gfp

His US fund has a $5m minimum for new investors. Maybe some of the big guys or offshore investors could slide in. I think the "newsletter" product, KEDM, is primarily special situations, event-driven, arbitrage type ideas. It is a monitor of all the potentially compelling current event driven situations. I haven't seen many of these in his actual fund but he does allude to the event driven book in his letters. I don't know what the idea is behind KEDM, but if it helps pay the salaries of a team of researchers that are also working for the fund then there is something helpful there.

Mongolia Growth Group is still publicly traded - https://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/quickchart/quickchart.asp?symb=CA%3AYAK&insttype=Stock&freq=2&show=&time=20

Yeah, Prem blew up an Africa fund as well and we love him so whatcha gonna do but get back on that horse and try again

End of year Praetorian investor letter for those interested 2023 Q4 Letter - Final Approved.pdf

Well said Saluki. And incidentally, the best part of those panhandle planning meetings is that, not only are they all videotaped and archived online, but they actually make and publish a computer-generated transcript of the meeting - and the whole of all of the transcripts is searchable by text phrase! So you can search for anytime someone says something that a computer might think sounds like St. Joe or Topgolf or Watersound or whatever and instantly be taken to all of the video clips where the words were said. They really make it easy down there. Not like that goddam texas railroad commission website. I hate that thing...

Yeah, the low for the day was $945.15 on FRFHF - first thing in the morning. The above chart is just bad data.

I don't think that really happened. What is your data source?

There also seems to be an effect from the good earnings out of Travelers this morning https://s26.q4cdn.com/410417801/files/doc_financials/2023/q4/4Q23-Press-Release-FINAL.pdf https://s26.q4cdn.com/410417801/files/doc_financials/2023/q4/4Q23-Webcast-FINAL.pdf

I mean, those kind of shenanigans sound like they would make it easier to beat an index fund. But I guess you said "most people" and most people aren't going to beat the S&P regardless of the opportunities these type of shenanigans regularly create.

The same kind of volume spikes happened last January - I assume it has something to do with the timing of the dividend, the counterparties to the TRS and the calendar year.

The opening trade was 185,000 shares

Ha! Well maybe Avi's company is not great at customer service but Charlie sure was enjoying whatever they were telling him about the operation.

A happy guy in his happy place

I never met Charlie personally, but my impression was that he had a huge number of extremely high quality, stimulating friends, an absurdly active social life for a widower of his age (or really anybody of any age) and was in love with the independence his wealth gave him. He pursued many personal passions from the large catamaran to fishing to architecture. He loved projects like his multifamily apartment business with Avi and planting all those trees and pouring money into those apartment buildings to make them as nice as they could be as long term assets. (I kind of hope he gave that business to Avi in his will - we may never know). Charlie's family has said many times that it's not the "real" Charlie you see sitting up there next to Warren in the meetings, just the image he had cultivated for himself as the straight man sidekick. Maybe you think he was miserable because of his appearance or maybe you think he was miserable because interviewers tended to ask him about topics they knew he was likely to give them a classic Charlie curmudgeon zinger soundbite. Either way, I think you are wrong. edit: I should add, he was literally constantly laughing

My impression was that "corruption" was just the cover story for removing people who might be critical of Xi from important government bodies. But what do I know.

Berkshire put out a short press release also. We should be able to see the price paid in the Q1 filings when they come out. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240116124868/en/

No surprise, but the CEO of Sumitomo commented to Barron's on Berkshire continuing to buy all 5 trading houses - " ... At the time, Berkshire Hathaway said it may increase its holdings depending on price, but that Buffett had pledged that it would not purchase more than 9.9% of any of the five companies before seeking approval from the respective boards. That time may soon be coming, according to Masayuki Hyodo, the CEO of Sumitomo Corporation, one of the five general trading companies in which Berkshire has invested. Those investments represent its only public holdings in Japan. “Through the information I have, it is increasing—not only Sumitomo, but all five trading companies. His share is increasing every day,” Hyodo told Barron’s in an interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum late Monday. Barron’s has asked Berkshire Hathaway for comment. Berkshire sold 122 billion yen ($837 million) worth of yen-denominated bonds in November, an offering that sparked speculation that Buffett may be raising cash to increase investments in Japan." https://www.barrons.com/articles/warren-buffett-berkshire-hathaway-japan-sumitomo-davos-9d9310a3

When I was growing up, a wealthy older guy explained to me that is wasn't the ratcheting up to the bigger house, per se, that killed you - it was the fact that none of your furniture or stuff "worked" in the larger house. So it's not just the house. It's all new furniture, rugs, window treatments, art, design fees, on and on. You might love your couch in the 1500 sq. ft. place but as soon as you stick that thing in the living room of your new 4000 sq. foot house it just isn't scaled appropriately. On and on like that. One of the main reasons furniture sales plummet when mortgage rates keep everyone in their same house.

Charlie can answer for himself obviously, but he has shared the story many times of Marshall Johnson of McDaniel Lewis and Co. in Greensboro, NC putting many of his clients in the same great stocks. Seems that quite a few families in that region (if they were wise enough to hold the stocks) owe a lot of thanks to Mr. Johnson.

Well not me, I had my entire net worth in Southern Copper since 1996 so I'm one of the special ones. (jk)

Well it looks like Southern Copper to me.

Sorry, I was sloppy with my wording. Shareholders of record on Jan 18th, so you would have to own the stock by Jan 16 to receive the dividend. (with Jan 17th being the ex-div. date)

I would assume it is more related to the stock going ex-dividend on Thursday of next week than the results announcement over a month away. There are also usually some large share crosses around the turn of the year related to the total return swap counter-party but I haven't noticed anything.

update - https://numerco.com/NSet/aCNSet.html

Fairfax re-opened December's 10 year note offering and borrowed another $200m on slightly better terms, FWIW https://www.fairfax.ca/press-releases/fairfax-declares-annual-dividend-01-09-2024/ (no clue why this is the file name, but it is the correct link to the note offering announcement)