Parsad

CNN visits Buffett's office. Cheers! http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2012/12/26/n-warren-buffett-office-tour.cnnmoney

Ok, time to lock this one up! Cheers!

I just bought a brand new 16GB black iPhone 5 through Telus for completely free on renewal of my 3-year contract! So either Telus is subsidizing the cost, or Apple is going to eat it on the net margin side. They were offering that deal at $79 after a special $100 Christmas for the iPhone 5, but I hardballed them into nothing, as well as unlimited text, incoming calls and national long-distance. Very nice phone...just wish the screen was at least another 0.5" bigger. Cheers!

Daphne doesn't post that much, but she's been a board member almost since we started the old MSN BRK Board. She knows everything about Fairfax as well. Perhaps, Daphne and some of our other female boardmembers could enlighten the men on here...myself included! Cheers!

Hey, we're all here! Rk, put the bang-bangs away. Even the site didn't go down. ;D Cheers!

You guys do realize that Buffett & Berkshire bought an MLM business a long time ago...The Pampered Chef. Cheers!

Freeport State Bank repaid it's $301,000 loan with $61,910 in dividends. TARP, one of the most successful government programs in history! Cheers! http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/12/20/tarps-smallest-recipient-repays-treasury-reaps-62000/?mod=yahoo_hs

Still manageable, but it would mean more in reserves. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-20/banks-loan-loss-reserves-seen-jumping-50-under-fasb-proposal.html?cmpid=yhoo

Hey, 2 out of 3 ain't bad. Nice to see Jefferies and Bank of America getting some big business. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-20/nyc-picks-underwriters-including-bank-of-america-and-jefferies.html?cmpid=yhoo

I don't know much about Herbalife other than seeing the products, but I would take Ackman's analysis with a grain of salt until you do your own due diligence. MLM is not a pyramid scheme in any manner...it depends on how the overrides and compensation is actually dispersed. You would have to examine each MLM business individually. I plan on examining Herbalife over the weekend and seeing exactly how they account for everything. Ackman has been wrong before...remember the blowout on Target! So do your own due diligence and then decide for yourself. MLM in itself is no different than the broadly used override compensation structure of most financial, insurance and investment bank businesses. The broker/dealer network in Canada is pretty much similar to any MLM structure. The dealer's get a cut of the broker's business, and the broker's get overrides on their junior brokers. Just the number of levels are lower in the override compensation structure, whereas MLM structures can get quite deep. Cheers!

Thank God! Those "Ri-DQ-ulous" commercials were getting ridiculous. Cheers! http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/news/2012/12/20/dairy-queen-picks-new-advertising-agency.html?ana=yfcpc

I'm constantly flabbergasted by some of the talking heads...mainly Rosenberg, El Erian and Faber. They seem to flip flop as much as Mr. Market! Here's Rosenberg's most recent comments...he thinks 2013 is the year to put cash to work, as cash is now bad. The huge run-up in the stock market for the last 3 years wasn't good enough, I guess! Cheers! http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/market-outlook/rosenberg-sees-2013-as-the-year-to-put-cash-to-work/article6547075/

Just checking to see how many nutjobs we have on here, or do many people just get prepared for any sort of normal calamity and not just the end of the world! Personally, I've always got enough food, water, blankets, propane, etc in my house to last me for about a month...always prepared for a short-term crisis. By the way, for our resident nutjobs, Australia, Fiji, New Zealand et al are still there, and they are a day ahead. ;D Cheers!

Yes, the Elon Musk one is very good. In fact, it's probably one of the best shows any of these business channels produce. The Steve Jobs one and Google one were terrific as well. Cheers!

Not sure, but there is at BAC already a 50 bps ($7.5b) buffer for legal settlements (that's $7.5b in excess of reserves). Their worst case putback estimate is: $5b from monolines above reserves $1b from GSE's above reserves They've also got about another $10B coming in 2013 from excess cash flows, including what I've already estimated for buyback/dividends, partly boosted because of cost-cutting, efficiencies and reductions in staffing. That $10B is another layer of reserves if required, without affecting their capital ratios one iota, payouts, operations or anything else related to their business. That number increases in 2014 by another $4B or so. As long as the world doesn't blow up, they will be able to handle their legacy issues without much difficulty and maintain their capital ratios. Cheers!

For those that have not seen this, here is Bloomberg's Game Changers on Buffett. Thanks to Shai for sending me the link! Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/video/92027217-warren-buffett-revealed-bloomberg-game-changers.html

You're probably right on with regulators' thinking - but isn't this what required capital ratios are supposed to be for? I think the capital ratios are probably established assuming a healthy earnings state. So basically if 8.5% is where they want a healthy bank to be maintaining during good times, they might want to pad it with additional buffer if the bank is not yet healthy (earnings wise) to begin with. How to quantify it though? Well, say that LAS is burning through 10b a year of earnings and maybe over the next two years it will be a total of 15b burned before LAS is all sorted out. Well that's comparable to a 100 bps capital buffer. I think BAC's capitalization is fine. They've got a half percent buffer...which is probably closer to 0.75% by December 31st. Regulators believe that they only needed a 1% systemic buffer relative to their peers, so there must be a reason behind that decision...I'm guessing it's the amount of liquidity in the deposit base they have and the amount of work they are doing on the loan and cost-cutting side. Here's my guess...I think they will be allowed to return $6-7B in capital for 2013...$3-3.5B in buybacks and $3-3.5B in dividends. Cheers!

2nd quarter restatement filed. Cheers! http://ir.stockpr.com/chanticleerholdings/company-news/detail/413

I hope this doesn't mean the fed is going to keep the buybacks/dividends at much lower levels than other banks for another year, to "prove" the consistent earnings. Probably a tighter leash than WFC or JPM, but they'll be allowed to return capital. JPM has to actually raise capital to reach the buffer levels, whereas BAC is already well above. So assume both companies will have to use significant amounts of cash flow for non-dividend, non-buyback issues...BAC (litigation and loan losses)...JPM (raising capital levels). Moynihan is just stating that the bulk of the capital return won't happen until almost all of the legacy issues are behind them. But there is enough behind them now, with settlement precedents set, where they will be able to return more capital regardless. Cheers!

There's been lots of cheer for months and months, but the stock never moved until now. Don't worry Baggio, it just feels nervous because the stock has run up. The fundamentals all state that the stock should continue to move up till at least tangible book based on what is happening. I think you'll see that shortly after the stress test results come out and their buyback/dividend information is released. Cheers!

Except Markel used overvalued stock in the deal, and both LUK & JEF were undervalued relatively the same. Cheers!

No, but he owns a big chunk along with David Rocker. Cheers!

Alot of them are falling...some of the big ones still yet to fall, but getting closer. Cheers!

Knight to be sold to Getco with Jefferies assisting in the financing. Cheers! http://www.cnbc.com/id/100325960

That guy got it wrong. Byrne still owns a ton of shares through his investment company...White Plains Investments. Cheers!