gfp

I would expect Berkshire's cash to be close to $150 Billion at quarter end. I would also recommend factoring in a return to pre-Trump corporate tax rates and the associated increase in deferred tax liabilities/decrease in book value and intrinsic value. That said, Berkshire is as cheap as it has been in a very long time and the insurance business looks very very well positioned. disclosure, long BRK, short SPX

Off topic - blast from the past Harry Long! https://seekingalpha.com/author/harry-long#regular_articles Busy with algorithms for the last decade

Berkshire released a bit more commentary on this year's annual gift by Warren to the various foundations. Must be an election year https://berkshirehathaway.com/news/jul0820.pdf

Since Buffett gets a lot of flak for not doing much for Berkshire shareholders recently, I've been curious to track his most recent major material capital allocation decision, which is still the Apple investment. He also made the decision to reduce Wells Fargo, which not too long ago was Berkshire's largest equity position (if I am remembering correctly). Berkshire owns 250.867 million AAPL shares as far as we know (most recent disclosures), right now valued at a hair under $95 Billion. Wells Fargo has 4.1 Billion shares outstanding in total, valuing the entire company at $102 Billion today. Just for curiosity sake, I am interested to see if Berkshire's position in Apple does in fact cross above the value of the entire Wells Fargo market cap. Wells looks weak but is probably undervalued by quite a bit (Berkshire stopped selling when the price dropped. Berkshire's sales were not because of the 10% rule recently, he chose to reduce voluntarily). Apple is obviously at an all time high and the strength of the business seems fully appreciated these days. Incidentally, Berkshire's cost basis is $35.287 Billion for the 250,866,566 Apple shares they own. A gain of just under $60 Billion pretax before the growing dividends are counted.

According to this presentation from Dominion, BHE has committed to de-leveraging the acquired gas assets after purchase. Including not refinancing $1.2 Billion worth of maturities in the next 12 months (11-2020 and 6-2021). So I guess that would require a capital contribution from Berkshire and, depending on if Scott family and Abel chip in, an increased ownership interest in BHE for Berkshire parent co. So it could be $5.2 Billion -ish of cash that gets put to work here. Or deleveraging DEGH could just mean BHE borrows at a higher level outside of this entity. Who knows... https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/715957/000119312520187844/d939155dex992.htm presentation page 15 shows deleveraging commitments over the next 12 months

Looks like the market came around to this view - at least for the time being.

Berkshire Energy's press release is a good place to start. Sounds like a sensible price and a good fit for BRK Energy. Ought to be very accretive if they borrow most of their $4 Billion cash consideration. Doesn't really do anything to help reduce Berkshire's cash position. I doubt Berkshire even makes a capital contribution to BRK_energy for this. https://www.brkenergy.com/news/berkshire-hathaway-inc--energy-company-to-acquire-dominion-energy-gas-transmission-and-storage-business

This has been reported on for a while now, but The NY Times put out a good article detailing some of the fraud at PCP acquisition Wilhelm Shultz. Makes for an interesting read and sounds like a clear fraud that PCP will be ultimately unable to collect any money on, despite "winning" in arbitration - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/business/berkshire-hathaway-fraud-germany.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Business

Duh... The race riots and COVID-19 "pandemic" were both manufactured by the elite to distract the main stream media from covering their pedophilia and human trafficking. Its the great awakening and Trump is in on it and speaking in secret codes to the chosen few. I mean, you must have noticed the hidden messaging with George Floyd being held down for 8:46 when the first plane "hit" the world trade center at 8:46am right? C'mon sheeple! ;)

Why wouldn't warrant holders wait until near expiration in May 2021 to exercise warrants?

Yes indeed, well covered here and elsewhere. Also his net worth is not over $500 million. At his day-trading high he was claiming $118m or something like that. Not that it matters (to me - it obviously matters to him quite a bit).

Yikes, I guess you are right. Seemed like he was drinking in most of his videos, day or night. I loved the irony of the 'I should be up a Billion dollars today!' line on the day old man Buffett watched his largest equity position - a tech stock - go up by $10.53 per share, while owning 250,866,566 shares of that tech stock. Looks like there is a very real possibility that Berkshire's largest equity position will be worth more than the entire market cap of Wells Fargo at some point. But seriously, what have you done for me lately old man?

Seems like it is in jest. Is there reason to believe that particular guy is serious?

General comments on 6/1 reinsurance renewal pricing - https://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20200602/NEWS06/912334892/Reinsurance-rates-jump-as-COVID-19-adds-uncertainty-to-market#

Best of luck in the future - you will be missed! Thanks so much for your contributions

Berkshire director Meryl Witmer buying shares in the market - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000091957420003765/xslF345X03/ownership.xml ( ~ $2.2 million worth )

Speaking of Mercury - the elderly chairman and others have been buying shares almost daily in a pretty big way. Mercury is mostly auto, not much commercial multiple peril. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/own-disp?action=getissuer&CIK=0000064996 https://www.dataroma.com/m/stock.php?sym=MCY

Yeah at this point the utility scale solar+battery installations are going to have huge cost/scale benefits. It also greatly depends on how policies on net-metering evolve in the future. Many utilities have already tightened the terms on net metering. My local utility, Entergy New Orleans, gives us a ridiculously good arrangement - which doesn't seem good for them and I would be surprised if it lasts. We have over 14kW of solar on our roof - enough to power our entire house including central air conditioning. We do not have batteries. We are able to sell our excess power back into the grid at the retail price. This is such a bad deal for Entergy. Basically we have the worlds most efficient battery. For free. And our utility, which shouldn't be in the business of buying power at their retail rate is doing just that. We give them excess power all day long (especially in the summer) - then use the credits at night and in the winter months. It results in just about net zero power bill, but we still pay them for a basic service hookup and our natural gas usage.

Yes - the above is exactly what I was referring to. That made me feel pretty good about Berkshire's prospects and ability to use this as an opportunity to grow the Insurance biz. Time will tell. Its not a bunch of dummies running the place, thank god

I found it interesting that during the annual meeting the only thing he sounded extremely confident in was Berkshire's insurance reserving. Perhaps next quarter shows a different result, but I don't think Buffett expects Berkshire to have huge losses from Covid-related business interruption. I'm sure there will still be plenty of claims, event cancellation, etc... Companies that were willing to insure against pandemic risks (like Berkshire) ought to be less likely to have been inadvertently covering it without compensation. Still have to pay for the litigation of course. Berkshire can write a lot more business if this creates a hard market - and its hard to see how this doesn't finally get us the mythical hard market conditions. Having a huge insurance business that basically re-insurers the past and not the present offers a nice diversifier when comparing Berkshire's size / risk from Covid claims to other big insurers who don't write enormous retroactive policies.

Thanks Dynamic. Yes the AAL stake was mostly Ted Weschler so could have been sold with different timing than the Buffett airline positions.

LGND raised their 2020 guidance (their product Captisol is used in Remdesivir) Stock sold off on the news, haven't read through the Q yet https://www.ligand.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/412/

ATCO, KNOP

I got an antibody blood test at Quest Diagnostics for $130 without a prescription. (negative result btw - I have not been exposed to Covid according to the test)

Interesting that they are valuing their OXY warrants at $2 million now, and the $10 Billion face value of OXY preferred at $5.54 Billion (page 19). They mentioned "the effects of subordination in liquidation" as a factor in their fair value calculation.