gfp

This article was pretty decent - https://www.reuters.com/technology/insurers-face-business-interruption-claims-after-global-tech-outage-2024-07-19/ Basically a typical commercial insurance policy's Business Interruption section probably doesn't cover this type of thing unless it was specifically added. And some cyber policies exclude non-malicious events. The article mentions travel insurance claims. Each affected business could sue Crowdstrike and/or Microsoft. Doesn't sound worth it. I'll bet in the long run this practice run prompts the industry to tighten up policy language and re-evaluate just how much damage a single vendor can cause with a single update. Could end up being a good thing for insurers.

Look at Warren! https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/70858/000095017024085022/xslF345X05/ownership.xml

Berkshire is very careful about not taking on very much cyber risk but they do write the policies. Just the other day there was a hiring announcement out of TransRe -https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/asia/news/reinsurance/transre-bolsters-cyber-division-with-key-promotions-497566.aspx BHSI also offers these coverages as do several other subsidiaries.

A company like Costco has untapped pricing power for something like their membership fee. They retain a large percentage of their membership base when they raise the fee and the fee represents most of their income. Hermes and Ferrari already monetize the rarity and re-sale premiums for something like a Birkin bag or a limited edition highly desirable Ferrari by requiring many purchases of less rare and desirable (but extremely high margin) products to even be considered for invitation to buy the products we see the re-sale premiums on.

Definitely seems to be a rotation out of the recent mega cap winners and into everything else. This is just how Berkshire's stock moves though. Flat for a long time and then it rips to the upside and then it's back to flat for a long time. My theory for years was that people sold covered calls against their BRK position and when those strikes start getting violated they buy the calls back in rather than pay the tax on getting their stock called.

What do you mean by "unsustainable" ? Do you simply mean, "might cause inflation or weakness in our currency" or do you mean actually unsustainable as in "this can't continue - the checks will start to bounce"? There are always consequences - but the word "unsustainable" is overused by people who don't define what they mean by it.

Don't hold your breath waiting for the bond vigilantes to set government interest rates in the United States.

I've seen all these analyses of the 'trump trade' effects like curve steepening, un-inverting, etc. I think the real beneficiaries of the surge in Trump's odds of winning has basically been the Gregmal portfolio - rich people stuff - trophy assets like sports teams, real estate, high end real estate, Florida.

Fairfax owns 49.99% of Cairo Mezz PLC, mostly in Eurolife FFH Life Insurance (46.9%). So... Around EUR 63.6 million at market price - just under $70m USD ? (edit: I agree this is obviously not marked to market on Fairfax's books)

Thanks! So even cheaper - great

Fairfax only bought 12.2 million shares at $20.5 in November 2028. Does anybody remember when, and at what price, they increased their position to 13 million shares or whatever it is currently?

Fairfax bought about a year after the IPO I believe. That might not reduce their CAGR though. This has been a good one for FFH. edit: looks like Stelco went public for $17/sh and Fairfax bought most of the position about a year later for $20.50/share

So Stelco is on the books under the equity method ("associates") and looks to be carried at $274.4m USD at the end of Q1. There will be slight adjustments but looks like about a $392m USD write-up pre-tax.

I lost track of all the Stelco dividends over the years - are you factoring those in?

The underlying bell south bonds are not callable by AT&T.

Seems like this trades at a large discount to the underlying bond because it is highly illiquid (is it correct that there is only $41m total outstanding?) and doesn't mature for over 70 years.

Cheers! And thanks for posting your best idea.

Why is the "yield to maturity" lower than the "current yield" if it trades at a discount to par value? Maybe we should just pick one of the several threads you have started on this bond and reply there instead of making a new thread and copying and pasting the text from your old thread?

I don't know. You tell me! What is your expectation? Separately - does that math look right on a fully diluted market cap today? Around $28 Billion fiat dollars? Or is the future so bright you don't even bother with such details?

What is today's fully diluted market cap of MSTR compared to the $13 Billion USD worth BTC they own? (I tried to figure it out on my own. Best I can come up with is fully diluted $28 Billion market cap for $13 Billion worth of BTC currently.)

Well I'm just impressed that Weston Hicks commented on his article. I assume it was the real Weston Hicks.

Best bet is for two Canadian financials to merge or someone gets bought out, creating an open spot. Fairfax could be pretty undeniably huge by the time they enter.

And honestly nobody cares about the Dow Jones Industrial Average anymore. How much money is even indexed to it?

The index - https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/indices/equity/sp-tsx-60-index/#overview

I'm just listening to this one now. Mosler isn't usually a great podcast guest but he sure is correct about fiscal reality. Wabuffo directed me to Mosler years ago as the best way to get my head around the macro plumbing of the actual financial system we have - not some hypothetical one that people wish we had or some flawed federal-government-as-household model. Warren has it right - the current Fed policy rate is inflationary on balance. Powell has it backwards for all of the reasons Mosler has been harping on for years. The CPI or PCE or whatever tends to gravitate towards the effective interest rate on government debt and Warren likens this to a stock dividend (not a cash dividend but a dividend of additional shares). When Mosler talks about how insanely regressive the stimulus of the current t-bill rates are - just picture Buffett at Berkshire as exhibit number 1.