Mephistopheles

But he also said he discussed restarting buybacks with Buffett. I don’t believe at all that Buffett would do it as a PR stunt. Not to mention that the valuation makes complete sense. 1.4x book value assuming BNSF is valued at 1/3 of UNP. Utility tailwind with data centers. And the cash balance serving as a market hedge… they can direct their entire $50bn or so cash flow towards repurchase and still have the $380bn cash hoard

I just don’t see Berkshire doing marginal amounts of buybacks assuming price remains the same. If Abel/Buffett are buying back at these levels, it means they think stock is cheap and they’re not going to sit around thumb sucking. Unclear why it was just a couple hundred million in q1. Unless the facts change, or they make a $100bn acquisition, or if the price shoots up, it would be uncharacteristic imo to do marginal buybacks.

Cashed out on a bunch of my BRK calls

CPNG calls

Lower east side streets are filth covered (homeless, rats, trash, dog shit, human shit).

In NYC, all these new buildings give 20-30% of their apartments to lazy people via the housing lottery to save on taxes. know someone who is living in a kick ass 1 bed apartment in Chelsea for like $800 something. Nice guy but he’s an actor who spends most nights partying it up in the city. FYI Chelsea one beds go for $5,000-$8,000 these days So the 80% subsidize the 20%. Don’t blame the player, blame the game. Imagine if those 25% of apartments went to people who actually add value to society?

+1

I would love to see Citadel exit NYC completely like they did in Chicago. How stupid does someone like mamdani have to be to single Ken Griffin out? The one guy who walks the walk, giving Chicago a big fu by leaving. Communists are mentally ill

Bought more WTI futures yesterday for Oct in the 70s. And, the bombing continues. Sad!

I just moved out of NYC as well. Obscene rents and taxes, and it got tiring walking out on filth covered streets. Homeless everywhere. Pipe dream: the exodus continues and we have a 70s/80s style collapse in the city and I can buy a solid condo/brownstone. Also should be a net positive for JOE. I’m all for Mamdumbass

Say it. You gotta say it! Kentanji btw should have answered "I don't see how that's relevant". Maybe this Trump cult judge should've tried the same. Truthfully though, you don't have to be pro trans to not know how to answer "what is a woman?". "Female" or "Not a man" is the best I can think of.

Yes! Not nearly as embarrassing as not knowing what the 22nd Amendment is as a ::checks notes:: ...Federal District Judge. Ok, if I tell you that Jackson is a political hack and that the biology answer was bad, will you admit that this was as well?

This is embarrassing. Think Aileen Cannon on steroids. What a fucking disgrace and of course the cult will perform Olympic Gold Medal level mental gymnastics to justify it.

I bought a bunch of calls yesterday, that's the good news. Bad news is that I've also been buying calls for a few weeks now. Pretax just makes it easier to compare companies and focus on the business directly. EBITDA is similarly beneficial and also particularly for things like real estate where it's just an accounting loss (property value increases while you depreciate for GAAP)

Haven't done the math, but for BRK - if you take Mar 31 book value, adjust the portfolio value for the April run up, add in whatever earnings they since then, and consider BNSF closer to UNP value ($150 b) instead of book value ($50 bn). This thing is probably closer to 1.25-1.3 x book rather than 1.4. For reference, UNP net income in 2025 was 7.1bn and BNSF was 5.5bn. The latter is finally making changes to improve its efficiency and it's showing as of Q1. I'm willing to bet that the buyback this quarter is going to be in the billions at least, hopefully tens of billions.

BRKB, CPNG

Even if there is an immediate surrender, those inventories do need to be refilled, and will probably be filled higher than previous levels as now everyone is afraid of another crisis. There’s a sweet spot for a ceasefire where 1) enough inventories have been knocked out and 2) demand destruction is kept at bay. Beyond that, the longer the war drags on, the more likely we see demand destruction/recession and lower oil prices. I have no idea what that sweet spot is, but for now I continue to hold October WTI futures which have moved from $70 to $80. Of course, the real concern here is refined product pricing which has gone through the roof. That demand destruction event may happen sooner than people think. It’s amazing that the S&P500 continues to march higher amongst the very real recession risk that does exist. Even when the strait fully opens, when tankers have no more psychological fear of being hit, flow rate is what matters. It takes time for all that oil, LNG, and refined products to 1) get back to normal production but mostly 2) to make its way to end users. I just think when all this settles out, people will want to stock up for the next war, and oil prices will be a bit higher to reflect that. Kind of like hurricane insurance rates shoot up after major hurricanes. I’m not an expert by any means but I just feel the risk reward is reasonable at the $80 October futures.

Re valuing Berkshire: If you think it's cheap here, you have to assume that Abel will stop hoarding cash. $1 trillion market cap with $700 bn in cash + stocks. $30 billion in pre-tax earnings excluding interest/dividends/cap gains/equity method So if you net out the entire $700 bn, it's at 10x pre tax earnings, and if you net out $500 bn then it's at 16x. And there's also the optionality with the cash hoard which makes it a quasi hedge against the market. Intrinsic value would go up if S&P falls by 30% all else being equal. I have options on this because of the super cheap IV, and stock not having moved in what 2 years almost. Add to this Abel likely putting the gas on the buyback machine. And with Berkshire being probably the lowest churn stock in the market, the stock price is likely to be more sensitive to repurchases.

Something tells me Greg will be more aggressive with buybacks vs. Buffett. Love the old man but I think he was way too conservative since COVID. For example, selling Apple IMO was just inexplicable.

BRK at 1.4 x book, but the earnings multiple is what makes it cheap. Just being lazy, but Union pacific market cap is ~$150 billion, and the book value for BNSF is $50 billion. If you adjust the book value to reflect that, we are at like 1.25x

Isn't it quiet period? I picked up more call options. Love the low IV. Potential for big bump post Q1 earnings/agm

True my bad..ended 9 wars in total is factually correct!

It’s the testosterone. Wokeism has a feminine quality to it so people avoid it even if it means installing an authoritarian “strong man”.

Unfathomable that the man who has ended 8 wars is struggling to end this one

I do totally get they have separate and personal investments and he shouldn’t use the fund staff (or he should pay for it)…but, why doesn’t he do all the investments on his own? Though, I guess the another purpose of the office is to manage logistics, accounting, etc.