gfp

He couldn't have bought the shares in the market without publicly changing his rules, which would push the market price above his self imposed cap almost immediately. It took about 10 minutes to get above the "Buffett put" price today, presumably while people used their calculators... - also, the 'long-time shareholder' / presumed friend could have easily liquidated their shares in the market at the same tax rate (even if it required converting to B's to get the necessary liquidity to do it in time)

What makes you think he doesn't want to buy back a lot of stock at these levels? He just changed his recently-made rules in order to do so. Most likely! And a nice public advertisement to any other large blocks of stock who now know they can lock in a 15% rate on a lifetime's worth of appreciation at 13x,000/share with a call to Omaha. I hope there are more in the next few weeks. this is a one off imo. in fact the media is going to roast buffett for doing this to help a friend avoid paying higher taxes. he doesn't want to buy back a lot of stock at these levels. this is a token amount.

Most likely! And a nice public advertisement to any other large blocks of stock who now know they can lock in a 15% rate on a lifetime's worth of appreciation at 13x,000/share with a call to Omaha. I hope there are more in the next few weeks.

It is only .5% - but the much bigger news is the 120% of book buyback threshold going forward indefinitely. This puts the new de-facto floor on the stock at around today's price. From ~82 to ~89.28 on the "floor".

Could be Sandy but it's just speculation at this point. Sandy is still alive, right? I guess he could still have an 'estate' though. Buffett has alluded many times to folks he knows who should be on the Forbes 400 list from BRK stock holdings but are unknown to Forbes and like to keep it that way! There are probably quite a few secret billionaires in his club..

New Buyback number conservatively calculated is 89.285 on the B's. Likely close to 90 real-time, depending on your estimate of BRK Sandy losses and their effect on BV. GEICO will get hit pretty hard with the #1 market share in those states (15.9% vs Allstate at 14.9%) - but most cat reinsurers are coming out pretty unscathed by Sandy.

trading halt code T2: "Halt - News Released The news has begun the dissemination process through a Regulation FD compliant method(s)."

gio - I understand your points. I was primarily commenting on his writing, which I think comes off much worse to people who speak English as their first language. Despite his definition of entrepreneur, it looks like the only business he started was an ISP that had absolutely nothing to do with Biglari Holdings. I don't count investment partnerships as entrepreneurship, but some may disagree. I don't think he is a bad investor. I was happy when he filed on PMIC some time back.

please god let this man into a writing class, a dale carnegie course, humility training, something... Even Buffett uses Carol Loomis and he's an excellent writer naturally. If this guy is going to write letters for a living he has got to learn that he sounds like an idiot.

So can you quote language from that section that says the warrant strike price adjusts with ordinary dividends? I don't see it. Do you?

Speaking of Berkshire's BAC warrants - Many on this board and elsewhere have claimed that they contain similar strike price adjustments following a BAC dividend raise. I have not been able to find language in the purchase agreement that backs this up. My belief is that they do not adjust except for major dilution or for any share issuance much below 7.14. Just standard dilution adjustments. If anyone can prove they adjust from quarterly dividends like the TARP variety, I would love to know.

The warrants are valued based on Black-Scholes and reflected in "Other Investments," along with the preferred shares. When the original deals were made, the warrants were valued under Black-Scholes and the remainder of the deal value was applied as the cost basis on the preferred. You can see this treatment when GS paid their preferred back. BRK's cost basis on the Pref. was not $5 Billion - it was quite a bit lower because "free" warrants don't exist in accounting. They have value and the total cost basis has to be divided between the two securities. xo 1 - Even when a warrant is out of the money, it can still have significant value. Out of the money doesn't equal zero value.

This article explains it a bit more - it is apparently similar to an embedded value risk transfer, similar to a securitization of a life portfolio http://www.artemis.bm/blog/2012/11/30/buffetts-berkshire-hathaway-bets-on-future-values-of-life-insurance/ which is this: "Embedded value securitizations, in which insurers transfer all the risk from a block of business to investors, are returning after a hiatus during the financial crisis. The main benefit of these transactions is that "you're effectively releasing equity capital" http://www.insurancenetworking.com/news/securitization-standard-poors-reserves-30529-1.html

He may have been referring to the guy who co-managed Grinnell College's endowment with him for years, Joseph Rosenfield. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Rosenfield

ERIC, when Buffett talks about selling securities, he is referring to his work as a stock broker, not liquidating stock ownership positions.

As a person who does similar things, please share them! Here are a few but one blog tends to lead to another and there are thousands out there- http://tomtarrant.com/ http://shaunsre.blogspot.com/ http://www.biggerpockets.com/dashboard (forums) http://www.123flip.com/blog http://buildbankroll.com/ This is some kind of listing of a bunch of them - http://www.reiclub.com/realestateblog/contest-best-real-estate-investing-blog/ Ragnar - check out this little gem we looked at this morning. My friend got this place for back taxes and narrowly averted a city demolition. This is a warehouse from the 1800's that will be turned into commercial up front with 8 residential units behind. The front collapsed into the street in the middle of negotiations to purchase! http://tinyurl.com/bguhte8 http://tinyurl.com/bbpww86

Ragnar has some RE stuff on his blog, although it doesn't focus on passive investments outside of Sitestar. TWO harbors is planning to spin out a residential real estate subsidiary soon which could be interesting, depending on price. I've also owned America First Tax Exempt Investors (ATAX) for a while in income portfolios and it has been decent for a passive investment (it's an LP though). My wife is a full time real estate investor focusing on complete renovations of blighted properties in New Orleans, so most of the blogs I follow focus on renovation/construction.

Lowest p/b on that graph was September of LAST year - also the exact moment Warren announced the share buy back.

Get yourself a generator to run the refrigerator and a couple lights. Still got time to get one from Amazon or in person at a big box store...

I am also a fan of the Brother duplex monochrome laser models for home office use. I've had great results from mine. Automatic duplex printing is a great feature for large reports and saves a lot of paper. The only downside is not being able to use the backsides of old printouts as scratch paper, but occasional one sided printing will keep up your scratch paper supply... I have the HL-5370DW, but I don't think that is a current model. There are several newer options with many reviews on Amazon and NewEgg. If you use Apple products in the home as well, look for one with AirPrint compatibility. On my printer, I just plug it in to the wireless router so that it is available for any device on the network (except iPad because it is pre-AirPrint).

Sure seems like these guys are going to bid a lot higher than Warren & Ted. (for the servicing business) Coming up pretty soon now - http://www.nationalmortgagenews.com/dailybriefing/Auction-of-ResCap-may-take-five-days-1032394-1.html

Weschler / Berkshire still buying DVA - over 10% - http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/315090/000118143112052344/xslF345X03/rrd357100.xml

For 10-Ks / Annual Reports, go to the best Business Schools in your area and ask at the BSchool library if they have microfiche of historical Annual Reports. Many business school libraries have a decent collection so keep trying until you find what you need. They might have Value Line archives as well, doesn't hurt to ask.

Michael Smith of MFC Industrial (MIL) ended up with some of the scraps of Bre-X (and the tax assets, I believe). He just did an interesting deal for Compton Petroleum this month. http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y01/dec01/21e9.htm

Maria did finally shut up for long enough that it was an excellent Dalio talk. Thanks for posting this - I only wish politicians watched this stuff.