gfp

They just corrected it. I copied and pasted the above from their site. I looked up another company and the balance sheet was all wonky. The problem with many of these type of sites is unclean data. That's why people use bloomberg, and I assume now Capital IQ, the data is pretty clean either through human editing or a much better computerized data gathering system. edit - I wonder how the data is at this outfit: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/18/business/dealbook/start-up-taking-aim-at-bloomberg-terminals-hires-former-bloomberg-head.html?_r=1 https://www.money.net

Rocketfinancial loses a lot of credibility when the first thing I type in is Berkshire Hathaway (one of the largest large cap stocks in the world) and it lists market cap as: Market cap: $328761 B

JPM_Equity_Conference_FINAL.pdf

One thing I enjoyed in Charlie's extra comments following the Daily Journal meeting was his description of reading barron's for 50 years and getting one investment idea from it. Asked for details he mentions that he made $80 million dollars on the idea - a tiny auto parts company - whoever owned the monroe shocks brand at the time [Tenneco, TEN]. He bought the 11 3/8% junk bonds at 35% of par and they were called at 107 or thereabouts. And he bought the stock at $1 and it went to $40 (he sold at $15 in about 2 years time). Asked by the crowd what the article in Barron's said, he replied "that it was a cheap stock". He then slips in that he gave that $80 million dollars to Li Liu who turned it into "4 or 5 hundred million dollars"... Also in this clip, he reminisces about the opportunity that used to exist "for 60 years" in "jewish treasury bonds" - event arbitrage / merger arbitrage. He said for 60 years he, warren, graham-newman and goldman sachs would make 20% per annum in event arbitrage, primarily because there was a lot less capital / competition in the space, and because stock brokers worked on commission and would call their clients up to suggest selling the stock after the 'pop'. Dumb selling as Charlie called it - selling at 95 on a cash $100 deal, etc...

". Looking at the numbers for a relatively long time, it has not done better that the general market levels. " One point I would disagree with is that Berkshire has had growth in operating earnings that far exceed the averages and the economy in general. Berkshire will sell stocks if they are needed to fund a large acquisition of an operating company. So far, the model is working at this size and Berkshire has continued to find large acquisitions to maintain their growth in operating earning power. If they go a few years without a 30 billion plus deal, people will start questioning if the company is too mature to continue the model. If investors' perception changes and becomes more negative on Berkshire, Berkshire will buy huge amounts of stock back at 1.2x book value and below. One way or another - the current model looks to continue to deliver above-average growth in per-share earning power.

Definitely sounds like they are done adding shares of the Airlines. They don't want to go over 10% and have share repurchases to factor in.

This thread has some of them - I'm sure you can find more if you keep looking. A good academic business school library might have a bunch if you are near a good university. http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/looking-up-old-annual-reports/msg219259/#msg219259 Look around that thread and you will find 1955 - 1985 plus a few others.

"Why 44 cents? He doesn't spell it out here, but that works out to just over $300 million in annual dividend proceeds. The preferred stock Berkshire now owns pays a chunky 6% annual dividend that also works out to $300 million a year. The preferreds have little downside, so long as Bank of America stays solvent, but they have no upside either. Mr. Buffett is saying he'd rather enjoy the upside on the common stock, about as clear a buy signal as you'll get from the famed stockpicker." I guess you are copying and pasting someone's article on the matter? Obviously Warren has been participating in the upside of the common since his "buy signal" at $7.xx / share when he made the deal. The reason he would convert early is due to the increased investment income he would receive. The last sentence above is strange.

One thing I noticed is that all of the Dow Chemical common stock had been sold as of 12/31/2016. Seems like he actually had shorted against that conversion or at least arranged one hell of a large, quick block trade. BRK got 72.6 million DOW shares in December and held zero at the end of the month

He mentioned in a recent interview that he did not want to expound on what had changed in his mind to make him bullish on Airlines. The implication in his tone was that he was still buying shares and had no interest in adding to a 'Buffett Premium' halo-effect around airline stock prices. As Charlie has confirmed, it is a lot like the Freight Rail business - over time, through consolidation, a "rationalization" occurs when you get an oligopoly. A bad business can turn OK when it consolidates into a rational oligopoly. Warren may still be buying airline equity - and it may ultimately turn out like the Freight Rail basket, with Berkshire owning 100% of one the the major US airlines and selling the rest of the basket to satisfy merger conditions / help pay for the acquisition. Less likely than the BNSF deal, but not all that crazy.

He has finally moved his cash to Treasury bills. There is finally some yield there - http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/quickchart/quickchart.asp?symb=IRX&insttype=&freq=2&show=&time=12

Marlin, I know you are quite knowledgeable about Buffett and his family. But you are wrong on this one. Warren and Susie even made comments to the Wall St. Journal in connection with the listing. They owned more than 1 property in the neighborhood. http://www.villarealestate.com/listing/lg16746519-27-emerald-bay-laguna-beach-ca-92651/ https://www.wsj.com/articles/warren-buffett-lists-longtime-laguna-beach-home-for-11-million-1487344530?tesla=y

We don't know Schloss's net worth at it's high, but I don't think he was close to Charlie. Charlie had billions of dollars - plural - Schloss had millions of dollars. Maybe several hundred million, but nothing close to Charlie to my knowledge. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/0211/048.html

They owned two properties adjacent to each other. The one sold previously is the neighboring property. I'm confused - is this fake news? I just found this article that states the home was sold in 2005 for 5.45 mil http://la.curbed.com/2011/10/10/10435130/laguna-beach-buyers-selling-warren-buffett-house-at-a-loss

Yeah, they (Warren & Charlie) will both contradict themselves in different contexts to different audiences from time to time. The context at the meeting was him discussing if he was 'securely wealthy' with only three large block investments (one dominates the others obviously). He was answering the question for himself - "yes, you are damn right I am securely wealthy with three." Somebody else, with a different skill set and a different three investments would likely not be "safe" with that level of concentration. I do it with Berkshire all the time, though. Berkshire is uniquely well suited to becoming a large stable core of a portfolio. It is easy to value and unlikely to decline by more than 50% or so. It tends not to be sold to preserve the tax deferral, so the positions get large over time. What do you mean by "Also Schloss was highly diversified and seems to have created even more wealth"? Yes he was very diversified, as was Graham-Newman, but created more wealth than who? Charlie's approach? Warren's approach? Or are you just saying Schloss created more even more wealth than Schloss had earlier

Financial Times has a nice behind the scenes article on what just happened with Unilever - (free to read for non-subscribers through CNBC) http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/22/the-143bn-flop-how-warren-buffett-and-3g-lost-unilever.html

Interesting - Insurance Insider has the competing offer at $1.30, rather than $1.21. ------------ Suncorp challenges Fairfax for Tower Laura Board Suncorp subsidiary Vero has made a competing bid of NZ$1.30 ($0.93) a share for 100 percent of New Zealand insurer Tower, less than two weeks after Tower accepted a NZ$1.17 offer from Fairfax Financial. Tower said in a press release earlier today that Suncorp had initially sought to buy up to 19.99 percent of the New Zealand carrier, with a view to escalate that to 100 percent of the shares. "Tower and its advisers are considering the Suncorp proposal, and working through obligations with respect to the Scheme Implementation Agreement with Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited," said Tower. It promised a market update on material developments "as they occur" and advised shareholders in the meantime to take no action "without carefully assessing all available information and seeking their own professional advice". Fairfax made its acquisition offer on 9 February, announcing that it had been unanimously supported by the Tower board and that it had the backing of Salt Funds Management and ACC, which collectively own 18.1 percent of Tower's stock. Shareholders were expected to vote on the Fairfax proposal in April, with completion envisaged at the end of June. The approach followed Tower's announcement in November that it would spin off claims at its Canterbury unit into a company dubbed RunOff Co. Chairman Michael Stiassny has said Tower would revive its spin-off plan if the Fairfax proposal collapses. Tower offers car, house, contents, business, travel and other personal insurance lines in New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. It is listed in New Zealand - where it is the number three insurer - and in Australia. It made a loss of NZ$21.5mn in the year ended 30 September, in part because of provisions for Canterbury earthquake claims. Tower stock closed up 16.7 percent at NZ$1.33 in New Zealand and rose 17.5 percent to A$1.24 in Sydney today.

The Economist's blog has a nice graphic display of 3G's companies and their profit margins over time, vs. peers, etc.. http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/02/daily-chart-17

Well here's a thread I can get behind on a market holiday. We have an 11 year old Flat Coated Retriever, black color, very pretty. Her name is Cheech. We had a male German Shepherd mix, Ollie, who lived to over 15 years old but passed away last year. Not sure his precise age as he was given to us without that information. Had a nice long life. Also adopted a blond haired caucasian Mexican boy (human) at 15 years old recently, he turns 17 in March. It's been interesting to say the least. In general I will give this advice - don't adopt a teenager!

Well that's one way to win in mayonnaise... Definitely a role for Berkshire to play in a deal this size - and if the structure results in Berkshire going below the threshold for Equity Method accounting of KHC it would bump Berkshire's reported book value and buyback threshold's by a bit. Will be interesting to watch

Obviously that point of view exists in the United States, but I do believe - and correct me if I am wrong - that Scott Hall is 'in character'... Why are so many American's utterly incapable of grasping the 1st Amendment?

Here's an article that discusses some of Clayton's recent acquisitions - they've basically hit a wall in terms of manufactured home market share so have been diversifying into site-built communities... Hope it goes well for them - http://www.builderonline.com/builder-100/strategy/why-sell-to-clayton_o And another on Homeservices' growing title insurance business http://westfaironline.com/85707/homeservices-of-america-adds-houlihan-lawrences-title-agency/

Bloomberg has a piece on Berkshire's recent airline buys this morning - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-06/berkshire-s-airline-bet-said-to-stem-from-faith-in-parker-s-call

GSE's would be a good guess

We pretty much know that it is in fact a basket of 4 airline stocks - DAL, AAL, UAL and LUV. More WFC isn't possible yet. More PSX would have been disclosed a few days after each trade.