Kraven

I don't think anyone's saying that he doesn't have tremendous social skills. I'm just saying he didn't start out that way, unlike many others who are just natural social animals. I agree he didn't start out that way...all I'm saying was that his learning/getting more comfortable with that contributed tremendously to his success. but just to be clear as we kind of went on a tangent...I am not suggesting scott or anyone else needs to be more social or conformist...to each his or her own. All I'm saying is that for those that have a goal of maximizing net worth/professional success can most likely improve their chances by conforming somewhat to societal norms in order to make it easier for other people to relate to you in order to make it easier for you to network/exchange ideas/get deals down or whatever else your profession involves. +1 to what parsad said Watsa's point has been missed throughout. There is a huge difference between being social and being able to speak in public. He has always been the former, but not the latter. He was social in the sense that he always interacted with people. As he got older and spent time in NY, both while at Columbia and while working for Graham, that he built up a large network of people that he could get ideas from, visit when he was in the city, etc. He had many good friends in the NY area. People he would stay with, go out to eat with and so forth. Many of these people grew very rich in their own right. Buffett, at least as described, was a collector of people. Friends never seemed to disappear.

It's a stereotype that only/mostly young guys start companies. Fair enough. My sample is obviously biased because I'm 24 years old, so most of my experience is with young people. There are young people who have a lot of ideas but come up with all sorts of excuses as to why they can't execute them; those are people that I write off as 'not the entrepreneurial type.' I know lots of middle-aged and older men in the oil & gas business that started their own gig. That's my model of over-40 entrepreneurialism. So I guess my data set is a bit skewed. But I'd still bet that someone who is young and has aspirations to start a business, but doesn't ever get around to it while they're still young, probably won't ever start a business; they're missing that entrepreneurial compulsion. Not everyone has the resources, economic and otherwise, to have the luxury of starting a business when they're young. Some people also take longer to grow into themselves and find their way. Don't confuse the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world as being the common experience of everyone. Also, don't confuse a relatively narrow niche of tech startups with starting a business generally. For example, plenty of plumbing or electrician businesses get started and I doubt most of those are started by someone who is young. There are far more plumbers and electricians starting their own business than there are tech startups.

For a long time on Amazon it has said that Christopher Risso-Gill (the author of There's Always Something to Do) will be coming out with a new Cundill biography in Spring 2014 called of all things "Routines and Orgies". Here is the exact statement: "Christopher Risso-Gill is the author of 'There's Always Something To Do - The Peter Cundill Investment Approach'. He is currently working on a new, more personal Peter Cundill biography 'Routines And Orgies', which will be published in Spring 2014."

I'm the short, bald, chubby guy next to Mohnish in the middle. Alnesh is to Mohnish's left and Guy Spiers is to my right. Cheers! I bet you're sorry you posted that pic at this point.

But yes securitization is the symptom of society looking to screw things up during propsperous times. So yes guns don't kill people, people do. And we will keep finding ways to shoot ourselves. hence I believe the markets are not getting more efficient... I believe mortgages were quite common in the US before the 1950s. They were a different form, much like Canadian mortgages currently are. They would be fixed rate for 5-10 years then would either float or balloon with the balance due. The current 30-yr US mortgage is a direct result of the Depression. Too many homeowners lost their houses when they couldn't refinance or pay off their loans quick enough. The 30-yr mortgage was created to lower payments and give homeowners time and security to pay down their debt. My understanding has been that debt in all forms has been relatively common for hundreds if not thousands of years. Yes just googled it, you are right. Although I always thought a mortgage is you basically pay it till it is all paid off (hence MORT-gage) There were even mortgage securitizations of a form in the 1920's. There was a striking paragraph in Security Analysis that reminded me of 2008, with regard to certain mortgage bonds that individual investors would hold. I can't find it off hand though. There was also this: http://www.nber.org/digest/may10/w15650.html Yes, I remember that part. I think it's in Chapter 10 of the 2nd edition.

How do you determine that the market is more efficient now? Is there a study somewhere that proves this? I have thought sometimes that maybe it is. The net nets have mostly dried up in the u.s. at least, except during major market crashes. But aren't stock prices as volatile as they ever were? The massive influx of hedgefunds, CNBC, the fact that legendary funds, like SEQUX, while the performance is still solid, it's not the outperformance it used to be. The same can be said for other older funds. Yes, it is clear that netnets like the ones Buffett described in the 50's no longer exist. The market is more transparent today, and information is much more available. HOWEVER, that is not saying that the market is overall more efficient at pricing. Back in the 50's I am sure there wasn't mortgage securitization and they were much better at vetting mortgage applicants. So as markets are more stable, we invent more ways to screw it up. It is an equilibrium of booms and busts. I would take issue with a few things in your post. There are net nets like Buffett described, but you have to dig deeper to find them. They may not be in the U.S. There was not mortgage securitization in the 50's as we know it today. Securitization was not the cause of the financial crisis. It is a vehicle, nothing more and nothing less. A car can be driven into a crowd of people and kill them, but a car by itself does not kill anyone. Securitization ended up being used in ways that contributed to the crisis, but it didn't cause the crisis itself. It's only as good as the assets that are securitized. I am not sure that they were better at vetting mortgage applicants back in the day. It's just a different market. There are tons of community banks that operate in the same way they have for dozens of years. There are many small banks that have the same high standards that existed in the past.

Are you kidding me?! I put the entire Fiat thread in a word document to read it over the weekend a few months ago. Thanks! I feel a little stupid for never looking for a print all button earlier... Additionally. Try a program such as "PDF Complete". Once you have a thread in a single page format you can "print to pdf". You just print as you normally would but you select pdf complete as your printer...click print...and you have the entire document in pdf format. I'm sure there are alternatives to "PDF complete"....but thats what I use. Hope that helps. Along those same lines, if you put the Kindle app on your mobile device you can print directly from your computer and it will show up there as a document.

These types of threads are interesting and frankly full of inconsistencies. People like to proclaim that they are "bottoms up" investors, but then spend all their time attempting to figure out the macro. It's trying to predict the unpredictable. Even Buffett gets in on the act a bit. He talks about the market cap/GDP indicator (a favorite of many on the board here), yet in his latest letter says "in the 54 years we [buffett and Munger] have worked together, we have never forgone an attractive purchase because of the macro or political environment, or the views of other people. In fact, these subjects never come up when we make decisions". The latter part is particularly interesting. On the other hand, someone could argue that the macro is just another data point for figuring out whether a stock is cheap or not, yet Buffett says it never even comes up. But in other places he says the market cap/GDP figure is his favorite indicator. There is so much angst these days. A cheap stock is a cheap stock. If interest rates being 100 or 200 bp higher changes that determination, it wasn’t a cheap stock to begin with. Market volatility will come and go and I’m sure we are due for a big decline at some point. I really enjoyed the latest Buffett letter. I liked the part about his personal investments and particularly the tribute to Ben Graham. I think folks would do well to keep in mind his take on Mr. Market when he described a neighboring farmer standing at his property line shouting out prices every day.

Maybe I would have an ego about it if I could actually analyze the companies myself, but I can't. I have very little confidence that I can continue these results. Eric, While others are in awe of your options trading strategies I am in awe that you rode an incredible wave, and had the ability to get out on top. Many people who have a run like you do fuel the urge to get "just a little more". It usually doesn't end well, you have done well for yourself and your family. Congratulations! +1 I would completely agree with Oddball here. You know yourself well. I like the self deprecating modest approach. You are obviously very smart and very good at what you do. It reminds me of this scene from The Joy Luck Club (yes, I have a wife). It's about 1 min 45 seconds in.

And half the board just went into panic mode selling everything not nailed down.

This is a seriously flawed analogy and only meant to incite fear. It's the equivalent of showing a chart of 1929's stock market vs today's and asserting we're in for the same result. The aggregate amount of asset backed securities was not the cause of the crisis. Certain securitized products contributed to the crisis, but I am not even sure many of those would have been counted under the rubric of "asset backed securities" (most of which were actually perfectly fine).

Since you are again addressing the entire board, I'm not sure if you are referring to my exact post. Though I believe I was the only one discussing newspapers.... I said one could conceive of reading 500 in a day if that included scanning 5 newspapers in a couple of hours. You missed the entire point of my post (again assuming that's what you are addressing), which was 500 is possible if it is not ACTUAL reading as you point out. I have no idea who posted what. I skim (and skip) many of the posts and focus on what is interesting to me . . . just like most people read.

Yes, exactly. I find it hysterical the cavalier attitude some on this thread have about reading 500 pages a day. First, like anything anyone says of this nature it isn't meant to be exact. No one counts their pages per day (well, apparently some do since they think Buffett et al do). Second, no one, not Buffett not anyone, is reading something like an AIG 10-K in a "few hours". I just looked, it's well over 300 pages of dense text, numbers, etc. Maybe it's skimmed and few sections read in detail. It's impossible to read that cover to cover in a few hours and digest it. For those who said they believe it includes things like newspapers and the like, I would again call bullshit. 5 newspapers in a couple of hours? Word for word in every section? So Buffett is sitting there and reading every word in the Style and Metro sections? Or is he flipping pages like everyone else does when they "read" a newspaper concentrating on the articles that interest them. A number of people have said this is very doable. In my view there is reading and then there is reading. If one means skimming, fine, that's I guess doable in part. But reading, really reading, is a different animal altogether. So here is an interesting experiment. For anyone who claims this is easy, they should be provided with approximately 500 pages of reading. The types of things that a good value investor should be able to read easily. Everything from articles to 10-Ks to prospectuses. They would have 8 hours to read it. At the end of the 8 hours they would be asked 5 questions that someone who read and understood all 500 pages should be able to answer. There isn't anyone who could pass that test.

It never ceases to amaze me how literal people take Buffett's statements and any statements by anyone remotely connected with him. There was never any way they were reading 500 pages a day. Think about it from the standpoint of some easy reading, like a mystery paperback or something. Certainly that would read faster than a dense 10-K. Does anyone really think they could knock out a 500 page paperback daily? Yet these guys were supposedly digesting 500 pages on a daily basis. Even if they had said it it was clearly hyperbole. Anyone who has worked with large documents would have realized in a heartbeat that it was impossible to have ever remotely reached this goal.

Gio, Gio, Gio. Did you tell her her best friend is really hot? Did you introduce her to people as the "ball and chain"? I'm sorry. These things can be painful, but the cliches are true. They hurt a little less each day until they don't hurt anymore. Think of it as the proverbial when a door closes, a window opens. Hang in there, my friend.

WEB should definitely do this, I mean I'm sure CNBC would pay him more than the pithy $100k he makes at Berkshire. He should also look at writing a book "Manage your company like Warren Buffett" and maybe even open some sort of online MBA program. He might even make enough to move out of that tiny house in Omaha and buy a real car. Maybe he'll be able to afford to move out of Omaha to NYC where all the big shot finance people live. Everyone knows you're not a real investor unless you're from NYC... Totally. Serious question though. Is there any truth to the rumor that WEB plans to join Squawk permanently once he retires and be one of the co-hosts? That would be so awesome. I can see it now. He and Becky could flirt a little. He and Kernen would bust on each other, while he and Sorkin could roll their eyes at each other over any conservative statement someone makes.

What would be really cool is if WEB retired from Berkshire and coordinated with Bill Gates to leave his foundation. They could do a show together on CNBC. It would be called something like "Hangin' with Warren and Bill". They would just talk about the day's events, really anything that caught their fancy. Of course there would be tons of special guests. How awesome would that be?

Try to figure out who you are from an investing standpoint. Things work best when they are most natural and not forced. Think about what type of investing style fits you. Are you a Buffett type investor? A Graham/Schloss investor? Or maybe equities aren't really your thing at all and you are more interested in the credit markets. No one necessarily needs to be pigeonholed and it's not about slapping a label on yourself and thus ends the story. There is nothing that says that you can't like chocolate and vanilla, but when given the choice people will typically pick one or the other (although some prefer a swirl). So lay out some different hats and try them on. Do a lot of reading, of course, but no one ever got anywhere just by reading about things. As a wise puppet once said, do or do not, there is no try. So get your feet wet. Open an account and make some small investments. Use an amount of funds that won't impact you as you make mistakes. Look at different types of investments. Look at compounding machines where you need to read 50 years of annual reports and look at net nets which are based on some basic numbers and metrics. Figure out what you enjoy about investing. Figure out who you are and what your investing philosophy is. There is no right answer except what is right for you.

Kill'em all and feed them to the poor. Solve overpopulation (read The Population Bomb, pretty scary stuff) and world hunger in one fell swoop. Interesting stuff. I like these topics. So what religion do people think is the best?

Let me just go on record and say that I am a big fan of Kraven. No amount of scientific data will disprove that. Ever. That makes you a Kraven ideologue...a "Kradeologue". Let me guess, you DON'T have a portfolio concentrated in 3 stocks, right?! Oh, and I bet you don't think Sears eliminated all of their liabilities when they created the non-guarantor subs. Am I getting close? Friggin' well-poisoning Kradeologues. The movement is sweeping the nation.

Let me just go on record and say that I am a big fan of Kraven. No amount of scientific data will disprove that. Ever. Of course you are. You have good taste.

Hey Guys, another issue we should discuss is abortion. What does everyone think?

Here's a value investing nerd drinking game. Read the MCM letter out loud and everyone is required to drink each time Buffett's name is mentioned. If anyone is standing after page 3 I'd be shocked. I finally realized why I can't stand Millers letters. He fancies himself quite the Buffett disciple and has clearly attempted to emulate his style. The problem is that while he has largely perfected the didactic tone, he has none of the charm and wit that Buffett possesses. I can never read one of Miller's letters in one sitting. They have to be broken up into a few pages at a time.

My recollection is that he says somewhere that he realizes these letters will be distributed publicly (very modest since most likely he's the one distributing them publicly) and he has a second letter which discusses their individual positions, etc that is distributed just to clients.

Frank Martin who runs the shop has a couple of books out. I think one is Speculative Contagion and the second was Decade of Delusions. They are basically compilations of his annual letters from the late 90s until around 2009 or 2010 with some updated material, some commentary, etc. He's a good writer and a thoughtful and smart guy. That being said, I find his letters excruciating and couldn't even finish making my way through them. Anything that can be said in 10 words is said in 100 words.