gfp

I'm looking for India, not FFH

Who's got the Fairfax India 2023 letter to upload? I can't seem to access it

I'm starting to feel sorry for the old guy. He reads all these newspapers every day - opens up the Journal: Apple fined $2 Billion, about to be sued for antitrust, Pacificorp wildfire verdicts, HomeServices, BHE sued for billions!, Haslam's screwing you! It's rough out there for the deep-pocketed.

The best I can tell about the Japanese investments is that Berkshire doesn't actually take the JPY they borrow from the bonds and use that to buy the Japanese stocks. They borrow the JPY at the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BHI, parent, holdco) level and receive JPY and probably immediately swap almost all of it into US treasury bills. They pay the interest in JPY. Then, separately, they buy shares of the 5 sogo shosha companies inside National Indemnity, an insurance subsidiary of BHI. They transfer National Indemnity's treasury bills and some USD cash to Wallachbeth Capital to settle up their trades.

It's kind of funny, @valueinvesting101, you got me checking into various depository / banking relationships for the BRK subsidiaries and Berkshire Hathaway Specialty (the newer, fast growing Excess and Surplus lines primary outfit) actually has a bank account at Paypal Holdings. Surprised me. Everyone has a venmo account I suppose

Re: ICICI Bank, that is literally only $1,500 USD worth of bank deposit cash sitting in the bank. I don't know where Berkshire "custodies" the Japanese shares but it is probably a division of Citi (or BNY). The shares are purchased using Berkshire's go-to large block trader, Wallachbeth Capital (which is who Warren uses for almost all large trades for the last several years). I have no idea which bank wires the JPY to Wallachbeth to settle up since the bank account balances are just shown in their US Dollar equivalents here. Maybe I could tell by looking at past filings right after a Yen bond sale was completed but I've never wondered myself. *edit: I looked around and none of the Berkshire insurance subsidiaries have a banking relationship with a Japanese bank. I don't know what they are delivering to Wallachbeth to settle up or from where. Might come from Wells but the main National Indemnity Wells Fargo bank account pays t-bill-like interest so there isn't any JPY in there. FWIW, as far as I can tell Ted Weschler tends to trade through this 'woman-owned' broker dealer - "Glen Eagle Wealth" https://gleneagleadv.com/institutional-markets

How many hits for FOMO (not counting this one)?

I assume the chart is translating back to US dollars but I didn't make it or know the data source. Chart source for me was https://www.kingswell.io

Like Deja Vu with IIFL securities getting in trouble last year. Glad FIH has sold some IIFL finance shares. We'll see if this one works out like the IIFL securities issues with a slap on the wrist.

Well Charlie also had this quote on Warren's investments in Japan, "It was like having God just opening a chest and just pouring money into it." I'm not even sure I can calculate the return on investment because the equity sliver was so small, the carry was so positive and the debt used to float the purchases and hedge the currency was so profitable. If we pencil in that we used insurance float for the tiny "equity" sliver then I guess this is as close to warren giving a master class on free money as we will get. h/t kingswell newsletter for the chart

I mean, it is a crypto thread on a value investing message board so not super surprising.

Like turning a battleship... I have other filings for them but there isn't a lot of undisclosed equity trading that will make headlines. Most of the selling we knew about from the first three quarters and SEC disclosures. Whatever "secret" buying is going on is being hidden in both Harney Investment Trust (National Indemnity) and Dewey Investment Trust (Columbia Insurance).

This happens to me all the time - often in securities that “officially” didn’t trade at all that day. I think there are so many places other than the stock exchange that match orders that these trades get matched - and appear to not count toward official volume. Also an odd lot bid above the current bid will usually not move the posted bid or show up as the best bid. I use this quirk a lot to get shares in difficult to buy stocks where I don’t want to move the bid and just get stepped in front of by a Penny again

Well finally somebody lays it out in a way I can understand it

Look at Spek with the Johnny Cash picture! Awesome. I never noticed that before. I don't even know how to make my G a photo LOL I like to try to say "cash" with a thick bruce berkowitz accent but its like Christopher Walken for me - a very hard accent to get right.

It's funny because Trump's main criticism of Powell (who he appointed of course) was essentially that he wasn't political enough. Trump wanted low rates, Powell wanted to maintain Fed independence. There is zero chance of the US going back to a gold-backed currency even if that is something that Donald Trump wanted, which I'm sure he doesn't. Elasticity is a (necessary) feature not a problem.

Is this book still available anywhere? I would like to gift one but I don’t want to give my only copy. Selfish, I know

If Sandy had never given any shares away or distributed trust shares to heirs, the Gottesmans would have over $6 Billion of Berkshire stock - over 10,000 A-shares. Over time they have been giving shares away but I'm not sure what the split is between heirs, foundations and what Ruth has left over.

This donation has been well covered in the media but I thought this morning's WSJ article about it was better than most at telling the story of Warren, Sandy and Ruth - https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/billion-donation-einstein-medicine-warren-buffett-ruth-gottesman-01b9ae91?mod=hp_lead_pos8&mod=wknd_pos1

I hesitate to mention this product, because I don't recommend it and I think the LAST place to get cute and inject risk is your t-bill position - but I did sort of find this fascinating and clever and *so far* it has been working. The idea is an ETF that earns the risk free short term rate (~5.2%) but doesn't generate taxable income like T-bills and if you hold the ETF for over a year an individual investor can turn "t-bill" type interest into a long term capital gain for tax purposes. Plus the tax can be deferred until you sell the ETF. BOXX has tracked BIL, the SPDR 1-3m t-bill ETF almost exactly. I should point out that if you held this for less than a year and lived in a state with an income tax (t-bill interest isn't subject to state tax) you would probably be worse off after taxes than the t-bill or t-bill etf. The fund mostly uses box spreads on the S&P500 index - cash settled, non-directional index option spreads, capturing the risk free rate imbedded in the trade (you could do this to synthetically borrow or lend, this fund is lending). But then, taking advantage of a loophole in ETF rules, they will also occasionally buy a box spread on Booking Holdings, a high price per share stock. They can then use a friendly trader (Wolverine Trading in Chicago) to "buy" just the profitable leg of the Booking Holdings options as an in-kind redemption of the ETF fund. And retain the losing leg of the Booking box spread to book the tax losses. Read the bloomberg article below for the specifics but it's clever and that's why I mention it. https://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/quickchart/quickchart.asp?symb=BOXX&insttype=&freq=1&show=&time=9 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-22/this-exchange-traded-fund-mimics-t-bill-returns-without-tax-bills

Who knows. Some CEOs are just better at turning in their homework in a timely fashion. The Boston Omaha boys send in their letter whenever they damn well feel like it.

It's been great - at $40-50 Billion market cap Progressive was one of those companies you could have held an auction on a desert island and made money. At $110 Billion I'm not so sure but these folks are very good at what they do.

@Viking if you are really a stickler for detail and this post is as of end of February, the Orla mining percentage ownership is low as well https://www.fairfax.ca/press-releases/fairfax-announces-acquisition-of-additional-orla-shares-3/

So to Dinar's and ValueArb's points above - Am I to understand that your argument is that fewer people working (because they don't have to and they are sitting on welfare) is contributing to lower wages for the low income workers we are discussing? Fewer low-skill laborers seeking work -> Lower wages? Is that what you two believe?

Last year it was published March 10th. (a Friday after the close)