Fairfax 2026

[SafetyinNumbers]

8 minutes ago, bearprowler6 said:

What you call "hand waving nonsense" is a list of reasons why Fairfax will not achieve the P/E or Price/Book multiples that other you and others on here think it should.  Tracking intrinsic value is key and Fairfax's IV has gone up nicely but the market will not reward it as you think it should because of all these issues. 

Unsurprisingly, I disagree. I think the multiple is driven by revenue growth. The multiple expanded from 0.6x to 1.7x during the last hard market. I suspect the longer we have to wait for the next hard market, the higher the multiple will go before it ends. 

[73 Reds]

13 minutes ago, dealraker said:

I thoroughly enjoy inve sting discussions with you Reds.  You are (as usual ;-)) challenging...but in a good way.  The issue for me always is that I am not good at writing what I mean to deliver.  I'm terrible at it as a matter of fact, so it becomes too much work at times.  LOL.

Well, we're both old, crotchety at times but share the same general philosophy about investing.

[dealraker]

5 minutes ago, bearprowler6 said:

4 times BV was a different time for this company. Can it happen again? Sure! Will it happen  again? Highly unlikely! We should all be thankful if we get to 1.75 or 2 which as things are structured currently is not in the cards! 

Along with many other experiences and things as related to Fairfax I have the book that Viking sent me.  I look at that book every single day as it sits on my shelf.  Those things solidify my decision to yawn about today's stock price.

[djokovic1]

2 hours ago, bearprowler6 said:

There is a reason the market is unwilling to reward Fairfax with  high price to book multiple and it has nothing to do with the market not knowing about the company or not understanding its business model. 

 

Having been extolling the virtues of Fairfax for the last 2 years to anyone who will listen, I have to completely disagree with this.

Most investors I know had never seriously looked at it. Even the ones who knew about Fairfax and insurance and have invested in Berkshire and Markel have not considered Fairfax due to 2010-2020.

If you (or anyone else) thinks 2010-2020 can repeat itself from today's starting point (which I think is the main reason for your concern), then I wouldn't be invested in Fairfax. I think the chance of a lost decade again is close to 0 given the current setup. 

Edited 9 minutes ago by djokovic1

[Milu]

There definitely seems to be a lot of PTSD or scar tissue with the long term Fairfax holders. 10 years of a stock going nowhere would do that to a person. I’ve recently been buying Fairfax for the first time so don’t have any baggage around what the stock did in the past or that it recently had a 20% pullback. It’s still a small position at around 3% of portfolio but I’m hoping to add more over the coming months. I’m still not fully convinced Prem and co have shaken that habit of trying to buy turnaround stories, I thought they had but then seeing them take decent stake in under armour feels like they are back to the RIM/Blackberry days. I’m not sure why they didn’t take a leaf out of buffets playbook and just buy high quality large compounders like Coca Cola, Moodys, Apple etc. if only Prem had a Charlie munger sidekick to help him see the light. Maybe my assessment is wrong and they have genuinely got these type of value traps out of the system. 

Edited 17 minutes ago by Milu