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glad y'all found the interview interesting. I definitely got some questions from my fellow jurors in criminal jury duty who were looking over my shoulder wondering why I was reading "RailwayAge" magazine... Last day of Jury Duty is today - unless they keep me on this child sexual abuse case that will last 3 days. Every single case I have been through voir dire on over the two week period has been some dude sexually assaulting a minor girl. Yuck.

good general overview and farewell from Matt Rose - some interesting stuff on the potential or lack thereof for rail mergers, etc --> https://www.railwayage.com/freight/class-i/matt-rose-less-is-not-better/

It seems like he is feeling his age more and more and stepping back quite a bit. Luckily he has created a structure that requires very little minutiae from him personally and he is still all there for the important bits. Charlie’s 50th anniversary letter captures the current situation quite well, although it would have benefited from an editor’s touch - http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/SpecialLetters/CTM%20past%20present%20future%202014.pdf

Various news reports out this morning talking about these potential Berkshire deals - "WARREN BUFFETT BUYS UP MAC INSURANCE BOOK The “Oracle of Omaha”, Warren Buffett, is looking for more business opportunities in South Australia after swooping in to acquire the insurance book of the Motor Accident Commission." - rest of article in The Advertiser is subscriber only, but it sounds like Ajit bought a book of business in South Australia. And also speculation without confirmation that Berkshire could be taking a stake in Kotak Mahindra Bank - https://www.businesstoday.in/current/economy-politics/buffett-berkshire-eyes-stake-in-kotak-mahindra-bank-report/story/298448.html and a denial by the company that there is anything to report: https://www.livemint.com/Money/wQ3oPQcsCilv1XC5HM1bYP/Kotak-Bank-shares-jump-8-on-report-of-Berkshire-investment.html

Ended up getting filled on a couple 200 strike Dec 7th puts for $1.00. 205s got filled at 1.80 and 2.15 Copied your trade but got filled at 1.80. Trying again at 2.15... Incidentally, CA wildfire claims looking like $20billion for the industry this quarter I'm now thinking about the 202.50 strike puts.

Copied your trade but got filled at 1.80. Trying again at 2.15... Incidentally, CA wildfire claims looking like $20billion for the industry this quarter

Clayton bought another traditional homebuilder. This one sounds like it is fairly large compared to some of their other bolt-on deals - https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/clayton-properties-group-acquires-mungo-homes-1027775617 https://www.builderonline.com/builder-100/berkshire-hathaways-clayton-strikes-again-landing-its-biggest-deal-yet-mungo-homes_o

Thanks - I had missed that

Hey, I'm wondering what happened to cause this company to move 20% in a day. Why did you decide to buy calls?

It was certainly unpleasant to watch! Nobody could catch... Amazing that they actually had a chance to tie the game towards the end before throwing yet another interception. Watching balls go right through Michael Thomas' and Alvin Kamara's hands is not my idea of a fun time

Pilot Flying J did a small deal - https://seekingalpha.com/pr/17344014-pilot-flying-js-pwt-makes-strategic-acquisition-equipment-transport-llc-strengthen-core

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-28/ge-s-money-pit-how-a-15-billion-hole-could-get-costlier-to-fix Bloomberg article on Culp's efforts to get rid of GE's toxic Long Term Care and other undesirable insurance liabilities still on GE Capital's books. Berkshire would charge a fortune to take on this business but I'm sure Ajit would be interested - at his price. "GE has also held talks with Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. about absorbing its insurance liabilities, two people said. “It’s very difficult to sell” these types of policies, said GB Taglioni, North American leader of Boston Consulting’s insurance practice. He declined to talk about GE’s situation specifically. “There have been a lot of sellers and there have been, up until now, very few buyers.” A GE spokeswoman declined to comment beyond recent filings and public comments, while Athene and Apollo also declined to comment. A Berkshire representative didn’t respond to requests for comment."

ugh. I am seeing this thread after drinking far too much wine last night while entertaining guests at the house. (Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough region of New Zealand, too many bottles to count)

Seems the best deals will come in the near future. I did take advantage of a very limited time 15% off eBay code that worked until 8pm yesterday. I usually use eBay or the NYC photo stores to buy Mac laptops because sales tax is such a large number on a 2-3 thousand dollar purchase. I was able to buy a 2018 MacBook Pro i9 with 32gb of ram tax free on eBay and apply the 15% off code, which resulted in a very attractive price (the best i’ve seen at least). Friday and Monday should have some good deals, just make sure you know what you are getting. Big box stores will sometimes do a special low cost run of a TV that differs just a little bit to get the price down. To follow the news you would think poor Apple is about to go out of business so please everybody- send some of your holiday dollars their way. Its getting dire in Cupertino

Really good posts guys. Thanks I found it funny re: blackberry that as soon as I read your post about the primary risk being that they do an unwise acquisition, I flipped over to the news wire where they had just announced a $1.4 Billion all cash acquisition. Not saying it's unwise, I haven't the faintest idea. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/16/blackberry-to-buy-cybersecurity-firm-cylance.html

Could be I guess. We already know how many shares they repurchased up to October 25th. Meaningful repurchase activity beyond that depends on if the "ceiling" price on the repurchase plan is adjusted with the increase in last reported book value, or if it stays the same at roughly $208 per B-share. If it is based on a simple multiple of last reported book value, there is a possibility it could be as high as 218 currently - which would have allowed repurchases to continue. Still unlikely that repurchases are material relative to Berkshire's size but every bit counts, and we are at least moving in the right direction. I wonder if Warren still owns 1 million shares of JPM personally. I would assume yes.

In total it is 42.7 million shares of ORCL. If it keeps getting bigger, I would guess it's Warren. At this size (over $2 Billion), it could technically be any of the 3.

Extra holdings not captured by dataroma, from General Re New England Asset management - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1004244/000108514618002756/xslForm13F_X01/form13fInfoTable.xml BAC +1.75 million shares BK +11.063 million shares JPM +545,000 shares ORCL +1.287 million shares PNC +1.1 million shares TRV +43,000 shares In addition to the stuff reported at Dataroma from the regular 13F: https://www.dataroma.com/m/holdings.php?m=BRK ------- So, Berkshire owns exactly 900 million shares of BAC, or 9.17%

Yes of course we ignore Warren Buffett

Look at that.. You CAN buy JPM if Todd's on the board, since it wasn't Todd buying the shares. He's getting his banks after all. Better late than never!

Really great to hear Malone just chat for almost an hour with a decent interviewer (Faber). I even got a text from my Mother, in her 70's, who is on an island somewhere in Greece at the moment, that she was watching John Malone live on CNBC.

Baupost filing is posted - Still adding to that Fox position. Rough day for him in PCG. Entered a position in Liberty Global, Univar, YPF, Tribune, Altaba. Always interesting to follow Seth. Biggest equity position by far is FOX, FOXA -> https://www.dataroma.com/m/holdings.php?m=BAUPOST

I apologize - I recently replied to a few political threads after never posting in them for years. My posts had nothing to do with investing or the economy. I don't like to mute topics or posters because that's how I know about who I am reading stuff from. An investment idea from a person with strong bias and blind spots can be evaluated in that context. (I do pilfer ideas form this forum occasionally) I wish good investing ideas to you all

Yes. Well said

One thing I've heard is that families with over a billion dollars tend to know other families with huge wealth and they are well acquainted with just how bad it can get - whether it's a few generations down the line or your own kids. They've heard stories. Charlie and Warren have talked about it. They do a lot of 'elephant-bumping' and people like to gossip. There are quite a few 'signers' of the giving pledge that are wealthy enough that this little token 1-10% that does make it to the next generation (tax free) is far from re-setting the monopoly board. Even the Buffetts will have dynastic wealth (probably practically forever) because there is just so much money sloshing around the family. And Warren is the poster child for the movement... -------- Cigarbutt, that was an interesting quote on page 5 of your linked document - Obama said something similar once. And Warren Buffett says something similar quite often. Only Obama gets pilloried for the sentiment, primarily by people willfully taking what he said out of context: