gfp

Another very cost effective way to get started is to use Interactive Brokers' advisor platform for separate accounts. You can start with a 'friends and family' account if you have fewer than 15 clients in most states, I believe. The advisor platform is the same as you grow. They can take fees for you under most any fee scheme you can come up with. And since it's IB - you can trade most equities worldwide. They don't have as easy a time with distressed bonds or very thinly traded OTC stuff though. Here's an article that describes IB's offering. (note: I do not agree with the title) http://leighdrogen.com/the-hedge-fund-structure-is-dead/

From this article, it sounds like Flood Insurance is privatized in Australia. And not widely held by homeowners due to its high cost. http://tinyurl.com/4s54dbv

Sounds like he is not a shareholder. How big is the private company in question?

Or maybe not... I could have guessed wrong in the above post. I really could have been just a one time Graham type cigar butt trade. (whatever produced this specific gain appears to have been sold by year end, indicating it probably wasn't Blue Chip)

Sanborn was earlier - early 60's. While Buffett didn't ever disclose the idea specifically, the timing would suggest that the simple industry idea was that Trading Stamp companies had insurance like float. The "time had come" probably refers to the settling of Blue Chip's lawsuits with the Department of Justice and competitor S&H Green stamps. This resulted in large blocks of Blue Chip stock being distributed to grocers, which Buffett and Munger accumulated. So my guess, based on the classification as a "General - private owner" in his letter, and the timing and magnitude is that he was referring to Blue Chip.

Much, much faster here in New Orleans

I just received an email from netflix two minutes ago stating that they are raising the prices. For my plan, 3 blu-ray discs at a time + unlimited streaming, the price is going from 20.99 / month to 23.99 / month. This is their response to the content negotiations. We'll see what the effect on membership churn is.. (the email also details a new 7.99 / month plan that only includes online streaming, no dvds) all prices are usd

Soybeans: http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=soybeans&months=300 Corn: http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=corn&months=300

Since he's closing down his fund, he'll be selling all the holdings. I don't think we can read in to these selling decisions at all. He has already liquidated over 90% of his fund, last I heard - and likely 100% by now.

http://futures.tradingcharts.com/hist_CN.html http://futures.tradingcharts.com/hist_SB.html

I'm no Ballmer fan - but hasn't the buyback been primarily the last 4 years - with trailing PE's of 20-12 and forward PEs and cash flow yields even better? Much of the buyback has been recent (and ongoing) at very attractive yields. It sure beats buying Yahoo, Facebook or something even worse.

I use interactive brokers. They are great, just be sure to do a currency transaction also or IB will charge you interest on a currency loan. With IB, you have to subscribe to the market data from the exchange you wish to trade on. It's a different price for each exchange.

I think he was referring to $5 in value to holders of GGP pre spin. Old GGP shareholders get .0983 shares of Hughes (spinco) per GGP share. This spin off caused all types of problems for me with Interactive Brokers. They don't issue partial shares and it messed up IB's entire trading system for me. Errors everywhere last week. So $38 * .0983 is less than 5 still.

The ipad actually has half the RAM as the iphone 4, making it's processor slower. New versions will have a better screen, more RAM, cheaper storage, etc... That is always going to be the case. Holding off on buying technology because the next version will be better and a better deal doesn't always work the best. I got the ipad 3G with 64GB of memory the day it came out, mostly because I'm an apple fanboy and get all of their products. But this thing has paid for itself many times over every month I've had it just by the increased access to corporate filings. On a small easel it can act as a dedicated screen next to your desktop, just for documents. Airplane trips are orders of magnitude more productive. The kindle is so much better for reading, but my wife stole mine and 99% of the time I'm not reading it in bright sunlight. Also, there should be competing tablet devices running both Android and Windows out now or very soon. They will all store and display pdf's well.

I've had several kindles hoping to use them to read SEC filings for years. The apple iPad has been the device that finally allows me to keep all of my annual reports (in full color), SEC filing pdfs, newsletters, etc.. all on one device. The application I use is "GoodReader" and with basic tech skills you can easily drag and drop your files over to the ipad on your home wireless network. You have to keep the screen clean or your finger smudges make small text hard to read. I travel now with many thousands of documents in a 1/4" device. It's awesome for a filing nerd. If you want the black and white kindle for the good eInk screen, get the large version, which should handle pdf formatting much better.

Thanks, no apology necessary! I'm just trying to learn about the investment. I believe both bonds have payed only cash interest as the PIK-toggle only comes into play in 2012. So he's payed tax on the interest earned, but would have a tax loss if he took the haircut, right? I agree with everyone that the utility assets are his ultimate downside protection, in that he would be thrilled to "rescue" this valuable company in a restructuring. Here's hoping he gets another chance at Constellation after they extricate themselves from the EDF nuclear mess and (hopefully) successfully exercise their coal plant put. They might be too healthy then to even want a deal at BRK prices... Thanks again.

ValueCarl, could you help me understand what you mean by: "paying tax on 70% of principal on the PIKs" means? Thanks

I hope he doesn't have to take the haircut, but it shows he still rocks rule #1 - he's received over $681 in income on his 1.975 Billion investment - and the haircut would put him at 70% of the 2.1 B face value, 1.47B. Not good, but not an absolute loss either.

Buffett bought them in 2007: $1.1 Billion of 10.25% bonds at 95 cents on the dollar, effective yield 11.2% $1 Billion of 10.5% PIK-toggle bonds (interest can be paid in cash or more bonds) at 93 cents, effective yield 11.8% At the time the bonds were hard to sell and they probably couldn't have done the deal without Buffett (Goldman didn't want the bonds itself)

Seems Mr. Greenberg caused a bit of a short squeeze for you there!

At first glance it looks like they added 58k shares since their last filing. They own ~29% and can only own up to 30% with the present standstill agreement, I believe. So they are limited in the additional purchases they can make if Berkowitz is unswayed by Einhorn's presentation.

Yes, currently a long term capital gain on a gold mining stock would be taxed at 15%, where GLD or bullion would be taxed as a collectible at 28%. All subject to change in the future, of course.

Yes, Krugerrands are taxed as collectibles at punitive rates in the United States. Many people sell under the minimum reporting amount (just changed under Obama I believe) or sell on eBay and neglect to report on their tax returns. Many coin dealers will not have the word "coin" in their name to facilitate this (example "The Camino Company" in burlingame, CA). Currency profits are also taxed in our country.

GLD and physical gold are taxed as collectibles at high rates. Why wouldn't somebody who wanted to short gold just short the highly liquid futures contracts on the nymex? There are even mini sized contracts at nymex and cme now if the contract size is too large for you. My advice - don't short gold. Work on company valuations where you have some edge (hopefully). There are much easier and safer ways to make money than identifying the biggest bull market of the decade and trying to short it. Just ask the owners of 10 year yield calls who thought they were making the trade of their lifetimes. Bull markets end in speculative frenzy. Prices usually become pretty stupid at the end when your cabbie is buying (houses/tech stocks/gold/bond funds)... Most people own zero gold, so the bull market has a long ways to go.

Hi, I'm pretty new on this board. On the topic Pabrai mentioned of a basket approach to Japanese companies, I have an investment in a wisdomtree small cap dividend weighted fund, ticker DFJ that some might wish to check out.