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Bloomberg has an article highlighting the 3G principals' latest troubles - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-09/americanas-crash-casts-harsh-light-on-jorge-lemann?srnd=premium https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/americanas-billionaire-shareholders-say-they-were-unaware-accounting-problems-2023-01-23/ Lojas Americanas had off balance sheet supply chain financing that was apparently hidden by previous executives. (almost $4 Billion dollars worth)

For Insurance, I subscribed to these years ago and while I don't pay anything anymore or have access to all of the articles, they still continue to send me quite a bit of content for free. If something seems particularly interesting and is behind a paywall I can usually read about it through a company press release or another media source describing the same event. https://www.insuranceinsider.com https://www.theinsurer.com https://www.es-insurer.com/ I think Ted Weschler and Warren both read furniture industry publications. I do not, but those guys have businesses in this field. https://www.homefurnishingshalloffame.com/trade-publications Warren has mentioned being a long time reader of Banking industry trade publications like this one: https://www.americanbanker.com/magazine and their general website https://www.americanbanker.com/ There are many Oil and Gas industry publications. I don't know which ones Warren and/or Greg Abel read, but I wouldn't be surprised if they read some on this list. https://blog.feedspot.com/oil_and_gas_magazines/ As an individual investor I don't think it is going to be super helpful to try to force a bunch of super specific industry chatter into your head just because the guys at Berkshire do it. They have businesses in these fields and have read these publications for decades, so a quick skim when something comes in the mail is enough. There is also a lot of value in having a network of friends and colleagues that send you articles they think you will find value in. It used to be clippings in the mail, today it is probably web links or PDFs most of the time. If Greg Abel or Bill Gates or Charlie sends Warren an article I'm sure he will at least skim it.

Berkshire can't keep additional OXY purchases a secret. The last time Berkshire added to OXY was 9/28 - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000089924322032210/xslF345X03/doc4.xml I think UK is spot on with the TSM guess and I would expect that position to be larger than most expect when the 13F comes out. I would have guessed some Celanese shares but I'm not sure that is a Buffett choice and they can't really add much to that position without it hitting 10% so that one is probably done. Personally I hope he cools it with the Apple share purchases but Warren is always full of surprises.

Oh man, 5v crimp with exposed fasteners? I thought for sure this was a standing seam quality property lol...

That's good you are staying humble. There is so much absolutism that I hear from Cryptocurrency owners that it makes me wince. It's all so obvious to them. There are so many ways people can end up losing big on these digital assets. Governments are just one possibility.

Don't forget to entertain the possibility that you don't get it.

Looks great! Which community/neighborhood is this in? This is a new build available for immediate delivery and not a resale?

Who wants some $2.5 US natural gas? Surprised this hasn't been discussed on the board

As far as unique management incentives go, I haven't seen something quite like this before: https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0001555074/000155507423000004/aamc-20221230.htm "the Company issued 1,000 shares of Series N Preferred Stock (the “Series N Preferred Stock”) to Jason Kopcak, Chief Executive Officer of the Company, and 1,000 shares of Series O Preferred Stock (the “Series O Preferred Stock”) to Stephen R. Krallman, Chief Financial Officer of the Company. Both issuances were valued at $10.00 per share. Holders of the Company’s preferred stock have the right to a preferred stock dividend when and if declared by the Board. The Board intends that Mr. Kopcak’s preferred stock dividend will include one share of common stock for every three shares of common stock the Company repurchases during the prior quarter." (AAMC)

Well I know one old fella in Omaha who seemed to notice and hold his nose and buy.

cogitator8! What's up

Thanks Spek - I used the same screener but hadn't tried 2021. One company that jumped out at me (that I had never heard of before) was Navient (NAVI). Looks like a huge reduction in shares outstanding over 10+ years. Is anyone familiar with Navient? Are they similar to NelNet? I've followed Nelnet since learning about them from Adam Peterson at Magnolia Capital / Boston Omaha. Would imagine next month's Supreme Court decision on Biden's 16m student loans will move NelNet one way or the other. Anyone follow Navient? https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/NAVI/navient/shares-outstanding

For 5 years and basic shares outstanding the only new company to show up near the top of the screener was Ted Weschler's pick RH - the old Restoration Hardware. Seems like AGO should show up on that list. Bad data I guess. Kind of jumps out at you how popular these repurchases are with retailers. I guess the AutoZone example influenced a bunch of weaker companies to try it - several will be filing bankruptcy as a result. DDS is family controlled and the huge reduction in share count doesn't even capture the multiple special dividends they have issued. Got to love actual owner operators.

Yes, it seems like the TIKR screener is leaving out some companies that look like they should make the top of the list. Maybe there is some bad data or it is the fact that I screened for fully diluted share count and we are looking at shares outstanding for most of these companies. I'll try the screener using shares outstanding and see if it spits out different companies.

These results are from TIKR and for US and Canada only. I don't know how good their Canadian data is. Most of the results were US listed companies. LBTYK didn't make the 10 year list because they were still issuing new shares 2012-2016. Since that peak they have retired a lot of stock. I'm sure they placed somewhere near the top on the 5 year list (but not in the top few that I posted).

It's funny, for me today was the day the dividend actually cleared the accounts. If you were inclined to reinvest the dividend at least there was a dip. The "Viking" dip!

Thanks for posting that. It makes a lot of sense to me. My experience speaking with Indian friends about this is the sentiment from that article, "for Indian people, this isn't news."

I would also be interested in a discussion of how this may effect Fairfax India (because that is what I actually own). One the one hand, it seems like it would lower valuations for things like Adani's airports, which are often used as 'comps' for BIAL - this would certainly hurt the valuation Anchorage is awarded in any IPO. Also, Fairfax India is also using Mauritius for some part of their business structure that I don't pretend to understand - which was one of the criticisms of Adani entities if I understand correctly (likely I don't). On the other hand, it could help Fairfax India's chances in winning bids for assets that Adani group companies may have also been bidding for. And if government entities like the Life Insurance company are already very exposed to Adani controlled entities there is a value to diversifying some with Fairfax. There is also the possibility that even though everyone seemed to agree the stuff was highly overvalued and lots of people involved were crooks - the attention and results of the attention could mark a change in the cycle.

The Energy thread discussions of CVX made me curious to run some basic screens on current "cannibals" so I thought I would post some here to not clutter up the Energy thread further. I ran a screen for 5 year periods ending 2022 and ranked by CAGR of diluted avg. shares outstanding. I took out the not-real companies and data errors. For 5 year period you get: Ticker, CAGR diluted share count (per year avg.) DDS (9.71%) SYF (9.58%) CTRN (9.27%) HPQ (9.21%) ORCL (7.96%) BBBY (7.89%) ATKR (7.83%) SGU (7.73%) JACK (7.23%) JEF (7.17%) MCK (7.12%) HIBB (7.02%) TOL (6.99%) GME (6.9%) ALLY (6.89%) SLG (6.66%) AZO (6.53%) ZION (6.44%) WBBW (6.4%) BIG (6.22%) C (6.15%) --------------------------- For 10 year period you get: SGU (4.92%) WAFD (4.82%) MCK (4.76%) HFBL (4.75%) TRV (4.75%) GCO (4.73%) AAPL (4.72%) CTRN (4.7%) NICK (4.53%) KR (4.46%) URBN (4.43%) REX (4.2%) C (4.2%) QCOM (4.17%) UNP (4.15%) ... some Buffett Holdings: BK https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/BK/bank-of-new-york-mellon/shares-outstanding AXP https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AXP/american-express/shares-outstanding BAC https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/BAC/bank-of-america/shares-outstanding C https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/C/citigroup/shares-outstanding MCO https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MCO/moodys/shares-outstanding

Oh yeah I forgot Dillard's. Unfortunately you will also usually see bad outcomes on this list like BBBY and GME. Jack in the Box shows up over 10 year periods but recently stopped. Maybe they will start again with the large re-franchising effort.

Apple would be high (probably absolute highest) in terms of dollars spent repurchasing shares, but not in percentage reduction in outstanding shares. AZO has been at it for a long time at high annual percentages. DaVita for a shorter period of time but high annual percentages. You sort of have to define your terms, percentage reduction in shares outstanding over 10 years? 5 years? etc.. Curious what Spek's list spits out and what the parameters of the screen are. This site is free and fun to play around with. They will chart shares outstanding over time for a company if they have the data. The data isn't Bloomberg quality (Q4 figures are usually off since the 10K data is presented a bit different from the 10Qs, but it gets the gist with a slight delay). You can try other tickers and select "Shares Outstanding." https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AZO/autozone/shares-outstanding Ebay, HPQ, etc.. There are some companies that have ramped up the percentages recently (ALLY comes to mind) - but jury is definitely out on if they can continue at this pace sustainably.

All that is probably due to the botched opening on the NYSE yesterday. The NYSE and brokers have now busted those trades but it still showed up in WSJ's data when they went to press. Example chart of VZ:

It's always interesting seeing the various regional differences in tipping. I probably live in one of the highest % tipping cities in the world. New Orleans, LA, USA is a very service-dominated economy. We don't have a lot of "good" jobs here but service industry folks can make a good living (and pay their rent on time thankfully). It is very common here to tip almost everyone 20-25% on many categories of services. Nothing exceptional - that's the base rate. I tip the barber ~40% (15 on 35) but that is because he charges me less than everyone else for the haircut. People tip on takeout food from a real restaurant. Nobody tips anything at a truly "fast food" place like McDonalds, Wendy's or Popeye's. Bartenders are tipped at least a dollar a drink at a dive, sometimes much more if it is a tip at the end type situation. Since 2005 we also have a lot of cash only bars that just decided they would remain cash only after Hurricane Katrina gave them an excuse. You leave New Orleans and barely see cash anymore. European tourists that come to New Orleans are horrified and so are their servers.

Thanks for the data points. There is no doubt that Q4 and Q1 are going to be ugly quarters at GEICO. But BRK may do just fine despite that. Personally, I am eagerly awaiting the disclosure of how many Taiwan Semiconductor shares Berkshire owned at year end. (off topic)

Honestly for the short duration 3-6 months, I would just go here: https://www.treasurydirect.gov/auctions/announcements-data-results/