woltac

A few books discussed in our Books thread are on sale at Amazon today including Influence, Billion Dollar Whale and The Smartest Guys In The Room. There are many other nonfiction kindle books on sale also. https://www.amazon.com/b?node=7788141011&ref_=pe_170810_656767700_kddgb_ecg_2

Increased my FRFHF starter position.

Sold 1/2 of my BOMN position purchased in March 2020.

I sold the MKL purchased on March 18th for a 13% gain. Pretty sure I will get another shot at MKL at an even lower price. I don’t see this party lasting very long when all the non stimulus news is negative.

Bought DIS @ 85.02 yesterday and sold today for 95.40 Bought MCD for 125.00 yesterday and sold today for 147.30. I don’t usually trade much, but couldn’t pass up the one day gain and wanted to keep more dry powder for the next leg down. I did not think the buy orders would be filled yesterday and put in similar, but lower orders in after selling.

CFG, JPM, GOOGL

A lot of data in one place: Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by Johns Hopkins CSSE https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Bought BRK.B, AXP, BAC, WASH Sell to Open BRKB Feb 28 2020 205.0 Put @ 1.26 when the stock was 205.42. Of course the price promptly dropped below 204 after the order was filed.

I also bought more BRK.B. Thought about buying more WFC, but did not pull the trigger.

1. Independence 2. Independence 3. Independence

AAPL & LBRDK, both purchased in late December/early January.

Perhaps the change is for exactly the reasons he cites: First, Berkshire has gradually morphed from a company whose assets are concentrated in marketable stocks into one whose major value resides in operating businesses. Charlie and I expect that reshaping to continue in an irregular manner. Second, while our equity holdings are valued at market prices, accounting rules require our collection of operating companies to be included in book value at an amount far below their current value, a mismark that has grown in recent years. Third, it is likely that – over time – Berkshire will be a significant repurchaser of its shares, transactions that will take place at prices above book value but below our estimate of intrinsic value. The math of such purchases is simple: Each transaction makes per-share intrinsic value go up, while per-share book value goes down. That combination causes the book-value scorecard to become increasingly out of touch with economic reality. Maybe the third reason should have been listed first. Take a look at the equity of a company that buys back stock on a regular basis. Moody’s is an extreme example, at 12/31/17 the MCO had negative equity of $114.9m. I see this as a clear indicator that major stock buybacks are coming soon.

BAC @ $23.77 LBRDK @ $68.86 TEVA @ $15.25

CFG

More KMI.

KMI

SRG

The Big Short

MTB

Congrats Keith!

I have been following BRK since the early 90s and really liked Ground Rules. The information in the book is from the partnership days and has more relevance to the way small investors should approach their investments than the way BRK currently operates. This is in no way a criticism of the current BRK operation, which has evolved due to the ever increasing size of the firm.

BRK.B purchased on January 15, 1997 for $22.58 split adjusted for a 643% gain.

If he read "What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars" this may have been avoided, or maybe not. I highly recommend the book, which details the emotional and psychological effects of a trade that was initially up and ended as a large loss that wiped out the trader's net worth and reputation. https://www.amazon.com/Learned-Million-Columbia-Business-Publishing/dp/0231164688

When a company purchases their own stock, the purchase price first reduces common stock to the extent there is a balance in the account, then reduces paid in capital followed by retained earnings. In the statement you attached, there is no balance in common stock/pic at the beginning of the year. The entry to record stock based compensation during the year increases common stock and the entry to record the stock purchases during the year reduces the capital stock/pic balance back to 0. So the two numbers (stock repurchases and stock based compensation) are the same only because the beginning balance in capital stock/pic is 0 prior to the entries.

"Just come out and say, 'We're selling this stuff to all of the human race, many of whom lack self control and will most likely develop health problems over time, which society will bear. In the meantime we're going to make a lot of money for our shareholders. And we're OK with that.'" Maybe not in those words, but that is what I understood their answer was with an offsetting happiness caveat.