rijk

the way i read the performance info, 9.1% is after fees... regards rijk

aug 2012 9.1% annualized return vs. s&p 500 4.5%, since inception in 1997, very respectable performance, high fee though (25% over 6% hurdle rate......) regards rijk

attached is an attempt to visualize walter schloss performance (based on the superinvestors of graham and doddsville data), please note that i am using overall partnership results (i.e. excluding 25% performance fees) in order to purely reflect walter schloss performance.... my understanding is that schloss paid out the bulk of the annual gains to his partners each year, so in reality, the absolute value of funds invested would not be what is represented in the graphs, however for investors that reinvested 100% of their gains each year, i believe that the comparisons would still be valid.... i split the 29 year period (1956-1984) graph into three decades,... both the magnitude of outperformance and the stability of performance is remarkable, if this information was not coming from buffett there would be doubts about the quality of the data (at least in my mind)...... the performance during the last decade (1974-1984) is utterly amazing, walter schloss completely "destroyed" the s&p performance of 13% by generating a 35% annualized return during this decade....... i am trying to complete these graphs with 1985-2001 performance figures, despite numerous attempts, i have not been able to obtain annual performance information for this period, if anybody has any information that could help, please share! regards rijk Schloss_performance.xlsx

+15% financials, brk, special situations..... market valuations are rich, will continue keeping plenty of cash..... regards rijk

great video, with some very good practical advice,... some of the questions in the q&a come from prem watsa..... http://www.bengrahaminvesting.ca/Resources/Video_Presentations/Guest_Speakers/2005/Kahn_2005.htm regards rijk

a wsj article, which i can't read completely, makes it look like this is about recent cancellation of municipal bond cds exposure 5 years prior to the regular expiration date (i.e. 2017)???? this would be consistent with buffett's remarks in the video.... regards rijk

why would the bac data on MC/GDP (160%) be so different from the GuruFocus figure (97%)? regards rijk http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2012/08/20120815_stock2.png http://www.gurufocus.com/stock-market-valuations.php

chandler owns 20% (equity only) of sino forest...... regards rijk http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-02/richard-chandler-appoints-team-for-sino-forest-restructure-plan.html

offer is cash & shares, shares only, or cash only, the last two prorated... abh shares have declined, so mixed and share only offer is worth less i imagine that the lock up holders would elect for 100% shares, which would almost leave sufficient cash for the remaining shareholders to elect cash only???? regards rijk

q1 13f indicates nothing but selling by berkowitz... note that berkowitz sold over 6% brk, looks like his overall brk holdings are down to approx 2%, he doesn't seem to believe that brk is significantly undervalued at the moment..... is he building cash or could he be buying in europe? regards rijk http://www.dataroma.com/m/m_activity.php?m=fairx&typ=a

ok, thx, i guess that it will be difficult to establish an arb position to capture the current spread of approx 5% due to the mixed cash/shares consideration, you would basically have to guess the mix to determine how much abh to short??? would the mix from the apr 11 accepted shares (1.7 million newly-issued shares of its common stock and CAD$33.5 million in cash) be a fair estimate of the mix for the remaining shares? regards rijk

is there a risk that both offers fall through? i.e. that no majority can be achieved for both the mercer and abh deals? regards rijk

does the 1.3% go with automatic sweeping between your (margin) account and your cash account? regards rijk

if you can make $1.5 million in a few years with online poker, why would you do something else? there seem to be more value investors with a poker background, why is online poker so luctrative? regards rijk

it looks like the warrants provide cheap leverage + 2x dividend return relative to common shares... i think the main question remains,... what is the rationale for having a number of shares adjustment on top of a strike price adjustment? regards rijk

It's in the second bullet point. Set out all the variables. Put some numbers to it, and you'll see the change in both exercise price and shares per warrant. Remember that each adjustment is quarterly, so you get some excellent compounding on both. mrb/plan/merkhet, ok, i have done what you suggested, and i can see that: - the strike price gets reduced for dividend payments and - the number of shares per warrant grows roughly at the dividend rate...... so, with the warrants expiring in 2019 (6 years of dividend form 2013 to 2018), that would roughly (applying annual compounding, quarterly would give slightly better results) indicate the following upside just from increases in number of shares: 3% div -> 19% 5% div -> 34% my questions: - what is the logic behind the number of shares adjustment? - 3% div looks realistic, 5% looks aggressive, based on which assumptions do you get to 43%? regards rijk

plan/mrb, i am reading the adjustment clauses on pages S-28/29 from the prospectus over and over again, can't figure out how to get from the wording in these clauses to the 43% increase in number of shares in the buffett example (700 million to 1 billion), it would be great if you could provide some kind of numerical example...... regards rijk http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/70858/000119312510044940/d424b7.htm#tx70043_14 The warrent comes with a strike price of $7.14 and 700m warrent shares (6% of BAC outstanding shares) and has the same anti-dilution adjustments as the TARP warrants. It is quite plausible for the warrent shares to increase from 700m to 1Bn AND the exercise price of $7.14 to be reduced to $5.00 over the 9 years to 2021. What can we say? The Master strikes, yet again!

this is what's on the cover these days.... regards rijk http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/02/barron%E2%80%99s-says-dow-15000/

just a thought,.... like berkowitz, many investors that are up significantly YTD, got hurt big time last year (i did), so rather than looking at the good news only, wouldn't it be fair(er) to look at the combined 2011/2012 performance on BAC, AIG etc? like the idea of adding small amount of insurance in the form of puts..... regards rijk

how nice to see jef in the list,..... fortunately i put some money behind the idea and matched the annualized return...... regards rijk

the article on deleveragings, although very informative, strikes me as a bit simplistic, can it really be this simple? what dalio refers to as: “THE most beautiful deleveraging yet seen” is characterized by klarman as: "What, then, are we to make of the nation's Central Banker, who stares at the national Bloomberg screen and marvels about the impact of his policies on stock prices--which have no appreciable impact on the unemployment rate or on economic growth?" i am puzzled by the stark contrast between dalio and buffett on one side and klarman, watsa and rodriguez on the other side regards rijk

grenville, thanks for clarifying regards rijk

wonderful letter..... at the top of page 4, Odyssey Re has a CR of 97.5% for 2011 while in the table at the bottom the 2011 CR for Odyssey Re is 116.7%? regards rijk

good news on (bank of) ireland regards rijk http://in.reuters.com/video/2012/03/02/wilbur-ross-ireland-to-be-first-in-europ?videoId=231231456&videoChannel=117460

meaningless..... regards rijk http://www.zerohedge.com/news/tilson-down-09-february-rebenchmarks-performance-index-appear-better-sp