gfp

There is a lot of that in this business. Ask Doo Diligence, it's just like music. Just because you are well studied and talented in music doesn't mean you can improvise in real time when it's your turn to wing it up there on stage.

I don't believe in being so rigorous and serious about our methods. The most important thing is to find a style / strategy that works for you personally. "I don't wanna" is a perfectly good reason not to do it another way that may be comparable in risk and the appropriate benchmark. If you find a style that works for you over time you will have plenty of resources to pay your bills and enjoy the process.

But if you had one you wouldn't give it away FOR F'ING FREE!

I think what you guys are missing in Boilermaker's case is that he's fully invested with the core position and the option premium strategy is incremental to his being fully invested - it utilizes margin and results in more than 100% long exposure. So you pocket put premiums in months you don't get assigned and then when you do get assigned, you are long the stock on margin, you immediately start selling covered calls against that new lot of shares, pocketing premium, eventually being called away and you are back to fully invested. Repeat, over and over again. It is important to do this type of thing only in a security you know very well so you can form useful opinions about the valuation you would be willing to go over 100% long. You could say, "but MIKE you didn't outperform just being 115% long Berkshire the whole time" but I don't think he wants to be 115% long Berkshire all the time. 100% long plus this premium income dance is enough.

One thing we know for sure is their email address

Sometimes I enter a 'good til cancelled' limit order in the market and I hear a voice in my head that is a mashup of boilermaker and rod blagojevich telling me I'm stupid for giving it away for free

https://www.gurufocus.com/news/39652/warren-buffett-again-sells-puts-on-burlington-northern-santa-fe-berkshire-hathaway-filing-reveals

Yep - it has been that way (reimbursing half his salary) for as long as I can remember. I heard they sometimes bring him lunch as well.

This article has some nice tables and graphics detailing the results from GEICO over the last few years - worth a read for Berkshire fans https://rationalwalk.com/berkshire-hathaways-2024-annual-report/

I do feel like corporate spreads are so tight (basically 2007 extremes) that spreads widen if someone sneezes loudly.

He disappeared! I'm sort of worried about him! Maybe he realized the national debt is just the private sector's total accumulated surplus?

I don't share your worry on inflation, primarily because I don't think the economy will be as strong as the assumptions in that report. I don't think tariffs are really inflationary in the sense that people assume. Anything that slows economic activity is ultimately disinflationary. If the government succeeds in lowering the deficit that will remove stimulus and be disinflationary. I agree that the debt ceiling is contributing to the bond rally.

No I don't think so (I believe Itochu was once a distributor for Nintendo in certain European countries)

A special thanks to the covered call boys for teeing up this morning's squeeze

Hard to imagine that Tim Cook pays "zilch"

Apple not wanting to be left out of the new trend of bragging on how much you remit in cash taxes to the US treasury - "Apple remains one of the largest U.S. taxpayers, having paid more than $75 billion in U.S. taxes over the past five years, including $19 billion in 2024 alone." https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/02/apple-will-spend-more-than-500-billion-usd-in-the-us-over-the-next-four-years/ Surely that is the #2 position - who's next?

BNSF 10K is here https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0000934612/000093461225000003/bni-20241231.htm BHE 10K is here https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0001081316/000108131625000004/bhe-20241231.htm

There have been several surveys - I think this was the most recent one ->

Sounds like Precision Castparts lost a factory to a fire a few days ago. This subsidiary makes fasteners for Boeing / Spirit AeroSystems. No injuries. https://www.yahoo.com/news/fire-reported-aircraft-fastener-makers-193005205.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAChWoLcxWzBZUce3tFH-bDsU0hZ5F2PCAKs36cvjfwq252Au7tCrDZZOOUdv40uuE4KNPG94D3h-kGIJGsFAVSuUg6q4t2jZ7_ijFcjnW3Rn9xrMpE7e76UA3qRUamIW87IHuS1eR6Zb1_hkLbkJlafJQwRbIw_8YSIF77vA7Fif https://www.rdworldonline.com/fire-at-sps-technologies-facility-highlights-safety-challenges-spurs-rd-questions/

I think Warren wanted Greg to be paid in cash for his BHE shares for the optics of paying his taxes and using his own after-tax funds to acquire Berkshire stock, over time, in the open market. Greg had the option to exchange his BHE shares for Berkshire stock in a tax deferred transaction (just like Sokol did - Sokol took BRK shares in his deal). I think the valuation of BHE in Greg's deal was "more generous" to compensate for the taxable cash deal that Warren preferred. If you look at BHE valuation datapoints over time, Greg's deal is an outlier. Obviously bad things happened at BHE before the deal with the Scott estate that partially explain the decrease in valuation.

" In January 2025, several wildfires broke out in Southern California resulting in thousands of destroyed or damaged structures. We preliminarily estimate our insurance group could incur pre-tax losses of approximately $1.3 billion from these wildfires "

Looks like consolidated cash and t-bills ended the year at $321.432 Billion. There is a year-end payable for treasury bills again.

He certainly seemed pleased with Todd's work at GEICO.

Just a shift to "risk off." You got Stevie Cohen reminding people that government spending is responsible for a decent portion of our economy, tariffs are a tax, immigration was helping the economy, brand new Coronavirus, and Uncle Warren probably not going to surprise with some super bullish letter on market valuations. Plus it's Friday and the US administration can pull some wild stuff in 48 hours. The long bond broke out of its downtrend Ask dealraker how his insurance brokerages and berkshire stock fared - probably wasn't too rough of a day!