UhuruPeak

Beware of technical analysis as the main tool for predicting the future ... it is mostly used to confirm one's own existing prejudices. Broxburnboy, I like to do high-level TA before making my purchasing decisions so I won't criticize fellow practitioners. I also used to do this exclusively and found out that I could make good money IFF (if and only if) I managed to put my own biases in check. Needless to say, my experience was that I'd bat 1.000 for a few days/weeks then start anticipating the market a little too much (greed) and... lose it all. In other words, I really like that comment of yours, it is spot on! :)

What technicals? Did you see how fast the markets have been bouncing? bounces like this only occur during bear market rallies, and are most definitely not sustainable. The economy is still getting worse, just the "rate of worsening" appears to be slowing down - if you make a trend out of the last month. So yes, markets are also discounting machines; but much like Uccmal, Arbitragr and the others, I wouldn't discount the possibility of a new leg down (or at least of a retest of the lows). Short term, it will probably go up a little longer since every one wants to believe the bull is alive. Long term, it will be up as well; but in the medium term (few months), who knows? Your (our) best bet is probably to focus on companies you know and like, and the price of which is low enough for your taste - there's gotta be quite a few even for picky investors me thinks

Yeah - he's dropped the hedges late last year ('08) but that proved too early so he ended the year in the red (lost 9% I think). He had to hedge again in '09 and only had about 1% OTM calls as of early last week I seem to recall. These things are hard to time (and he doesn't try), so he's most likely missed the recent run-up. Historically (since inception), he's outperformed the market on his stock-selection skills alone, but also added further value through the hedging. I really think he is the real deal even if using a different strategy than most value investors would.

I try to read him every week, or at least every few weeks. I had my wife's IRA invested with him for a little while but sold the fund to invest myself in '08 (I did better through largely-lucky moves between ORH, FFH & BRK). I think his fund will continue to outperform the mutual fund universe for peak-to-peak and trough-to-trough cycles - which is how he wants to be judged. His and FAIRX are the only funds I have ever owned. I sold both last year, but would sleep well at night in either.

"Whitney is a puppet." => Pease tell me again what the point of that post is?

Jack, I think she deserves a lot more credit and respect than you seem willing to give her. Ms. Whitney has been spot on for a long time, even back in the days where it could have cost her a career. Her husband was concerned for her safety at one point too. Just because she is a financial analyst doesn't mean she is "a puppet". Please!

I tried but ORH doesn't seem to have filed already? someone else wants to check too?

how about verbal incontinence. Less smelly ;)

Ericopoly bought the calls at par @ 250 - with "free" money. The risk isn't that FFH goes down (call will have an IV of $0 and just reduced time value), but that the other stocks (MSFT...) go down below the put strike.

kawikaho, I haven't read all your posts and therefore don't know how hard your tone was, or whether it was even out of line. Just based on this last answer however, I like what you are bringing to this board: I also don't believe that pure fundamental analysis is optimal when investing. All too often, we find that Mr. Market is behaving "strange", yet in a fairly predictable manner. In particular, I have seen too many stocks trend down in spite of great prospects - just look at what FFH has done since last week, or what Quadra Mining did in 2008, or even what BRK has done over the past few months in spite of WEB's amazing investment acumen. We have a lot of very good members here, some of whom are a little opinionated (hi Sanj & Ericopoly ;D); more than anything though, we are here to learn and profit. Dissenting can be good.

Thank you Sanjeev. Today after one last check to confirm the old board was shut down, I finally removed my old link. It is crazy to get emotional like this over a shared little piece of cyber real-estate that many of just just happened to have spent hundreds or thousands of hours on! :'(

Yes, see " Fairfax 2008 Year-end Results (February 19, 2008)" thread

I think I finally understand why they insist on giving us the CR "exclusive of cat", Greg alluded to it during his part: it gives us a way to compare year-over-year CR exclusive of irregular catastrophes. I still think it would be best if they explained it in so many words, with a separate table showing us all what this adjusted CR looks like over a period of a few years, along with their estimate of the typical cat cost over time, to give us an idea of where they think a normalized CR should be. Thoughts?

I am not happy with the underwriting either. There have been quite a few quarters now when we rejoice with great investment earnings yet the market looks at UW only. Question to those who follow other insurers: what did their ratios look like?

Leverage would be your friend. Think rental Real Estate for example (or a REIT if you don't want to manage yourself). Others will want Gold/Silver, perhaps we can at least agree on the mining companies: they have large assets and fairly stable depreciation/amortization levels. Any company who hedges its costs far into the future would be a good candidate too, imo

The result is tons better, this table looks great!