gfp

The history books are gonna have a field day with this stuff. "just as the AI rocketship was taking off an aging Mr. Buffett doubled down on Rat Poison and Caustic Soda. Much like his purchase of Acme brick and Justin cowboy boots at the height of the internet mania. AI would go on to change the world in enormous ways, incinerating trillions of capital in the process. Mr. Abel continued to sell them electricity..."

The average duration figures were also pulled down by the extremely short duration of the large KW construction loan portfolio. Very high yielding but very short in official duration

OXY getting sold as people are like, "Wait, what??" nobody takes advantage of that gentle old midwestern grandpa

I think I heard something like $800m pretax but it is highly cyclical. Q2 2025

Warren is ice cold! All cash. No preferred no nothing. https://berkshirehathaway.com/news/oct0225.pdf " An Occidental subsidiary will retain OxyChem’s legacy environmental liabilities, and Glenn Springs Holdings Inc. will continue to manage existing remedial projects for that subsidiary" Plus, it sounds like this is fully taxable and might only result in $8 Billion of after tax cash for OXY ... Ice Cold warren Here are the slides: https://www.oxy.com/siteassets/investors/earnings/divestment-update-slides.pdf

I agree with all that except that the OXY prefs don't have a fixed repayment / redemption in 2029 - that's just the earliest they can repay them (at 105% of par) if they want to. The only other way to partially cancel the preferred shares was that formula for excess dividends/repurchases over a trailing 4 quarter period but they aren't close to that now.

Whatever you say big guy!

You keep predicting higher rates like it's a done deal. It hasn't happened. Maybe invert and ask yourself "why?" instead of pretending rates have gone higher and are headed higher still

Despite OXY's stated goal of deleveraging the debt side, it still makes sense from their end to try to knock out Warren's preferred stock as part of the deal. It costs them far more than their debt does, and the interest on their debt is tax deductible. Part of the reason they are so focused on deleveraging is to be in a position to get back to shareholder returns that could force partial redemptions of Warren's expensive preferred. Otherwise they will just wait until 2029 and pay him off at 105% of par. Warren does have a capital gain on the preferred - there is no such thing as "free warrants" in accounting, so Berkshire's cost basis in the OXY preferred is not "100."

BNSF on the NS-UNP deal https://www.bnsf.com/bnsf-resources/news-media/customer-notifications/pdf/2025-09-29 BNSF Merger Position.pdf

It could be, but if I'm Buffett and Abel I want to pay with cash and keep my preferred shares (and the associated warrant duration) as long as possible.

How on earth would they exit OXY altogether? By selling stock in the open market? The only way out of OXY for BRK is to have the company sell itself to Chevron or someone like that. This sounds like a cash deal that would leave BRK's ownership level in OXY unchanged.

https://www.wsj.com/business/deals/berkshire-hathaway-occidental-petroleum-deal-80a78f2e?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=ASWzDAhtvvVuFF3Bgzj4DK7djfvl48_5T5MRYnkv5Pl0sRxOu5w_AucgofF4MZbjYmQ%3D&gaa_ts=68dc3864&gaa_sig=lRVkBlaG7BWj4MCQ-gUr42d2xueGNo1v2Mx0r31NYsMpURTR4_izReYBsy5pTNIAkUgb2FMr_fAxIX2ndMR3Ew%3D%3D

I don't think that article makes it sound like Jaffrey bought all of the Keg. They are using the word "stake" in their pun headline.

https://phys.org/news/2025-09-ancient-tally-civilizations-myths-money.html another study pointing out the early use of tally sticks independently invented in England, China and the Maya world

FWIW, Sprott Uranium (U.UN) had a "technical" breakout yesterday and has re-tested and bounced today. A good chart from a voodoo-technical-nonsense point of view. 26.65 CAD currently

Don't we all wish Warren had kept that TSM position. Would have been a home run. He was even bringing up the fault line under Taiwan as a risk!

From the looks of Interactive Brokers, ASST is "not shortable"

They've been steadily selling off the BYD at Berk Energy for years. They were down to $400m worth at year-end. We knew they were completely out as of March 31st on May 5th when they reported. CNBC just decided it became news over the weekend randomly.

It's just the Interactive Brokers "all accounts," "since inception", set to "annualized". 17 is the time weighted rate of return. Money weighted is higher because the last 5 years have been the best and there is a lot more money for the later periods. It includes all accounts I manage through IB, some using leverage, some IRAs or no leverage taxable accounts. It doesn't include around $7 million I manage at Fidelity for other people, which uses no leverage and has a shorter "since inception" period - since 2007. But IB is where most of the assets are. Doesn't include any real estate that we develop / own directly. I wouldn't even know how to calculate the return on that stuff but it's very high and very tax efficient. The IB since inception results include stocks, bonds, derivatives, long term positions and short term trading. Does not include any fees. I mostly manage the money that isn't mine for free but I charge a few of the wealthiest folks a few bps to keep the lights on.

Dana! Hope you are well. I wonder what his results were before fees. I feel like a lot of his underperformance is just the fact that all these guys charge so damn much. I've returned 17% for a quarter century but I don't charge 25% of the freaking profits...

obviously you missed the thorough coverage of Sydney Sweeney's birthday one-piece

You guys don't seem to get it. "money" is the national debt. The only thing the government accepts when you "loan" them money is their own IOUs. There is no big difference between a dollar in a your checking account, Berkshire's 3 month treasury bills, or a 30 year bond they had to find kind stranger creditors to buy. It's all government IOUs.

The only thing the treasury accepts in return for buying their bonds are government IOUs. Don't get too bogged down in imagining a big difference between your checking account and your savings account. It's all government IOUs whether you think you made a conscious decision to "lend" it to the government or not. Motgages can generally be prepaid when it is bad for the "investor." That makes them less attractive than bonds that protect the investor from pre-payments when you least want them.

Imagine how Warren Buffett feels! Poor guy