zarley

It's not perfect, but you can use a combination of Google News and Google Reader to create and display company specific Google News headlines in Reader as an RSS stream. For example, you could paste this link: http://www.google.com/finance/company_news?q=NYSE:BRK.B&output=rss into the Google Reader feed subscription field and it will populate Reader with the news stream for Berkshire. It's not not perfect, because I see some sources don't always make it into my company specific news streams and you'll get even passing references to BRK, but it's good for basic real-time news updates.

There are both professional and amateur investors here, so the answer may be a bit different for each group. I'm an amateur investing my own money and some family money. I've been reading and investing for probably 15 years. I got value religion after spending a lot of time reading about Berkshire and finding Parsad's old board on MSN. It's only in the last 5-6 years that I've developed real confidence in what I'm doing. Honestly, weathering the market of 2008/09 and being able to put money to work under those circumstances as well as selling cheap to buy cheaper was a great test, which I feel I passed. I'm no longer overly concerned with "beating the market". It's still the yardstick I use to see if I'm adding value (I am), but it's more about process and making good decisions. Feeling confident that I know what I own and have a good basis for my valuation makes a huge difference for me. If I'm confident about my assessment, it will keep me from second guessing myself as prices go down and allow me to add to positions as appropriate rather than panic about a declining stock price. This is all much more art than science, so I would guess that there will always be doubts. The future's uncertain after all, and you'll never bat 1.000. I think all you can do is keep reading, keep learning, and correct mistakes as quickly as possible.

BRK.a buyback at around 117,260 with price at 119,750 (~2% above buyback) I've got the BRK.b buyback price at around $78.17, so it's a little bit above that right now at $79.25 (~1.4% above buyback). Q1 BRK shareholder equity = 175,997 A equivalent shares = 1.651 BV/A share = $106,600 BV/B share = $71.07 BV/A * 1.1 = $117,260 BV/B * 1.1 = $78.17 While I don't think the estimated buyback price is a real floor (Buffett isn't obligated to buy), I don't really see it getting significantly below that level. I agree that the potential downside is somewhat limited at this point. A market meltdown and/or significant economic downturn would shrink BV, so it's not really a one-way ticket to the upside. But, I'd expect BRK to fare better than most in that kind of scenario. I added a small amount to BRK this morning.

And a link to a "script" for the presentation (The Flaws of Finance) is available at GMO's website. https://www.gmo.com/America/Research/

A nice presentation by James Montier about basic flaws in finance and how they lead to bad outcomes: How bad models, bad behavior, bad incentives, and bad policies interact to create perfect storms for markets How physics envy in finance and the abuse of mathematics endanger our industry What effects these problems have on the finance industry http://annual.cfaconference.org/2012/05/06/live-stream-session-the-flaws-of-finance/

Great links. I read the notes from Boodell; excellent coverage. Close to 29 pages covering 6ish hours of Q&A. Quite a performance by a couple of guys in their 80's. I like the format with the analyst questions thrown in the mix. Buffett was able to answer some specific insurance questions extemporaneously. Makes me think that the breadth and depth of his knowledge and understanding of BRK's operations may be the really irreplaceable thing about Warren.

Thanks for the link. Charlie has to be a tough interview. Standard questions tend toward the obvious, to which Charlie probably has to restrain from blurting out how obvious he finds the answers. Becky looked a bit uncomfortable at times.

Good discussion with Seagate CEO Steve Luczo from Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/04/12/seagate-ceo-luczo-on-drives-zettabytes-flash-and-his-tattoo/ It's a long interview, but worth the read. A couple snippets . . . On how well financial markets value businesses: On flash memory and the exploding need for storage:

It's funny. I've managed to both buy the bottom and sell the top (in relatively small amounts) in the last couple months. While I tend to agree that all the recent activity is a good indication that Lampert is moving into the next phase of SHLD's operations, I get the feeling this was forced on him rather than it being his preferred outcome. All of the recent moves combined with a potential sale of Land's End will have shed some good assets from the core business. What he does with the cash he receives will be interesting to see. It may be a Berkshire moment (positive) or it may just be them bailing water from a sinking ship, trying to stay afloat as long as possible (negative, but less likely I think). I still own a small amount, and if prices get back down to $30-$40 I may buy more, but for now I'm mostly watching.

Orange County, CA Originally from Toledo, OH

This was one of my key take aways from The Snowball. Buffett is incredibly smart. Buffett seems to have a photographic memory for numbers. Buffett is a learning machine, and reads voraciously. Buffett is consumed with investing/running BRK. So, mere mortal, be humble in your aspirations for investing like Buffett. Alice makes the point directly at some point near the end of the book, but I forget exactly where. I liked The Snowball (warts and all) but think most of what Alice writes on her blog and for Bloomberg is nonsense aimed at riling up readers/commentors. It's the nature of the financial "journalism" these days. Whatever gets eyeballs is fit to print, even if the author knows it's twaddle.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gurufocus/2012/03/15/fairfax-ceo-prem-watsas-favorite-picks/

WDC finalizes Hitachi deal: http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/71070/WDC+Completes+HGST+Buyout It took longer and cost more than expected to get through the regulatory hurdles, but it's now a done deal. Need to take some time to see what the details are and what they gave up to finally get it done. Glad to be past it though.

I believe the guys at Loews (L) mentioned expecting a similar process to unfold. If they don't feel too stung by their previous purchases, they will probably see some good opportunities to get more assets cheaply.

One small caveat to this though is that Buffett has not committed to buying at 110%. He may, he may not. I think he's clarified that a couple times. In particularly weak markets he may have better opportunities and he doesn't want traders to think he'll always be there to buy at 110%. With that said, it does seem likely that buying at these levels should result in investment returns at least equal to the growth in BV. But it's not quite riskless.

Given no news, I guess it's just the random machinations of Mr. Market.

Closed up 4% on a sharp late rally. Looks very odd; is there news?

could they not eventually spin the RE off and continue to handle insurance needs of SHLD but also expand their charter at that point creating a public insurance company and investment vehicle? Yes they could. But, Sears RE predates Lampert, which makes me think it's purpose and continued operations are about the insurance needs of the business rather than a Berkshire Hathaway type transformation to insurance as a significant contributor to corporate profitability. There's really no way for us to know. If Lampert's ultimate goal is to remold SHLD into an investment vehicle something like Berkshire Hathaway, how might he do that? Spin the retail operations off into their own business Own the real estate that the sears retailer uses (or any other use if the retail business is considerably smaller) and take the rent as an income stream Own the income stream from the licensed brands Have an insurer and use the float Assuming the retail can be made to work and that the brands have long-term value, that combination might make for an attractive investment vehicle. The insurance float plus a steady stream of rent and royalties might make for the beginnings of a nice mini-Berkshire. In a way pieces of this are already in place, but not in an overt way. And, the cash-burning results of the retail operation are still the big issue to get right.

The most recent debt issue identified selected operating companies as the guarantor subs. This thread: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/for-all-of-you-sears-holdings-longs!/msg69125/#msg69125 hits on the issue a little bit. Last year's 10k and the filings for the debt do add some detail about which subs are guarantors and how the assets and liabilities get split between the guarantor and non-guarantor subs. Although looking at the Sears RE presentation, it may all be about ensuring the asset base of the insurance operation rather than a scheme by Lampert to bankrupt the "bad" sears and run off with the good assets through the back door. What are the chances they've been quietly cultivating a world class insurance sub that can turn into Lampert's Berkshire Hathaway? My gut tells me it's probably unlikely, but not out of the question.

In the long run Parsad, you are quite right. If they can't get the retail right, there's no guarantee that the hidden value will ever get released, it may just get burned away. But, the conference call's focus on liquidity and flexibility, the store sales, and the rights offering all point to a more direct effort to unlock/realize/monetize the asset values. I hope they release the valuation study they did to set the offering price; I'd love to see it. In short, today's announcements basically amount to: - Liquidity concerns -- not a problem - Asset values -- probably a lot higher than you think

This is a fair point, but I'm less inclined to condemn them for it. No, they're not Buffett or Hamblin Watsa, or any other top flight investment team. But, they're on the record for being more interested in control situations than looking for minority stakes in public companies. If you're interested in aggressive and opportunistic investment operations, L is probably not for you. At the end of the day, I do think they have the ability to grow IV per share decently over time, and I do think buying at a discount to IV will give you a good opportunity to achieve good long-term results. To my mind, they're involved in durable businesses that will still be needed in 5 years or ten years. If I had to hold L for 5 years with no chance to sell, would I? Yeah, probably (which is not true for all my holdings, but good test). They're not going anywhere and the value will grow over time and the share count will shrink over time and the weighing machine will probably realize the value soon enough for my purposes.

Shah, reading through and listening to the conference calls, you start to see some really common themes: -long-term perspective -slow but steady buybacks -conservative financial management (reduce debt, grow cash, retire shares) -willingness to sit and do nothing If you go back to 2008/2009, I think you'd see CNA trading at a smaller % of book value than it currently does, and the same questions about buying it in on the conference calls. Although he never really expands on it, Jim Tisch states that there are benefits to CNA being public and downplays the likelihood of the holding company owning it outright. I take it at face value when he says having public market valuation for some of the subs is useful as a barometer for L shareholders. He keeps saying, it so I'd guess he believes it to be true. As for the limited buybacks in Q4, I got the impression that they may have a use for the cash that they aren't ready to disclose and that limited their buybacks. Jim jumped in quickly to say that he wasn't going to answer that question and it was best not to discuss hypotheticals about why they didn't buy more shares. I think they manage it very much like an intergenerational family business. Over the longer term, I don't think it matters much to them whether CNA is 100% owned or 90% owned. I think they like the security and flexibility having extra cash around gives them, certainly more than that last 10% of CNA.

I think biaggio and Myth pretty much nail it. Are the Tisch's annoyed about where L is trading. Yeah, probably a bit (probably more annoyed about where natgas is trading at the moment, though). But, I don't think there's any rush on their part to "do something." Just keep retiring stock and let the family ownership grow. So long as BV per share keeps growing as it has (low double digits) the price will track it (imperfectly) upwards and the Tisches slowly get richer over time. Bought at the right price, small minority investors can do reasonably well at the same time.

Real time buy and sell calls cost extra. ;D Although, I'm still slightly underwater on L . . . watching that paint dry.