gfp

Fairfax certainly has exposure to hurricane risk and profit but is much more diversified in their cat exposure. Berkshire this year is extremely unbalanced in their cat exposure with unusual concentration in Florida hurricane risk. Fingers crossed, there is still plenty of Hurricane season left. Quote from Peter Clarke on the most recent (august) conference call -

Doesn't look like they are taking a 14% margin on that to me. I would be wary of being charged sales tax if buying something like this from Costco. Where I live sales tax is 10%.

Certainly not ideal if you are a Canadian company patiently waiting for multiple government approvals in India.

here is the article without the FT or Fortune magazine paywall - https://finance.yahoo.com/news/american-express-ceo-called-warren-152037387.html

Another RBI central bank intervention to prop up the Rupee from breaking down against the dollar overnight. Lots of dollar strength in Asia.

But we need the Fed to fix Orange Juice, Olive oil, diesel and OPEC!

"the Insurer" put out a short interview and article on BHSI - a wonderful business that Berkshire started from nothing instead of acquiring. Imagine how much goodwill would be on the balance sheet it Berkshire were to buy an identical operation performing like BHSI today. https://www.theinsurertv.com/news-in-focus/godhwani-bhsi-benefits-from-berkshire-balance-sheet-and-long-term-view/?utm_source=listrak&utm_medium=email&utm_term=https%3a%2f%2fwww.theinsurertv.com%2fnews-in-focus%2fgodhwani-bhsi-benefits-from-berkshire-balance-sheet-and-long-term-view%2f&utm_campaign=Godhwani%3a+BHSI+benefits+from+Berkshire+balance+sheet+and+long-term+view

And currency hedged + funded by short yen bonds.. brilliant

Brown & Brown Investor Day yesterday - https://investor.bbinsurance.com/events/event-details/brown-brown-inc-2023-investor-day

For those that follow Kuppy's various inflection theses - we do appear to be getting the inflection / breakout / whatever in Uranium prices https://pracap.com/the-bigger-short/ https://numerco.com/NSet/aCNSet.html

Berkshire hit $800 Billion market cap today *rocketshipemoji*

Well I agree that QE and QT had almost zero effect on interest rates. The Fed‘s own studies showed the same - a few basis points, maybe, in theory. It’s not just the net interest (losses) paid by the Fed into the private sector that is stimulating. The much larger factor is the increase in the interest component of deficit spending into the private sector. Such a large portion of the debt is short term, as there is enormous demand for the most useful collateral in the world - US Treasury Bills. Fed hikes increase deficit spending, stimulating the private sector, but only the folks that are flush. Uncle Warren might have skipped the PPP for optics but he’s the real beneficiary of the current policy. deficit spending is the ultimate stimulus. Much more potent than conventional monetary policy

What's amazing in that last chart is how little bank reserves the system "needed" until recently, when all of a sudden QE apparently pushed a ton of un-needed bank reserves into the system by swapping one interest bearing government liability for another. Now the Fed has this balance sheet where they own long dated paper in an inverted yield curve environment and they are increasing the stimulus into the economy by running the Fed at a loss (paying net interest into the economy). Just another example of the Fed having it totally backwards and stimulating while they say they are trying to tighten...

Well I don't think the fact that it isn't particularly strong vs. the USD is what is keeping it from becoming the "new reserve currency" or whatever. It is sort of amusing how it was all the rage to label China "currency manipulators" and talk about how unfair it was. But here we are with the Chinese government, through directives to the major Chinese commercial banks to re-lend and recirculate dollars, manipulating the currency daily to try to keep it stronger. Markets are not convinced. USD-CNY and USD-JPY has been a very tight correlation lately. A lot of dollar funding in Asia comes through Japan or by transforming Japanese collateral into USD-denominated monetary instruments, derivatives, etc... Indian Rupee will be taken along for the ride. *I'm sorry, Bharat, old habits die hard

Well I purposely didn't post this on the Fairfax India thread but of course the topic of discussion went straight to Fairfax India. Apart from being way too illiquid for most large investors to get involved with a meaningful investment in FIH.U, I think the currency dynamics are a big part of why investors would reduce the size of their exposure. If the INR chart were a stock chart people would be chomping at the bit to short the shit out of INR for the breakdown. The intervention line on USD-INR is even more obvious than the CNY dynamic, where the Chinese just keep fixing the midpoint of their target WAY higher than CNY is trading. Recently the market has just over-ruled the Chinese gov.'s wishes and taken CNY down to 2008 levels.

Thanks for the color on Citizens. Nothing like waiting 3 months to hear back when your roof is already partially gone. I guess USAA won't write the wind coverage for you? We have USAA coverage for all of our properties, wind, named storms, etc - everything but Flood which is FEMA. USAA has been wonderful when you need to file a claim. The mutual membership model makes the whole experience much less adversarial. Hell, a former tenant once sued us for a sprained wrist on a slip-and-fall during a rainstorm (documented on security camera footage) and USAA actually lowered our premium because they said they didn't know we had cameras before. I never served in the Military, but I've had USAA coverage since I was 15 because my Father had been in the Air Force. Not sure we could have purchased our home in New Orleans right after Katrina (when people were scared, prices were very low, and insurance was hard to come by) if it wasn't for USAA.

With the Chinese currency breaking down to new lows at 7.317 to the USD (despite continued intervention by Chinese commercial banks at the behest of the government) - there is no way the INR will be able to hold the ridiculous line in the sand that Indian authorities have defended all year. CNY, JPY and INR are all being taken town by demand for USD in Asia. Looks like INR has some room to weaken after breaking this manipulated "floor" at 83 1- year USD-Rupee 2- year USD-Rupee

One of my favorite deals they did years ago with Florida Citizens was get paid an insurance-like premium up-front - not to insure a claims risk directly - but to commit ahead of time to buy some newly issued municipal bonds from Citizens in the future if losses exceeded a certain threshold. No mega-cat, collect your premiums and book the profit. Huge mega-cat, buy a few hundred million dollars of muni bonds. Nice work if you can get it.

Thanks for the post Cigarbutt. It certainly is interesting to see a big headline where Berkshire writes $1 Billion of cat reinsurance to Citizens and then read the details to see that they didn't participate in the Coastal account at all. PLA layer is further inland, non-coastal areas of the state.

I just got off the phone with an old friend who recently moved from Cook County, IL to Naples, FL. She mentioned offhand that she immediately got $400 more in each paycheck (I assume every two weeks, didn't ask) when she became a Florida resident. She promptly pre-spent it on financed durable goods but that's the American way...

FWIW, Berkshire Hathaway Energy still owns 98.6 million BYD (hk:1211) shares with a current value of $3 Billion USD.

$3.3 Billion cash deal for Cove Point closed today. Greg Abel continuing to put his mark on the company. This is what they used the proceeds from the partial BYD share sale for. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230901350178/en/Berkshire-Hathaway-Energy-Completes-Acquisition-of-Additional-Stake-in-Cove-Point-LNG

I assume you are referencing Sidney Weinberg. I'm not sure of what the best books are on this period or his influence but I'm sure if you google his name you can find a bunch of articles about him and several histories of Goldman Sachs. One of the best monetary histories of the United States is this one, but it's probably not the book you are looking for in your question: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691003548/?coliid=I255V4DNCMU3UD&colid=1UBQAXGQNN2BF&psc=1&ref_=list_c_wl_lv_ov_lig_dp_it

It's probably where Sardar got the idea