Thrifty3000

Just watched it! Such a good documentary. Thanks for suggesting. I should preface that I’m one of the MOST gullible people I’ve ever met, BUT I’m SO EFFING convinced this stuff is legit! I think the alien case is a lot like the COVID lab-origin case. There is so much undisputed, consistent, and highly credible evidence from such a wide array of sources out there (including photo and video evidence in the case of UFOs), that the burden of proof has been shifted from proving it right to proving it wrong! Luckily we have decades (and maybe centuries) of evidence that these visitors are friendly observers rather than threats. Humans are merely creatures wandering around the “Earth zoo”. FWIW I’m basing my entire thesis on about 10 hours of super-entertaining documentaries and Joe Rogan podcasts! Haha.

Hahaha! 9.6kbaud modem. I’m having flashbacks to my Napster days.

Looks like this one was also made by the James Fox fella I mentioned above. Will check it out. Here’s the trailer for his new documentary about the Brazil incident…

If you really want to go down the hole with this stuff I recommend these two conversations. Joe Rogan interview with Bob Lazar: The one with Bob Lazar is interesting because he made claims over 30 years ago that couldn’t be proven or verified at the time. And over the years more and more of his claims have been validated. For example he claimed having access to technology that used Element 115, which wasn’t even on the periodic table back then, and couldn’t be proven to exist until recently with the construction of large hadron colliders. Joe Rogan interview with James Fox: The one with James Fox is interesting because he recounts multiple examples of the most credible events - events where there are a variety of mutual witnesses and significant evidence. He recently made a documentary about what he thinks is probably the most significant event to date. It happened in Brazil in the 90s and was witnessed by civilians of all ages, police, doctors, military, politicians etc.

Maaaan, don’t you know you can create a gravity distortion engine by converting element 115 to dark matter, concentrating the resulting antigravity field in the direction you want to travel, and move friction-free through space?! Haha. I learned that from a Joe Rogan podcast with Bob Lazar.

Wow! Duh, I don't know where my head is today. Thanks for clarifying! So, it's really just a simple calculation of expected growth vs. the TRS interest expense. I trust Hamblin Watsa to handle that one. It will still be an interesting signal whenever they decide to exit the TRS, but that's true of any share related transaction. (I added a correction to my post.)

Seems to me we're getting closer to the point where it makes sense to cash in the TRS gains and focus on buying back the $1 billion Odyssey position from OMERS. Not sure if we ever nailed down the interest rate FFH is paying OMERS for that deal, but it sounded like an $80 or $90 million annual interest expense. Given FFH's expected earnings power it sounds to me like a risk-weighted break even point might be in the neighborhood of $800 to $1,000 USD per FFH share. (Of course this depends on the TRS interest rate and, more importantly, on how FFH sees its growth prospects. The more growth expected the higher they'll let the TRS run.) In fact, I think the point at which they cash out the TRS will be a pretty strong signal for how FFH sees its growth prospects. If they were to cash out the TRS now I'd think it's a signal they expect normal earnings to remain flat beyond the 3 year horizon. However, if the shares run up to $1,000 USD and they still hold the TRS then that seems like pretty strong conviction favoring growth. ^ PS. "cash in the TRS gains" is the wrong terminology. I should have said "exit the TRS position". TRS gains have already been booked.

To Prem’s credit he did repeatedly lay out their thesis for their caution and short positions (see every Hoisington quarterly letter ever written for a technical explanation of Prem’s thesis). He also qualifies EVERY decision with a statement along the lines of “this bet may or may not work, but we expect it to work.” He knows every capital allocation decision is nothing more than a bet where he expects the odds to be in his favor. That’s capital allocation for you. Any investor had every right to disagree with Prem. However, I don’t recall much public dispute with Prem’s logic given the extreme debt to gdp ratios globally, and the deflationary experiences of post-great-depression USA and post-early-90s-Japan. Prem just happened to pick a fight with maybe the most extreme financial experiment in the history of human civilization - a global central bank ZIRP bandwagon! (See every Grant’s Interest Rate Observer during that period.) Prem has a billion dollar brain and a multi-decade track record. His net worth will be higher a decade from now than it is today. He’s wired for that. A snowball, if you will. He ain’t dumb.

+1

^ the people have spoken

Assuming they sell treasuries yielding 4% to pay for this I estimate it will add around $4 of after tax EPS for FFH shares. Not bad.

I’m all for giving zoom a try. Will be fun. Thanks

93% in favor and climbing! @Parsad feel free to change your vote. Haha

86% in favor so far. Pretty one sided.

If I didn’t already own shares I’d be a buyer at the current price. I started buying with conviction in 2020 when the price was $250 and I estimated normal earnings would be in the $30 to $35 per share range (based, wrongly, on historical earnings). That’s not all that different from the setup today where shares are $730 and normal earnings are likely $100+ per share.

Alright let's see how many extroverted fanboys (fanpersons) and introverted haters we have. Complete the poll above to find out!

On second thought. Don’t tell him. I’m probably not a net buyer of FFH going forward. But, I’d love to increase my ownership. So, I want FFH buying back as much as possible while this sucker’s cheap!

^ I like Morningstar’s historical price to fair value chart. I assume Brett will take notice as FFH’s price climbs even further into the “overvalued” band. He might appreciate an email from someone bullet pointing other analyst’s FV estimates, and summarizing the key reasons for the re-rating. - Maybe a direct quote of Prem’s statements on expected per share operating earnings - Recent premium volume growth - Recent share repurchase trend Dude just needs a wake-up call. Morningstar analysts can’t invest in the stocks they cover. No skin in the game.

My cost basis is $400 USD, which is around $540 CAD.

- Fair - Friendly - Honest - Continuously Improving

Nvidia’s $940 billion market cap stands at 64 times gross profits over the 12 months through April. At the peak of the dot-com bubble, shares of tech darling Cisco crested at a mere 53 times trailing gross profit. - Almost Daily Grant’s

^ inflation trend. We won’t experience the full effects of the Fed rate hikes and tightening for 6 to 18 months.

Prem mentioned recently that a recession could present the next big opportunity to increase earnings power by allowing them to buy high quality corporate bonds yielding over 5%. I think any opportunity like that to significantly level up EPS would be a strong catalyst to boost the share price back above book value.

^ inflation trend. We won’t even be feeling the full effects of the Fed’s rate hikes and tightening for another 6 to 18 months.

For what it's worth, when I modeled FFH's normalized earnings potential back in 2020 I had it pegged between $28 and $35 per share, so I've been guilty of being a smidge conservative in the past as well.