Q3 - 2024

[MMM20]

3 minutes ago, 73 Reds said:

Makes Buffett's track record of nearly 20%/year since inception look all the more incredible.

I love it but there’s no way it’s sustainable and I’m waiting for Fairfax and a few other things to fully play out so I can index and take a long sabbatical. I have no clue how’s he’s still doing it. Or Prem for that matter. 
 

Edited Friday at 01:33 PM by MMM20

[73 Reds]

4 minutes ago, MMM20 said:

I love it but there’s no way it’s sustainable and I’m waiting for Fairfax and a few other things to fully play out so I can index and take a long sabbatical. I have no clue how’s he’s still doing it. Or Prem for that matter. 
 

Well, we're at nearly 60 years and counting!  And barring anything too significant he's still right on pace for this year.  

[Junior R]

52 week high

[gfp]

5 minutes ago, Junior R said:

52 week high

 

Only in Canadian dollars 

[Junior R]

3 minutes ago, gfp said:

 

Only in Canadian dollars 

True Canadian Dollar going be weak for awhile

[Jaygo]

I think i messed up. Yesterday I bought 58 shares of FRFHF in US dollar side of my tfsa. Should I have bought FFH.U instead.

 

Any help would be mucho appreciated.

 

I should add that I did this as a trade and will not be holding until the dividend get paid. Likely hold until some time in December

 

My long term fairfax is in a taxable account with a big fat cap gains thank to the good folks here!

 

 

 

 

Edited Friday at 02:24 PM by Jaygo

[Dinar]

For me, one very interesting comment was that even if CAT 4 hit Tampa directly, Fairfax would still have an underwriting profit for the year.  

Another was that interest and dividend income are running at $2.5bn per annum, vs $2.2bn previously stated.

Edited Friday at 05:25 PM by Dinar

[gfp]

1 minute ago, Dinar said:

For me, one very interesting comment was that even if CAT 4 hit Tampa directly, Fairfax would still have an underwriting profit for the year.  

 

Yeah that was a helpful comment.  Fairfax's insurance business has become extremely diversified globally.  It's been fun to see it built brick by brick

[Junior R]

37 minutes ago, Jaygo said:

I think i messed up. Yesterday I bought 58 shares of FRFHF in US dollar side of my tfsa. Should I have bought FFH.U instead.

 

Any help would be mucho appreciated.

 

I should add that I did this as a trade and will not be holding until the dividend get paid. Likely hold until some time in December

 

My long term fairfax is in a taxable account with a big fat cap gains thank to the good folks here!

 

 

 

 

you could sell either of the symbols there the same stock

[dartmonkey]

30 minutes ago, Jaygo said:

I think i messed up. Yesterday I bought 58 shares of FRFHF in US dollar side of my tfsa. Should I have bought FFH.U instead.

 

Any help would be mucho appreciated.

 

I should add that I did this as a trade and will not be holding until the dividend get paid. Likely hold until some time in December

 

My long term fairfax is in a taxable account with a big fat cap gains thank to the good folks here!

 

 

 

 

I'm not sure if your question is serious or not but in general, it makes no difference which currency you buy it in. There is a slight liquidity advantage on the Canadian side, but on the other hand if you buy FFH in a CAD account and if you have a typical shitty Canadian broker (i.e., not Interactive Brokers or maybe a few others) they will convert your USD dividends into Canadian funds at a very disadvantageous rate. 

 

The big difference in % returns between FRFHF and FFH, on some days, is mainly due to changes in the USD:CAD rate. On a day when the CAD drops a lot, like going from $1.38/USD to $1.39/USD, for instance, if FFH goes up 1%, FRFHF will just tread water, but in fact your FRFHF value, in Canadian dollars, will be the same as if you had held FFH in a Canadian account. Don't sweat it.

[Jaygo]

Just now, dartmonkey said:

I'm not sure if your question is serious or not but in general, it makes no difference which currency you buy it in. There is a slight liquidity advantage on the Canadian side, but on the other hand if you buy FFH in a CAD account and if you have a typical shitty Canadian broker (i.e., not Interactive Brokers or maybe a few others) they will convert your USD dividends into Canadian funds at a very disadvantageous rate. 

 

The big difference in % returns between FRFHF and FFH, on some days, is mainly due to changes in the USD:CAD rate. On a day when the CAD drops a lot, like going from $1.38/USD to $1.39/USD, for instance, if FFH goes up 1%, FRFHF will just tread water, but in fact your FRFHF value, in Canadian dollars, will be the same as if you had held FFH in a Canadian account. Don't sweat it.

Yes definitely a real question. And thank you for clarifying. Do you know if I did hold here and accept the dividend would there be a withholding tax since it is a USD account?

 

 

[SafetyinNumbers]

47 minutes ago, Jaygo said:

Yes definitely a real question. And thank you for clarifying. Do you know if I did hold here and accept the dividend would there be a withholding tax since it is a USD account?

 

 

No withholding for Canadians

[Spooky]

3 hours ago, Castanza said:

Does Prem discuss their hurdle rate when looking for acquisitions? I know Mark Leonard over at Constellation noted they had to lower theirs from ~20% to somewhere in the mid teens (likely) primarily due to competition in North America for their investment space. Wondering if Fairfax is having to do the same?

 

The hurdle rate at CSU was only lowered for larger acquisitions over $100M. 

[SoonParted]

1 hour ago, dartmonkey said:

I'm not sure if your question is serious or not but in general, it makes no difference which currency you buy it in. There is a slight liquidity advantage on the Canadian side, but on the other hand if you buy FFH in a CAD account and if you have a typical shitty Canadian broker (i.e., not Interactive Brokers or maybe a few others) they will convert your USD dividends into Canadian funds at a very disadvantageous rate. 

 

The big difference in % returns between FRFHF and FFH, on some days, is mainly due to changes in the USD:CAD rate. On a day when the CAD drops a lot, like going from $1.38/USD to $1.39/USD, for instance, if FFH goes up 1%, FRFHF will just tread water, but in fact your FRFHF value, in Canadian dollars, will be the same as if you had held FFH in a Canadian account. Don't sweat it.

When the US listing is an ADR it can make a big difference whether you buy that or buy on the home-country exchange.  That’s because, as I understand, there’s a fixed set of shares bundled into ADRs and the number of such shares doesn’t generally change, so the ADR can be bid up higher, or drop lower, than the home-country price.  For example, right now TSM ADRs trade at around 18% premium to the shares in Taiwan (ticker 2330); in recent years the premium has mostly been 5-10%.
 

But FRFHF is not an ADR, it’s just regular FFH.TO shares that have made their way to the US, so no such issue.

[mananainvesting]

As I ponder more, the market is not ascribing any value to Fairfax for finding fantastic managers to compound capital. Like the $100M in Marval if it holds the 22% annualized return, that’s a double in ~3 years! should be close to 0.5B dollars in ~7 years!.  With the tailwinds India has in terms of growing GDP, it is such a good bet! 

 

 

[SafetyinNumbers]

14 minutes ago, mananainvesting said:

As I ponder more, the market is not ascribing any value to Fairfax for finding fantastic managers to compound capital. Like the $100M in Marval if it holds the 22% annualized return, that’s a double in ~3 years! should be close to 0.5B dollars in ~7 years!.  With the tailwinds India has in terms of growing GDP, it is such a good bet! 

 

 

No one outside of India, investing in India has better connections than Ben.

[Munger_Disciple]

2 hours ago, gfp said:

 

Only in Canadian dollars 

 

Now it seems to have hit ATH in the US dollars as well

[gfp]

8 minutes ago, Munger_Disciple said:

 

Now it seems to have hit ATH in the US dollars as well

 

Not too shabby!  Remember the good old days when the stock would do nothing for a 48 hour waiting period after good results?  I was lucky to get a small fill at $1249 USD this morning 

[Crip1]

3 hours ago, MMM20 said:

Hey Prem, I’m 30%+ over the same period and uncorrelated. Call me.

 

Hey MMM, I'd be happy with 25% so how about I let you manage my money, I get the first 25% and you get the rest?

 

-Crip

[Munger_Disciple]

6 minutes ago, gfp said:

 

Not too shabby!  Remember the good old days when the stock would do nothing for a 48 hour waiting period after good results?  I was lucky to get a small fill at $1249 USD this morning 

 

 Great trade!

[mananainvesting]

@MMM20 : Reveal your portfolio   (we all wouldnt mind 30% annualized return). Btw, congrats on the fantastic performance, wishing you many more such years! 

[KFRCanuk]

+103.35 (5.97%)today at 12:39 Central Time

 

Market cap in USD

 

 

It might finish the year above those.

 

 

Edited Friday at 05:42 PM by KFRCanuk
Added marketcap image

[MMM20]

17 minutes ago, mananainvesting said:

@MMM20 : Reveal your portfolio   (we all wouldnt mind 30% annualized return). Btw, congrats on the fantastic performance, wishing you many more such years! 

 

It's not repeatable, insanely volatile and driven by FFH.TO since Jan '21, GLASF common and prefs/warrants since Aug '22, a few mostly lucky one-offs like TPL this year, and no big mistakes (yet). I'd be thrilled with ~10% compounding for the next few decades. I'm happy to see the "Fairfax as a hybrid deep value investor and endowment-style capital allocator" thesis proving out and the stock still cheap. You're better off with Prem.

 

Edited Friday at 05:56 PM by MMM20

[Parsad]

4 hours ago, MMM20 said:

I’m prob one of the few here to admit selling some over the past couple quarters but that took it from a 40% to 30% position to pass the sleep at night test and fund other ideas. Of course something could derail things but they’re now seemingly firing on all cylinders and it’s clearly compelling from a short term trade perspective too - let’s see what happens in December. I still think it’s worth better than 2x book or mid/high teens normalized earnings. I know others have thrown out 1.5x book and of course it will never be a straight line up even if index buyers. This is no CVNA after all 

 

 

There is nothing wrong with that.  An investor being able to sleep at night is very important.

 

Cheers!

[gfp]

here is a PDF of the CC transcript as posted on interactive brokers for those interested

FFH Q3 cc transcript.pdf