gfp

Good trade. I like BRK at 193.80 and I like $600... Either way is nice. Its great to sell these close dated options on a Friday (before holiday weekends are even better) - even though it's all supposed to be priced in, I find that once it becomes the week of expiry, people's appetite for allowing nice premium diminishes quickly.

They are getting their information from the SEC -> https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?CIK=IPI&owner=exclude&action=getcompany The recent SC 13G/A filings show Fairfax reducing to zero. Before they reduced their holdings below 10%, there were also more detailed Form 4s showing the trading prices -> https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/915191/000094787118000382/xslF345X03/ss90975_4.xml https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/915191/000094787118000394/xslF345X03/ss91496_4.xml

Dallas paper speculating the recent Homeservices deal could have been around $100 million all cash deal - https://www.dallasnews.com/business/real-estate/2018/06/04/just-warren-buffett-paid-100m-ebby-halliday-realtors Warren was apparently friendly with the founder and expressed an interest in buying her company for many years.

I believe it. It was convertible debt, expensive money for uber to gain buffett’s Halo effect. With optionality on the upside for brk. And warren wanted to do far more than 3 billion in size. Dara tried to talk him down to 2 billion. It sounds plausible. I wonder what the interest rate was. 5-8%? I didn’t see the rate on uber ‘s term loan

Hey Mike, I hadn't seen that Drew bought the jersey to loan to the school for display. What a guy. Saints have been fun again - Alvin Kamara is a blast to watch (and a nice guy you can bump into around town) and Drew still has a few great years left if he gets the help he needs. My buddy made his draperies, ha! I wouldn't want a bunch of margin after a super long bull run either, but I suppose if BRK gets down to 170 or thereabouts I won't be able to resist doing the call option trade I've had good results with at that valuation several times in the past. Long LEAPS calls and probably some shorter dated calls as well. (I know, I know, buying options on the long side must feel so wrong to you! I'll make sure they are fairly deep in the money with low premiums) Contrary to the post above, I don't foresee Berkshire's book value "dropping strongly" in anything but an all out rout. And I think a market panic ultimately makes BRK more valuable and solves many of the few "problems" BRK has putting capital to work. Retained earnings will largely offset most down years in the market... GFP, Nice, I would have joined you but if I get assigned to all my naked puts (highly unlikely) I'll be on more margin than I would want in this market. However, I could not completely resist so I wrote one $187.5-strike, Friday expiration put for $95! ;) Geaux Saints, Mike PS Did you see where Drew Brees bought John Wooden's 1930s Purdue jersey?

Berkshire and Eurobank today. Liberty Global last week. Love BRK at $470 Billion. 10% of that is Apple alone

This link is the registration statement for the block of Costco Stock in question (momentarily called "PriceCostco" for a year following the merger with Sol Price's Price Club): https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/909832/0000912057-96-010651.txt The partner was a subsidiary of Carrefour, the French hypermarket company. Carrefour owned 21.19 million shares, which was 9.7 - 10.8% of Costco around the mid nineties. The offering ended up being for 19.5 million shares in this registration statement, so you can assume the block that Warren had a chance at was probably the 19.5 million shares. I'm sure you could find some online calculator to tell you the total return with dividends of 19.5 million costco shares from approximately May 23, 1996 to the present. I assume there have been splits, but am not a Costco shareholder. edit -- I think it's as simple as 19.5 million shares at a split adjusted 10 bucks per share in May 1996, say 195 million for Berkshire. Without including dividends, the shares would be worth $3.9 Billion at 200/share today, 22 years later second edit -- well I think the above is not exactly right. The shares were 20.875 / share for the offering, which would have cost Berkshire $407 million bucks for 19.5 million shares. They would now have 39 million shares at 200, so $7.8 Billion. At least I think this is correct... More or less this attached image ->

Was there a catalyst I am missing for today's rise in FFH share price? Another insurer's results? Fairfax announcement / filing?

http://dallas.culturemap.com/news/real-estate/05-22-18-ebby-halliday-sells-berkshire-hathaway-home-services-of-america-warren-buffet/

Holding company cash is earmarked for minority partner buyouts. Insurance float cash is probably mostly already put to work in similar duration to what the original poster hoped for. 1-2 year treasuries. I forget where they mentioned they had already put most of it to work in that part of the curve, but I read it on this board somewhere. It was quick to put it all to work, but it's still really short, laddered stuff probably. So I would assume they are steady buyers with maturing bills.

Hmmm.... To read this article you would think Berkshire didn't pay much to the tax man?! https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/05/14/kindly-87-year-old-man-who-took-all-schoolkids-lunch-money

well that article explains why our teenage son picked up the hard copy of the wall street journal yesterday morning and proclaimed that he was 'supposed to buy her a bottle of patron for mothers day.' makes sense now!

Yeah I agree - what a great service to provide to the groupies. I started at the oldest and am working through them as I have time. Apparently we have Steve Burke (BRK board member, runs NBC U, daddy ran ABC at cap cities) to thank for this generous act! Funny thing is Warren has changed a lot in the way he speaks, he had a more serious personality in '94, spoke much faster, etc... Charlie was basically exactly the same!

It will be interesting to see how the use of public infrastructure / implied government subsidy of the trucking industry shakes out vs. the owned and privately built and maintained rail infrastructure. Obviously there are road use and diesel taxes on trucking currently, but it is nowhere near the level it will likely be in the future when states and governments are even more indebted and rail lobbyists are pointing to these driverless convoys clogging up the public roadways, blocking on-ramps for a thousand feet at a time, etc... That said, I certainly feel better about owning the railroad out in the big wide open west, vs an eastern-only railroad. As mentioned, long distances help and there are some pretty long distances to travel from western ports, mines, etc... Rail will never have a place delivering your Wayfair furniture to your town, but it will likely be delivering the container of Wayfair furniture from the port of long beach to the distribution centers for a long time.

So, to my ears it sounded like Warren alluded to the likely possibility of another warrant / preferred deal being announced in the not so distant future. Maybe not a 10% one, but something above market for Berkshire. He mentioned, I believe, not a huge one. The likely source seems to be QSR, but it could be anyone I guess. He's offered similar stuff to JAB in the past, although they didn't end up getting their deal (Avon I think it was). Any guesses? I'll throw Domino's pizza out there since there have been rumors. My track record of predicting Berkshire deals is very poor...

Shoe Dog was pretty fun and a very quick read. (Phil Knight of Nike)

I don't know for sure, but it may be this one or another by this author -> https://www.amazon.com/Demystifying-Chinese-Economy-Justin-Yifu/dp/0521181747/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525877912&sr=8-1&keywords=justin+yifu+lin&dpID=411BqxkXVsL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch#customerReviews

Ha! That's a great one. You know he actually does sign all his correspondence "Mr Warren Edward Buffett Billionaire investor"

https://buffett.cnbc.com Click on annual meetings to get the videos, starting in 94

I’m enjoying the video of the meetings from the 90’s. Audience questions are from people like Bill Ackman, Christopher Davis and a bunch of Omaha locals (at least in 94). Steve Burke did us all a huge service lobbying Warren to get those videos online!

Its the difference between dividends reinvested and compounded, vs not. Annualized S&P return is something like 8% since 1942, but with dividends reinvested, compounding, it comes a lot closer to 12% https://dqydj.com/sp-500-return-calculator/

So many of the shareholder questions were from Chinese nationals and children. A few questions from the Chinese folks were ok - trade relations, why not look to buy chinese businesses, etc. The worst was probably from the Chinese woman who works at a 'family office' for high net worth Chinese. "You two would be my dream clients" ??? why? "Do you have family offices and what do they do for you?" give me a break...

I put this link the another thread as well, but it is definitely a new development to have many years' footage of entire annual meetings posted on the internet. I had heard this was going to happen, but assumed yahoo was going to get the footage. Looks like Becky was the winner on this one - CNBC Berkshire archive - video footage of entire annual meetings from before the yahoo livestream started, plus CNBC interviews, etc: https://buffett.cnbc.com/annual-meetings/

One thing I always enjoy is when someone asks about their access to the 'dry powder' they currently show. This year it was about insurance regulators only allowing a certain amount of dividends out of the ins. companies per year without special request/approval. Of course, cash does have to be outside the Ins. company to buy and cancel BRK shares, but it probably isn't necessary in order to buy them. They can be distributed to the parent and cancelled later. But my point is that they don't want to spit out a number (Charlie has accidentally spit out, 'we could do a 150 billion dollar deal tomorrow if one came along' last year) - but they were clearly indicating that they will have no problem at all getting creative and closing an enormous acquisition if one were to be possible. This year he mentioned partners would line up - like FFH uses OMERS and others - even though it would be unlikely that BRK would require partners. If debt markets stay like this, obviously that can and will be used as a major lever. And, of course, one of the reasons BRK cash seldom goes down by much - even during years with large acquisitions like PCP - is that the amount of time between a deal being announced and it ultimately closing can end up bringing in another $25+ billion in cash to Berkshire. Float growth, maturing securities, free cash flow from subsidiaries. Through relatively short term (2-10 years) debt issues, Buffett would have no problem "pre-spending" some of Berkshire's future earnings power on the right deal. Compared to the current situation it would be a luxury. And capital doesn't have to be dividend-ed out of the Insurance companies to make acquisitions. There is no problem if NICO ends up owning another large operating business.

Cnbc has footage and other stuff from past annual meetings, not available previously. They call it their new 'warren buffett archive' -> https://buffett.cnbc.com/annual-meetings/