gfp

I think in Graham's time the price to book value or book value in general was more important than it is today. In some industries, book value is still useful and important but for many modern firms the book value is almost meaningless. Berkshire's book value is useful. Fairfax's book value is useful. Apple's book value is headed towards zero and of basically no use. Graham liked to use his multiplier concept to allow higher price to book stocks to make it past his filters if they traded sufficiently cheap relative to their earnings. He didn't want people paying over 20x earnings or 1.5x book but he was willing to bend his price to book guidelines for a company where the value could be justified by the earnings (and vice versa if something was very cheap on liquidation value but wasn't currently showing a lot of earnings). No standard ratio is going to tell you how to value a company. Every company is unique and the art of this thing is trying to determine the earning power over time, what the management is likely to do with those earnings, and what you are interested in paying for that combination. You might think a cyclical stock at 4x earnings is a slam dunk only to realize you were buying the peak. Same with PE 1000 stocks or no PE stocks that could end up being fantastic investments. Focusing too much on the popular ratios (especially in the age of websites publishing wildly inaccurate ratios based on garbage data in the first place) is a mistake.

Now's your chance! A few lucky folks managed to get in at $270 per share ($222 Billion market cap before they do their first roll-up). https://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/quickchart/quickchart.asp?symb=QXO&insttype=Stock https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-06-17/qxo-doesn-t-have-enough-stock

A single weak civil lawsuit that will be promptly dismissed. This is not some SEC / DOJ bombshell.

I think that is the gist - this $5 million donation is from Mr. Prem Watsa. Also, Fairfax has pledged to support this cutting edge research (likely through smaller gifts).

it is Prem’s own (personal) money, although it follows a recent sale of Fairfax shares back to the company.

One can hope it is connected with a successful deal for IDBI Bank on good terms now that the election is finished

So most of those foreign government bonds are regulatory capital for writing insurance business in those jurisdictions - it used to be primarily in General Re but I'm sure BHSI has plenty of global business as well. I don't think he has much of a choice so even when German yields (as one example) are tiny he still has to own some of it. As you can see, the duration is usually pretty short. The Fannie and Freddie agency stuff Berkshire holds is almost entirely from purchases in 2007. It is just the tag end of un-refinanced mortgages from way back. Most of the corporate bonds they own were purchased in 2002 or 2003. They own Kinder Morgan Inc bonds they bought in Q1 2003 for 53-57 cents on the dollar - 2030-2032 maturities. They own Williams Companies bonds they purchased in 2002 at 42 cents on the dollar, also 2031 maturity. Huge yields. They still show Washington Mutual bonds on their books that appear to have defaulted, written down to zero, purchased in 2008-2009. Berkshire does own a little more in corporate bonds than it appears on their SEC filings because Berkshire's insurance companies invest in the public bonds of some of Berkshire's subsidiaries. National Indemnity owns Lubrizol, BNSF and BHE bonds as investments - but these are eliminated in consolidation on BRK's SEC filings. I guess Warren has a hunch they are good for it.

I would have loved if that had happened a long time ago. Today I don't think the government would allow it, regardless of combined market share. Maybe a different government in the future would allow it but PGR isn't getting any cheaper.

I see the trades but no clue what went down. The only news I found was about Bangalore needing a second airport (and KIA getting a new taxiway). I doubt that is the reason for the trading. Hopefully we will learn something interesting soon

Hard to tell for sure but it wouldn't surprise me if that was essentially Berkshire's position. Inside NICO, these were the share counts owned at year-end 2023 and they are close -

It didn’t. But a lot of people misread a press release.

Looks like they included the link to www.mapchart.net in their post. Looks like US counties.

Berkshire reported selling another ~12 million BYD shares in a recent HK filing https://di.hkex.com.hk/di/NSAllFormList.aspx?sa2=an&sid=2508&corpn=BYD+Co.+Ltd.++-+H+Shares&sd=17/06/2023&ed=17/06/2024&cid=2&sa1=cl&scsd=17%2f06%2f2023&sced=17%2f06%2f2024&sc=01211&src=MAIN&lang=EN&g_lang=en& (approximately $350 million USD worth)

Good stuff, thanks for sharing that.

Not 9.1m shares, 9,001,000 shares. He got out of his options contracts and still has a $268m net worth. I don't think this is as dire as some of you guys were going on about.

Yeah I would be highly surprised if his posted e-trade accounts do not represent almost 100% of his net worth and I do not think he is staked or financed in any other way. He keeps some cash there. The options provide the leverage. He had several years to make a return on his $30 million from the first pump. He turned whatever that figure was into $200 million by June 1st. Everything is going to be fine. He's having a good year.

Everything is in one account at E-trade. He can trade long options positions in the account even if it was an IRA. There is a cash balance, not on margin.

Well roaring kitty has definitely started exiting his 20 strike options contracts, either by selling or exercising, because the open interest in that contract is now lower than his previous position size. Quite a few contracts traded yesterday at the close, which would give him a profit on those. I wouldn't want to hold them over the weekend if I was him - so maybe he finishes the options contract exit this week and lives happily ever after as a member of the nine figure club. Does anybody know if this is a taxable account?

Seems like you are missing that these are TRS on Ensign Energy Services and not FFH.

I don't think that's how it works bud

For those following along at home, he still has an account balance of $235 million. He probably didn't have a 9 figure net worth 60 days ago. Does anybody who follows these stories closer than I do know if this was supposed to be an IRA or a taxable account he posts?

well that's one way of looking at it

RE: additional investments made in IIFL Finance after the RBI action - $23 million of stock purchased at 300 INR in a rights offering and $60 million of financing - probably short term on fair and friendly terms for all

After several decades, Cohen reluctantly closed down the final money losing video game shops but kept the company name and continued at the money offerings, which he liked to refer to as "float" or free money

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/07/-gamestops-potential-new-strategy-let-ryan-cohen-buy-other-stocks-with-company-cash.html