Jurgis

Interim statement: http://hsprod.investis.com/servlet/HsPublic?context=ir.access&ir_option=RNS_NEWS&item=2395891671498752&ir_client_id=319 I did not have time to look at this in depth yet. Shares jumped 20% or so.

Go and raid merkhet's mailbox for free couponz while he's on vacation.

If only the Democrats would nominate Biglari to run against him. That would be perfect. USA by Biglari. Could also bring a new meaning to centerfold... oh wait, that fellow Clinton already done that! 8)

If Carter can put solar panels on White House, can Trump put on a neon lights and roulette wheel?

It has tightened up a bit over the years, IIRC. But, I think, the meeting invite you get in the mail should do the trick. If in doubt, give FFH a call. I don't think I got anything in the mail in the past or present. I'll have to look at what (if anything) was in the brokerage online voting email or links.

It's not clear that's true. Would have depended on CDS pricing and he might have made losses permanent. But I see that potentially by selling let's say 1/3 at a loss, he still might have survived 1-3 years and still made something like 2/3 of the gain. I'll go with that since I don't think I want to spend time evaluating possible CDS pricing and various outcomes. :)

randomep: I think you switched the discussion topic. I was not discussing whether Burry (and anyone else who shorted housing market) was/is a great investor. You build up argument about that, which I may disagree with, but that's not what I was talking about at all. Just to clarify, what I am saying is that IMO Burry's position was quite risky because he was paying the premiums and therefore it was very timing dependent. I acknowledge the difference from Canada/Australia/China in terms of mortgage/CDO setups. But even with that the situation could have gone longer for 1-3 years (perhaps) and the result for Burry could have been disastrous. This does not mean that he's bad investor or that his investment was just luck. It was close to a binary trade (because of premiums, investor revolt, etc.) and IMHO a risky binary trade. That's all I am saying. :) Regarding the topic that you are writing about, that's a toughie in abstract (or even within the context of housing trade). I might argue that people who pile into binary idea are not great investors, but I could also argue that they are. In the end, if they are right, they can retire and ride into sunset and who cares if the result was luck or whatever. And if they continue, they may or may not blow up later. Some people change with experience, some don't. Some of them allocated a lot of capital (and risked a lot) some of them didn't. Some people ride from one success to another quite different success, some don't. But based on VRX, the fact that a lot of famous names pile into idea (while other famous names oppose it), does not make it a great/bad idea, does not make people who succeed/fail automatically great/bad or lucky/unlucky. It all depends. :)

And it is very sad if 21st century majority of America follow some kind of twisted version of a fairy tale written 2000 years ago in Middle East. You'd think humans would think and be rational.

Been tried in other countries. Usually doesn't work well. President has to work with Congress/etc., which does require more than just intelligence, it requires connections, understanding of the power structures, etc. For better or worse, IMO, politician is a career just like other career. There is a reason a new lawyer or manager or doctor or whatever is usually not suited to take on the most complicated jobs in their area. Same with politicians. Sure, there can be geniuses who do great, but on average a career politician will do better than someone who isn't. Expecting Mr. Smith to go and change Washington is naive and works only in movies. Possibly unfortunately.

Personally, I would rather see more parties in USA. Although multiparty systems have their own issues, but at least it solves the problem of having to vote for someone just because there's only two choices and both unattractive. E.g. in my native country I vote (when I vote) for somewhat economically liberal (i.e. free market with limits and social contracts) and somewhat US-meaning-liberal (i.e. not conservative old fashioned religious-values) party. There is no such choice in USA pretty much. There might be local politicians who lean that way, but not presidential candidates. So, yeah, if I had a vote, I'd choose Democrats just because of the Christian right Republican fringe, which is way more unacceptable to me than the issues I have with Democrats. BTW, though I don't like the political system, I don't like a lot of politicians, I don't have a better suggestion. In some sense democracy is still the least-bad system out there. Sure if we were all enlightened and could propose/select/get enlightened leaders some other way, I'd be happy, but I don't see such a way anytime soon.

LOL, as expected everyone is 20/20 Monday morning quarterback in explaining how Burry & co. could have never been wrong. Carry on, guys, keep your cognitive biases as much as you want.

Since the anti-Democrats here decided to make their voices heard, I'll state that I completely agree with Buffett: Hillary Clinton is the best candidate in this election. No, she's not perfect and not even very attractive from policy standpoints, but there's no one better. Jeb Bush would have been probably the least bad choice from Republican camp, but he's gone now. But then I am one who has "taxation without representation", so I don't even get to vote. Peace.

Move to Canada. Canada has the worst government since inception. In the poll! How do you change your vote in the thread's poll... I understood that you asked about the poll, but since this thread is ::) :o ::) anyway, I thought it was funny to point you in the right direction. I mean in the northern direction. :P Edit: no, poll votes for this poll are not changeable. Probably the author did not actually allow it.

Move to Canada.

+1 to writser. I also worry about rising nationalism. However, about Trump - I don't support him, but I think I prefer him to the Christian right ideologues of Republican party. Trump is a clown and a55hole, but he's somewhat "our" a55hole. Just look at his past opinions about hot topics: he opined with Democrats more than with Christian right. Of course, it's impossible to rely on his past opinions, since he's a loose canon and he can change his opinion tomorrow. But I'd rather have that than someone who has these opinions set in stone and will never change them. I think that people comparing Trump to Hitler are taking an easy and false strawman shortcut. This is not something to be proud of.

but his paintings are well known. And they may have done pretty well since 1901 or so.

I watched the movie today. I thought it was great. My wife liked it a lot too. So Lewis says that after "Liar's Poker" he was inundated by letters of young people asking how to make it in Wall Street. I wonder if after "Big Short", there is a similar wave of "what can I short to make $Billions". Edit: Also reading the Canadian RE thread, I wonder how much of Burry's & co success was luck. The US housing market looking back was not horribly overvalued - or at least no more so than a bunch of other markets that have not crashed for longer. The music could have played couple years more - and most of the shorts would have gone bust, especially the ones who had to pay fees and/or put collateral.

What about the Fairfax annual meeting? Do they require some proof of stock ownership? Registration?

i'll have a go at this, and others can follow. i view the resolution process through the lens of an investor. i believe the market will react very strongly if perry is reversed, and somewhat less strongly if it is vacated and sent back to district court for fact finding. even if reversed, perry would be sent back down for the district court to fashion a remedy. so even if appeals court reverses say by fall, you may not have the district court order a remedy until early 2017. even if govt loses the appeal, the govt will ask for an en banc hearing of the court of appeals (unless it is 3-0 against, if i recollect correctly), and will ask for cert to SCOTUS, which may be denied. but my point is that you should have an actionable exit point at the time the cir ct reverses or vacates, and i would be surprised if the market would not react strongly until all appeals have been exhausted. so your maturity analysis is subject to "prepayment" if you will. Fair enough, but IMHO "prepayment" will be possibly 0.5 (0.5 par for prefs, for example) of the full win. So, yeah, you get shorter timeframe (possibly), but you also likely get smaller gain. BTW, I'm using a very simple arbitrage model on this: Current price: 4.5 Probabilities Target price 50 45.5 0.15 6.825 Loss price 0 4.5 0.85 3.825 3 Time period in years 4 18 Gain in annualized percents: 0.166666667 Note that this assumes 15% probability of success, which is IMO quite low, 4 years of workout, par at workout. It still gives ~16% annualized return. But see what happens if I cut the time to 1.5 years, $20 at workout (and cut loss to $2 instead of $0), keeping the same probability: Current price: 4.5 Probabilities Target price 20 15.5 0.15 2.325 Loss price 2 2.5 0.85 2.125 0.2 Time period in years 1.5 6.75 Gain in annualized percents: 0.02962963 The estimated return goes down to 3% annualized. This just shows that partial "prepayment" is not that great scenario for investors. BTW, if we change 4 years to 8 years in the original calculation, the expected return drops to 8%. So time matters. Though, of course, probabilities matter way more (if probability of success is 20%, estimated return is 16% even if we have to wait 8 years). For everyone: I am not claiming that 15% probability is right, you can plug in your own probabilities, timelines, prices, etc. ;)

Part what you said is correct. Buffett tries to get the good stuff. However, it is incorrect that he "just ignores the bad stuff". He did quite a few reorgs in his captive businesses. Buffalo news, National Indemnity (and/or other his early insurance companies), GenRe, NetJets, and a whole slew of recent Tracy Britt Cool helicopter restructurings. He even forced KO CEO out through boardroom politics. So don't get fooled with "he does nothing" image.

I think I asked this before, but just in case you legal types want to think about it: what is the "maturity" distribution of court decisions including appeals? The same way you look at debt maturities, I'd say you should look at court decision maturities and possible appeals all the way (to Supreme Court?). Then you can build up the best-cases (without settlements which can't be guessed), average cases and worst cases. Very roughly, if your worst case maturity is ~3 years, this is possibly great investment. If it's 5 years, it's becoming so so. If it's 8-10 years, then it's not that good (and also adding risk of any financial complications during that timeframe - although I am not a lawyer and I can't evaluate how these would affect judgement of actions preceding the complications).

I have to admit that I am holding some from higher cost. I am not adding. I want to see how Ackman deals with the current situation. I am not a staunch believer in him. I think he has some good ideas and the "platform" companies though ridiculed may be sensible concept. He overpaid though (and I overpaid for PSH :) ) and VRX was/is a double mess. It is likely that individual companies - PAH? - might be better investments than PSH. However, I think we should ask Sanjeev to merge this with PSH thread in investment ideas: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/investment-ideas/pshne-pershing-square-holdings/msg253137/#msg253137

Wait, you mean that the white van that I saw outside my house with letter A on it was in my imagination?

Not a rant. Good observations.

+1 on what Uccmal said. Also, if Prem wants 100% guarantee of survival in GD, he should not be investing in Sandridge, Blackberry, Greek banks, etc.