FFH Q2 conf call transcript

[omagh]

http://seekingalpha.com/article/153023-fairfax-financial-holdings-limited-q2-2009-earnings-call-transcript?page=-1

Q2 2009 Earnings Call Transcript

July 31, 2009 8:30 am ET

Executives

Bradley Martin - VP, COO and Corporate Secretary

Prem Watsa - Chairman and CEO

Greg Taylor - VP and CFO

 

[Guest longinvestor]

<And then finally our debt maturity profile, you will see that we have no major debt maturities until 2017. Obviously, we have very low refinancing risk in these markets in addition to our very substantial cash resources at the holding company.> :D From Greg Taylor's comments in the transcript.

 

This is so profound for the times we live in! Almost eerie relative to just about anyone else out there.

 

This should allow shareholders to sleep well. The investment gains etc are for our dream zone.

[Zorrofan]

We think we are in a long and deep recession, with many unintended consequences. But as value investors, we continue to see some excellent opportunities and common stocks and bonds and we're taking advantage of them. This is a market of stocks and bonds and for those willing to look there continues to be many long-term opportunities available.

 

The current period reminds us of the 1975 to 1996 time period. We had many ideas then and it is no different now.

 

This is a golden opportunity to gifted investors like Prem et al......

 

cheers

Zorro

[20ppy]

Prem must have good reasons to have mentioned this period: 1975 - 1996. Warren once wrote an article about the 17 flat years in the stock market from 1965 - 1982.

 

Anyway, here are some data for thought:

 

1975 - 1982: CPI: 9 6 6 7 11 13 10 6

1975 - 1982: stock market went flat (continued since 1965) while GDP from 1.6 to 3.5 (trillion). 1965 GDP 0.7.

 

1983 - 1996: CPI: 3 4 3 2 4 4 5 5 4 3 3 3 3 3

1983 - 1996: stock market went from 1000 to 6000 while GDP from 3.5 to 7.8.