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Some color on the decisions made in Q4- https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/25/buffett-says-he-was-close-to-making-a-very-large-acquisition-in-the-4th-quarter-but-it-fell-apart.html

Wow - classic case of "lose reputation for the firm and I will be ruthless" ?? https://finance.yahoo.com/news/buffetts-berkshire-hathaway-talks-sell-201610562.html You don't see these headlines everyday...

Berkshire files two 13Fs, and then there are some pension fund holdings that are eliminated in the Annual Report presentation but may creep in to other SEC filings. Most people just forget about General Re New England Asset Management holdings that are tagged as belonging to Berkshire. Dataroma and CNBC have always had that part wrong.

This was surprising to me and it is a choice Warren made. In October they were only active for 6 days, buying both classes of shares at around $30.6 million per day on average. Then they stopped on October 19th - with prices the same as when they were buying. And they stayed out fo the market the rest of October, when prices declined as low as 197.29 / b share. Then they started buying again 12/13 through Christmas Eve, which is 8 trading days. Surprisingly they only purchased A shares during this period, at an average of about $29.2m worth per day. Why on earth they would not purchase B - shares during this period is a mystery to me, unless these were purchased in blocks that were offered directly to Berkshire and this is just the number that happened to be offered. It seems like there was not an active safe harbor 10b5-1 plan during most of the quarter, or if there was it had a lower cap price after 10/18 and didn't trigger any purchases afterwards. The December purchases seem like they were made outside of the plan, if one existed after 10/18. I suppose Warren knows market participants will try to reverse engineer his buying and it could end up, over time, with a situation similar to the 1.2x rule that kept him from being able to do much. So he changes it up a bit. It could also be that he wanted to get the Annual Report out and now he won't feel as bad about 'taking advantage' of exiting shareholders - his former partners. But that seems like wishful thinking. We'll see over time. Maybe he got bearish like everyone else in December and thought better opportunities would come in 2019. Not very Buffett-like, but we saw Apple freeze up on buying as well. People seemed to get spooked. Why on earth wasn't he buying any shares on 12/26? I can only guess that it's because none were offered to him with a phone call, and there was no active 10b5-1 plan 'automatically' buying on Berkshire's behalf (or there was one but the cap price was lower). We'll see.. I was certainly off in my expectations

its like deja vu all over again around here http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/does-anyone-use-ibkr's-adaptive-algo/

I wonder if Warren wants to regain his AAA credit rating before he passes. The reductions in net debt, cash balances and repurchase restraint seems to show that either Berkshire deserves a AAA rating or Johnson & Johnson should lose theirs as well. It hasn't made much of a difference - even BNSF, where BRK doesn't guarantee the debt, borrows extremely cheaply - but I do think he was miffed when they took him down from AAA.

2018ar.pdf

Only $417 million in share repurchases in Q4. Only active from 10/11-10/18 and 12/13-12/24 - so much for figuring out their plan! Further, they only repurchased class A shares during the fall culminating on Christmas Eve - not what I would have guessed. page K-29 for those interested.

Hey John - they do release 4th quarter numbers as well, just as a press release. Here are last years numbers: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/news/feb2418.pdf

So nobody answered me on the KHC thread, but it looks like Berkshire's reported earnings in Q4 will be a real shit show. Berkshire's 26.7% interest in KraftHeinz's $12.608 Billion net loss for the quarter will pass through BRK's books under the equity method. That's another $3.366 Billion taken out of BRK's Q4 operating earnings. Then we also have the uncertain results from catastrophe losses. The headline numbers will also be swamped by the large unrealized hit to the equity portfolio. Here's hoping we get an opportunity to buy some BRK next week. Looking forward to the annual letter as always. Enjoy your weekend

Oh gosh, someone should tell Willow Oak! http://willowoakfunds.com/select/ I think I’ve heard Charlie say that the reason it didn’t work is that each manager picked the idea they had done the most work on. He was illustrating a bias that we supposedly have to value most what we have invested the most in. In this case time.

You think he might top out at $10 Billion worth of BRK share repurchases per year because of regulatory limits? Why?

Another article on Howard - this one is a bit more balanced https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/billionaire-heir-howard-buffett-on-trump-money-and-drugs-20190212-p50x74.html

Thanks for the rec on Russian Doll - I enjoyed it and never would have checked it out otherwise I agree. When I started watching it I was thinking that there was a 80% chance it was going to be stupid and I wouldn't get through 2 episodes. I'm glad I gave it a chance, it was a pretty good show. Like groundhog day only darker with a better story.

I don't think US GAAP requires amortization of Goodwill since 2001 or so.

Yeah - “Warren Buffett daytrades in and out of Oracle!” “The Oracle of Omaha abandons Oracle!”

I agree to some extent that it is unusual and unnecessary. If I had to guess I would guess that: a.) He doesn't like the press running with false headlines about him that other, less sophisticated, investors might make investment decisions based on - and b.) He feels some desire to show he supports Tim Cook at Apple, and is not 'pulling a Ginni Ronmety' on him... It’s concerning to me that Buffett replied to a request for comment, when does he ever do that, especially regarding the stock portfolio?? Is he planning on selling Apple shares and wants to hold the price up? Why wouldn’t he want people to think that he himself is reducing shares? Presumably he’d only benefit if the stock drops due to repurchases or him buying more.

Yeah we don't know if its a static / manually adjusted price cap on the plan. We'll probably be able to reverse engineer the plan rules after a few more quarterly disclosures. It could very well be that the cap is based on a multiple of last reported BVPS. Warren would be willing to buy big blocks of shares outside the broker-executed plan when he's not in a restricted period. For the automatic plan, he really doesn't want to affect the trading price of the stock much - or establish any type of "floor."

Good stuff - thanks for posting the entire interview

Debbie Bosanek confirmed to CNBC that the small amount of AAPL stock that was sold was attributable to Ted or Todd. Could have been pension shares, since that is a big part of what they manage. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/15/berkshire-trimmed-its-apple-stake-but-it-wasnt-buffett.html

Hey Dynamic - Seems like the totals add up to me. The Berkshire 13F reports 249,589,329 shares and the 13G reports 255,300,329 shares (Berkshire's actual total economic interest). The difference is the same 5.711 million shares in New England Asset Management that Berkshire is the ultimate owner of. Berkshire's 9.30 quarterly filing shows $57.6 Billion AAPL at a closing price of 225.74, which pencils out to just about the same: 255.16 million shares - discrepancies which could be due to "57.6 Billion" not being an exact number. No big change in Apple shares that I can see. Could be one of the original T's trimmed their position at near all time highs, or it could be something else. (No big changes inside General Re NEAM this quarter - a few shares of WFC sold and continued selling off of Verisk, which Buffett never actually "bought" per se)

Thanks for the spreadsheet dynamic. Looking forward to seeing Berkshire's 13F at the end of the week - I guess Friday evening?

Thanks for that link DD - a great summary of BHE and it's always nice to relive the "failed" Constellation Energy deal. So BHE can get enormous and so far has accomplished 16% for their owners. Charlie seems happy with it

I don't see renewal dates being an issue. It is not uncommon to cancel insurance policies and receive the pro-rated premiums back as a refund. It happens all the time when an asset is sold or you decide to switch providers. I should also note that 'three page policy' is a marketing / branding thing and the actual legal contract for several types of specific business insurance that passes muster with each state regulator will be pretty standard (and long). But what they say and market in those three pages can say a lot about the company and how plainly they wish to spell out 'the deal'. Hopefully this marketing message is a hit, as Berkshire has been trying this GEICO-for-small-biz-insurance for a while now and it has remained tiny. First it was "coveryourbusiness.com" - then "biberk.com" - bi for 'business insurance - and now "threeinsure.com" with a cool new Nebraska logo and the prominent Berkshire Hathaway brand.

Berkshire continues to go after the primary insurance business with the launch of a new product called "THREE" that features a "three page policy" for small businesses covering workers comp, multiple liability coverages, property & auto. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190211005143/en/Big-News-Small-Business-Berkshire-Hathaway https://www.reinsurancene.ws/berkshire-hathaway-to-launch-three-page-insurance-product-for-small-businesses/ www.threeinsure.com - most interesting to me is that this is being launched under the Berkshire Hathaway name, not any of the existing primary companies in this space, like GUARD, BHSI, the various 'home state' companies, etc. This one is all Ajit! (this is the current offering direct offering - the new one will be a big marketing push to take share in this space) https://www.biberk.com https://www.reuters.com/article/us-berkshire-biberk-idUSKBN18528N https://www.omaha.com/money/buffett/companies-like-biberk-aim-to-make-buying-insurance-paying-claims/article_815acffe-3188-5f79-a23d-c876d6580527.html