gfp
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Posts posted by gfp
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It was legal in the 90's as part of a repurchase plan. I assume it is still legal. I doubt Berkshire is doing it, but Warren has used short puts to purchase shares several times in the past, including with Coca Cola and BNSF.
'97 wsj article - https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB864243230195870000
Is Buffett (through Berkshire), under US securities law and regulation, allowed to write put options on Berkshire? I would guess not, right?
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Some of this move the last few days has got to be option expiration related. A lot of folks probably got caught out with covered calls against low basis stock they had no intention of selling. Look at the opening tick of over 2 million shares traded on the B shares this morning, which is a major option expiry day.
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Yeah, that was surprising on the day he said that. It was basically Warren going on TV saying that the current price of Berkshire (at that time) was 'way below intrinsic value, conservatively determined by Warren Buffett & Charlie Munger.' And he also mentioned, if it's close enough they have to talk about it on the phone, they probably shouldn't be buying it... He was on 4 networks that day and the stock didn't budge
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Thanks. A good article. Remember when even BRK fans were lamenting that he had lost it and vastly overpaid for BNSF at $34 Billion? He's taken enormous (tax free) cash dividends out of the company since then and Rolfe is saying it could be worth something comparable to UNP. I'll take 3 more fuck-ups like that one please
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Not a bad quick and dirty back of the envelope. Seems a little aggressive to put a multiple of 14.5x some normalized float growth figure (you used $8B) and declare thats worth $116 Billion when we have already included the value of the stock portfolio, much of which is funded by float. I do understand that growth in Float is a component of cash flow available to owners though.
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Not sure why so many people are buying brk.b - at this point brk is an S&P hugger and they both have the same 1 and 5 year returns. Plus, there's probably downside if WB kicks it.
It seems safe to say in retrospect that June 26th at 186.44 closing price was an attractive buying opportunity for Berkshire. BRK up 18% since, SPX up 6.75%
We buy when Berkshire gets cheap - because we know how to value it - regardless of the index performance or correlation.
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Shorting these sorts of manias is one of the fastest ways to blow up an account. If you do want to short calls, please use spreads, otherwise this sort of move can lead to ruin.
Sound advice here! Ian I remember you from several years ago when you authored an article on Yongye International - I think you were pretty young at the time. I had investigated that company, including on the ground in China. It was shady. Went private at $7.10.
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Yes - wow, at 235 a share on Tilray someone is getting killed here.
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I agree Gates would be, and probably is, a great money manager. But Michael Larson manages Cascade and is a great manager in his own right. I have no idea what their arrangement is in terms of Larson getting full autonomy to make decisions but I have the impression Gates is primarily involved in the private stuff (VC investment, Four Seasons, etc) and Larson has full oversight of the public securities portfolio - in both the foundation and Cascade.
edit: more on Larson, who has a dream job for sure:
https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1999/03/15/256491/index.htm
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Meph, I agree that Todd or Ted would probably be great choices, but I'll bet you $1.00 that Greg Abel is the next CEO of Berkshire Hathaway
http://jarviscity.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/trading-places-bet-scene.jpg
("Both Jain and Abel are experts in their respective industries, so why pull them away to run the rest of Berkshire." - already happened with Abel)
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"Jain, who also worked for three years at IBM in the mid-1970s as a salesman, established the Jain Foundation in 2005. The Seattle, Wash.-based nonprofit organization aims to cure limb-girdle muscular dystrophies caused by dysferlin protein deficiency, a condition that Jain's son has."
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It's been communicated pretty clearly. Howard Buffett as Non-executive Chairman (consider this a done deal). Greg Abel as CEO, possibly with Ajit running insurance, Ajit available if something happens before Greg gets the job (Ajit doesn't want the CEO job, but would take it if he needed to). Bill Gates as lead independent director.
Greg Abel as the next CEO of Berkshire, at least the non-insurance businesses is basically a done deal.
(by the way, obviously less good than Buffett in many many ways - but what a rockstar group (Howard excepted))
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Bloomberg piece on Pilot Flying J ->
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Another good interview with Warren - funny in that he mentions a top executive for one of the big investment banks called during the summer of '08 offering to sell him 'many many billions of dollars worth' of stock in Freddie Mac...
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He always says he loves the management and assets. So that leaves valuation. But, then again, Warren tends to keep his critical thoughts to himself - at least for a while. If I had to guess, I would guess valuation. Or maybe he wants to be below 5% for some other reason and will stand pat here.
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Warren continues to sell down his PSX shares. Now below 5%.
Had 34.73 million shares at last filing, down to 22.186 million shares now.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000119312518270047/d622062dsc13ga.htm
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Buffett did another video interview for the financial crisis anniversary, this time with Andrew Ross Sorkin as part of a CNBC doc coming out on the 'week that shook the world' ->
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/10/warren-buffett-2008-financial-crisis-showed-we-are-all-dominoes.html
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Interesting to see Berkshire melting up towards an all time high with a major hurricane heading towards North Carolina. Maybe we should start a Hurricane Florence thread...
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WSJ video interview posted today -
https://www.wsj.com/articles/warren-buffett-recounts-his-role-in-2008-financial-crisis-1536314400
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I've also been buying recently. It has been nice that Fairfax has zigged when Berkshire has zagged for a while now.
http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/kaavio.Webhost/charts/big.chart?nosettings=1&symb=frfhf&uf=0&type=2&size=2&sid=46408&style=320&freq=1&entitlementtoken=0c33378313484ba9b46b8e24ded87dd6&time=8&rand=757942313&compidx=aaaaa%3A0&comp=brk.b&ma=0&maval=9&lf=1&lf2=0&lf3=0&height=335&width=579&mocktick=1
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off topic, but Kiewitt Plaza is for sale for around $20 million. Berkshire has a very long term lease, but I wonder if they end up purchasing the building. On a side note, Omaha real estate appears not too pricey
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Privately negotiated trades for large blocks eventually get reported to the NYSE and included in the reported volume:
"The NYSE has a general reporting rule specifying that transactions must be reported promptly. In particular, NYSE Rule 131 specifies that trades must be reported within an hour after the close of business on the day the trade was made."
I know very little of dark pools etc., but just had this thought and wanted to ask whether it would be possible to determine whether there is any non-public trading of Berkshire in any way. Does anyone know? No matter what it will be interesting to know the total amount of trading in Berkshire for the next couple of months, combining this number with the proportion that Buffett bought back will give some valuable indications of times to come during similar circumstances.
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Hadn't noticed that Warren also did the Smith & Wollensky's segment with Liz Claman at FoxBusiness -
http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/5828934109001/?#sp=show-clips
and
http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/5828949631001/?#sp=show-clips
Topics covered include Tesla/Elon Musk "funding secured", ending the meetings with universities, his health, how he's feeling, etc
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I don't think I see a 1 million share trade on BRK B but I do see just under 284k shares traded at the close. There is a large order match at the close that you can participate in by entering MOC - "Market on Close" orders. Index funds and other institutional traders are big users of the closing bell order cross, which is why they publish order imbalances for the closing cross in the last hour and a couple minutes or so before the close.
(I should add, it's never going to be all Berkshire unless its a block trade that you see printed out of nowhere - it is safe to assume Berkshire is only purchasing 10%-20% of the daily volume and I would bet it is closer to 10%. They would probably be purchasing both classes of shares)
I can see a 1M share trade at the closing bell for $208.72. The Volume all day long was not even close to that. The other trades were all 3-6K lot sizes during the day.
I know that a disproportionate volume happens at the open and close of the market bells, but this is 25% of the volume at the end of the day in 1 minute. It might have been even 1 single trade. If it was all BRK purchasing back stock that would be about $208MM.
Buffett buybacks: Could Berkshire tender stock?
in Berkshire Hathaway
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over 2 million was on the opening tick. Today was options expiration.
(IB showing less than 5million but Bloomberg and NYSE showing over 13m)