warren Buffett in 2001, who wrote: The ratio has certain limitations in telling you what you need to know. Still, it is probably the best single measure of where valuations stand at any given moment. Source: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2001/12/10/314691/index.htm ---- Buffett was using the measure to explain how he saw the Dot.com bubble developing the late 1990s. The question is can we use the stock market to GNP ratio to spot new bubbles in advance? Note on GNP versus GDP: Buffett compares the stock market to GNP. Most analysts use Gross Domestic Product (GDP) instead. In theory this should matter a lot. GDP is defined according to location, being the goods and services produced by a country. GNP is defined by ownership, as I’ve explained above. In practice though the two numbers are very close for the US, and the US is the only country where this ratio seems to be regularly computed. So like others, I use GNP and GDP interchangeably. Someone should just imagine how weird would it be to accurately measure the stock market valuation (Market cap vs GNP or GNP), if our planet earth just joins the StarWars galactic universe of a zillion inhabitants. The galactic capital planet Coruscant alone would have a 1 trillion citizens, and our planet earth in the outer rim has become some diminished Roman Empire, and only have maybe some 0.00000001% of something of a market. Would someone instantly value Coca Cola by 200 trillion dollars immediately, only "maybe" every stormtrooper "might someday" slurp a Coke. Oh,... just kidding,... so don't take me too serious. ;D I personally only stick to my circle of competence to measure a market, while other investors might have other measurements that I can't understand. Of course, I only refer to the general market. Some individual stocks are still certainly or relatively compared to others cheap. But I know myself that this discussion already leads to too much senseless noise. ::) Kraven is right ;)

Market Cap vs GDP The Infinite Compounding Fallacy --- <snip>.... Over the last 30 years, the total stock market capitalization has grown at approximately 9% per year, while GDP has grown at approximately 5% per year. When these assumptions are extended out to 2025, the infinite compounding fallacy becomes quite clear. in order to maintain the historical rates of appreciation that are used in almost every financial planning model, the stock market will need to be $17.4 Trillion dollars larger than US Gross Domestic Product by the year 2025. .... This disconnect raises an interesting question. How much longer can the stock market continue to grow faster than the economy? </snip> Source: http://businessoflifellc.com/the-business-of-life/the-infinite-compounding-fallacy/ ------ Somehow personally I think this gap over the last 30 years was caused by the tailwind of interest rate declines, but for sure this can't last forever. ------ http://businessoflifellc.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/MKT-to-GDP-Ratio.png http://businessoflifellc.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/MKT-CAP-vs-GDP.png http://businessoflifellc.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Regress-to-Historical.png