Parsad

Looks like Berkshire actually contacted the STB regarding the two small railroads, and said that they had been overlooked. Berkshire will sell them by the end of the year. STB should actually thank Berkshire for coming forward and correcting the oversight, since the STB did not notice anything when the BNSF deal was consummated. Cheers! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/berkshire-hathaway-selling-2-short-150233989.html

He's too smart so far. There is nothing to implicate him other than that his firm has a culture of unethical conduct within its ranks. Hopefully eventually they nail him. Cheers!

In regards to the "Lifetime Member" tag. Everyone is a lifetime member once enrolled, but I will switch over Regular Members to Lifetime Member status once they hit the required number of posts. It doesn't mean anything different for members, other than how much you've contributed to the board by posting...which is really the foundation of the board, and does mean alot. Cheers!

It's ok, now you know how Kobe Bryant feels! ;D Speaking of which...I'm pretty excited to see this Lakers team in action...another ring! Cheers!

I would say neither knew what was going to happen: http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=IBM+Interactive#symbol=ibm;range=19960611,20121001;compare=dell;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined; And since when is stock price solely an indicator of anything? Be it five years ago or fifteen years ago. Cheers!

I don't think prizes are necessarily a good incentive for people to post. For those who feel $20 or $100 or a book is worth it, they will post, but I don't think it will incentivize those for whom those items aren't as valuable. For example, there are people on this board that buy a book almost every week, who are incredibly intelligent and very good investors...why would they be incentivized to compete for a book they already own and have read? I've always found that the best incentive is approval by your peers and other investors you admire. The people who post on here, do so because they have a sense of community, they find value in the ideas themselves, and are passionate about finding nuggets of value. I'm not interested in getting the lowest common denominators competing for $20 because they would not be incentivized to contribute any other way. We attract good investors and ideas, because we like the people we are sharing them with...whether we agree or disagree...there is a level of respect for other investors on here and those that read the board. They don't post and share their ideas here for the possibility of nominal prizes. The prize is finding the idea and seeing it unfold before other investors eyes...especially if they couldn't see it! ;D Cheers!

Any company making acquisitions could do the same. Be it Berkshire, Fairfax, Markel, Microsoft, Google, Dell, etc. Cheers!

Here's another analysis of Dell using the same theory...assume the PC business is worthless, and do a valuation estimate! Cheers! http://seekingalpha.com/article/897521-dell-too-cheap-to-ignore?source=yahoo

Ha, ha! I know Kraven, I guess it could have been higher, but the main point was to just eliminate the spam. Besides, they are better off giving up 5 supersizes at McDonalds and using the board instead. More meat, less fat! ;D Cheers!

Hi Folks, After considerable discussion and thought about this, I finally had to implement a one-time $10 fee for new members. First, I resisted the idea after originally posting about it here and hearing from many of you, so I started changing the registration questions every couple of weeks...that helped briefly, but after one spammer gets in, they start flooding the registration with the correct answers. Normally, I clear out the registrations every week that made it past the forum spam filter, but my brother got married last week, and I was briefly on and off on here, and there was suddenly over 80 registrations piled up...and those are the ones that made it past the filter! I finally had enough and had to implement the one-time fee for new members, as I cannot spend so much time running through the posts and registration. I don't think a $10 one-time fee would be onerous to any potential membership that will be able to use the board for free for the next 10+ years. But it is high enough to stop spam registrations! New members will follow the normal registration process by clicking on the "Register" tab above the log-in. After they have registered, they need to click on the "Donation" tab and pay $10 through Paypal. The email of the member registration and the email on the Paypal payment should match. If they don't, then the registrant should just note in the payment that they registered under which email address. Once the payment is received, the registration is approved and the member can use the board forever. Thanks very much! Sanjeev

Article on John Malone. Cheers! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/meet-the-largest-landowner-in-america.html

Under existing Basel 3 requirements, they are already above what is needed. There is some discussion regarding whether they tighten rules even further against risk-weighted assets, in particular derivatives, but that has not been finalized yet. If tighter requirements are needed, they have until 2019 to build the capital, so they don't need to hit that level anytime soon. Over the next couple of years, they could shrink their book further, sell off some more assets or even build capital through existing cash flows. Cheers!

Berkshire owns majority stakes in two other railroads other than BNSF, through Marmon and Mid-American. Cheers! http://www.joc.com/class-i-railroads/stb-orders-berkshire-hathaway-divest-two-railroads

Go to jail...do not pass go...do not incriminate Steve Cohen. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-28/ex-sac-analyst-said-to-plan-guilty-plea-in-insider-case.html

They are selling more PC's through SME channels. Consumer demand for PC's is waning, but their end-to-end users are buying more for their businesses...so as a percentage of revenues it remains flat or slightly elevated. They discussed this in their Q1 2012 Conference Call. It may be possible to continue to sell significant amounts of PC's as they increase the commercial & SME client base. So those saying that DELL's PC business is dying are correct...but only from the consumer demand side. Businesses are still buying laptops and desktops...for now anyways. Cheers!

Unbelievable! They weren't very clear, but perhaps they meant it in the context of another line in the preceeding paragraph: The new method would increase the balance sheets of U.S. banks because of differences in how derivatives are treated. Perhaps, but the U.S. has not passed any tighter restrictions yet...so for all intents and purposes, calculations should be based on existing U.S. & Basel III standards. If and when they do, that may require additional capital, but I think the article is misleading at this point. Banks have until 2019 to complete fully-phased in Basel III requirements, including the 2.5% buffer for large institutions. It's friggin' 2012! Cheers!

Another article that gets the information wrong: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-26/u-s-banks-leverage-should-be-halved-to-cut-risks-bair-says.html?cmpid=yhoo Using Basel’s narrower capital definition, the two largest U.S. banks would have to raise about $100 billion of capital to comply with Bair’s leverage recommendation. JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) would have a leverage ratio of 5.8 percent under the new capital definition, and No. 2 Bank of America Corp.’s would be 5.9 percent. Neither bank has yet reported what their ratios would be under the new Basel method of calculating assets. I can't speak for JPM, but BAC in their 2nd Q earnings release said: http://newsroom.bankofamerica.com/press-release/corporate-and-financial-news/bank-america-reports-second-quarter-2012-net-income-25-bi Tier 1 Common Capital Ratio Under Basel 3 Estimated at 8.10 Percent at June 30, 2012 Cheers!

b warrants are too much leverage for me--maybe there's just not enough people interested in them? I agree with hardincap: most likely not enough volume for the prices to be liquid. You also have the time arbitrage involved in the valuation, so it is not going to move as much since the exercise price is very, very high and the length of time to exercise is decreasing. Cheers!

There was no basis...he flat out said that "Fairfax is a fraud and he thinks it is a zero." I was there at the first Value Investing Congress in New York when he said it, and have not/will not ever attend another one because they allow jackasses like him or Herb Greenberg to speak! And no, having other speakers like Mohnish or Guy that I respect does not make it any better. Who you associate with says alot, and people like Chanos or Greenberg are like the stuff I usually wipe off my shoe on the grass after stepping in it! Yes, I hold a grudge better than Buffett! ;D Chanos assumed Fairfax's offshore subsidiaries were involved in hiding gigantic reinsurance losses, which wasn't true. There were insurance losses, but they were in the open and not hidden in any offshore subsidiary. He was getting information from these "contracted researchers"...I'm guessing that one was working as an analyst for a research firm, releasing reports ahead of publication to hedge funds, and is now dead...and the other worked as an analyst for a large Australian hedge fund, used to call up large shareholders and tell them to sell their FFH shares, and now runs a blog. These cretins were also the ones behind the articles by Peter Eavis, Herb Greenberg, Fabrice Taylor, et al. I can't believe these morons are still employed...says alot for business journalism! Cheers!

James, I would agree with you here, except: He called Prem a "fraud" in front of hundreds of hedge fund managers and in the media. That wasn't just outsourcing the research, but libel and slander. He's not some small shop lackey, but had billions under management and a very high profile...thus not only was it unprofessional in every manner, he was completely culpable alongside those that were manipulating the stock and information in the media. Cheers!

When we checked Chanos' average back in 2004, I don't think he was right on 2/3rds of his ideas. In fact, the numbers looked like he was wrong on most of them. But hey, "negative correlation to the indices" was how his purpose in life was explained to me by those that liked the guy. His clients were willing to pay very large fees for that service. I would have thought low-cost Bear ETF's would have put him out of business by now. Cheers!

It's been pretty brutal. And a number of players have been put in dangerous, compromising positions. With these refs, you don't know what is going to happen, because players are playing fast and loose with the hits. I've seen a lot of retribution hits during play, and roughing after plays. The professional refs are much better at getting this stuff under control. Cheers!

So far five former hedge fund managers at SAC have been tied to insider trading allegations brought about by the U.S. government. But still of course this isn't a firm with a culture of unethical and illegal conduct! Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-25/sac-capital-fund-manager-said-to-be-uncharged-conspirator.html

We are loading up. It will be one of the best investments we make in the next couple of years. Cheers! Why is this your best investment? See post in thread below: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/investment-ideas/ostk-overstock-com-(short)/msg86861/#msg86861 Cheers!

I don't pay any attention to what others say. The guy is short Overstock, yet the stock has risen nearly 100% since he began shorting. There are always detractors to good ideas...because they have a hard time distinguishing between a good/bad business and price/value. The logical argument is always Overstock is not as good a business as Amazon or Ebay, so why would you invest? Because at some point it gets cheap enough, even if it isn't as good a business, where there is significant value that can be realized. This is what happened when the shorts were squeezing Fairfax. That Fairfax was not as good an insurer as Berkshire...so what! Or that BAC has huge litigation issues and loan losses...well at some price who gives a rat's ass, as long as the business can settle litigation and provision for losses from existing cash flows...and is sellling well under tangible book. You are watching it unfold at Dell now too. Dell's business is inferior to IBM's and tablets are dominating laptops or desktops as the argument goes...our Apple fiends are well versed in this line of thought. Well that's completely true, but at some point the existing discounted cash flows (even if their formerly dominant lines of business are declining) become cheaper than the market price of the company. It's not rocket science, but the logical (if you can call it that) reasoning that average investor's tend to apply is that the business is of lesser quality or that the model is outdated. It just doesn't matter if the company is cheap enough and their cash flows survive longer than the assumptions you've implemented. One of my close friends and a very good investment manager told me I'm going to take it up the butt with Dell...and that was the PG/clean version. ;D But I don't care what he thinks, just like I won't be persuaded by arguments from anyone else...the cash flows are robust enough and solid enough, where frankly, investors are wrong at these prices. I think Dell has 50% upside in the short-term and over 100% upside over two years. We'll see what happens in a year or two...I may very well be eating my words...but I've done the analysis, and I cannot veer away from the logical investment framework that is telling me that the company is dirt cheap. Cheers!