IceCreamMan

You could try: Insert > Text > Text Box Drag the corner Or: Right-click a cell > New Note

Nothing new here, but collects a few old quotes from/about John Malone, Warren Buffett, and Bill Gates. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/warren-buffett-bill-gates-microsoft-stock-ipo-john-malone-liberty-2021-6-1030496996

Yes. I don't understand whether you valued them at market or built a DCF for each equity holding. One method would be to exclude all investment gains, losses, and dividends. Then value the equity portfolio at market value.

I'm guessing businesses that advertise on Facebook would consider alternate channels/networks to be significantly inferior (i.e. not suitable substitutes). Maybe users, too, have a similar feeling. But, I have no idea.

When I think of pricing power, I think of inelastic demand of customers. (I'm looking at it more from the customer decision-making side than the supplier competition side.) I think customers tend to have inelastic demand when there are no good substitutes, or when the cost is small compared to their income, or when there are other costs to consider, like switching costs. A lack of substitutes might be caused by monopoly (no good alternative), brand (including the signaling value), or significant perceived quality difference. I'm using the word "monopoly" loosely here in order to include companies that make a product that consumers consider differentiated enough that they feel there are no real substitutes. Under this loose definition... Monopoly: AAPL, pharma (patents), MCO, SPGI, MSGE, MSGN, FICO, GOOG, EBAY, NTDOY, whatever media company has the must-watch show? Brand: luxury goods, consumer packaged goods, KO, NKE, MSCI, V, MA Perceived quality difference: FB, CMG, TSLA, HSY, SBUX Switching costs: AMZN, MSFT, CRM, cable companies and banks to some degree? I'm sure others can add to these lists and/or correct me where I'm wrong.

I would recommend Warren Buffett's letters to shareholders. Eventually, learning how to read financial statements is necessary, but I wouldn't start with it because it's very dry and you risk getting bored and losing interest. It would be like trying to learn to play an instrument before listening to music or learning grammar before having a conversation.

This is an interesting hypothesis. If this were true, wouldn't we see some empirical data showing that large caps outperform small caps in some markets/indexes? Let's keep in mind that "large market cap" is not synonymous with "large company." When you buy a market-cap weighted index, you are sizing each position in proportion to how high the stock's valuation is... by definition. There may be some "fundamentally weighted" indexes out there that you could use to more accurately overweight large companies.

Company ABC is a typical company. Sometimes its stock is overvalued, sometimes it's undervalued. When it's overvalued, the market cap-weighted ETF holds more of it. When it's undervalued, the market cap-weighted ETF holds less of it. The valuation-driven mean reversion causes a drag on the market cap-weighted ETF's returns. On the other hand, the equal-weighted ETF sells shares when they've appreciated relatively fast and buys shares when they've appreciated relatively slowly. (Win for the equal-weight). Company XYZ is a company with a durable competitive advantage that earns superior returns over time and its stock price appreciates at an above-average rate over a long period of time. The market cap-weighted ETF allows the weighting of XYZ to increase over time, while the equal-weighed ETF does not. Win for the cap-weight. Sort of a Bayesian weighting approach that says "if the stock has appreciated, maybe it's a compounder, so let's increase the weighting." Overall, the performance of the two ETFs seems to depend on the relative prevalence of companies like ABC vs. XYZ and the strength of the two factors-- valuation & ROIC. In other words, for a basket of stocks with similar ROIC but wide dispersion in the tendency to get over- or under-valued, I'd expect equal-weighted to outperform. For a basket of stocks with wide dispersion in ROIC, I'd expect market cap-weighted to outperform. Does that make sense?

Growth rate of what? FCF? What are you using for your starting FCF? Why are you adding book value to the present value of future cash flows? Most of book value measures assets that are used in generating the future cash flows. How are you treating the equity portfolio? Valuing it at market value? Including or excluding dividends in your FCF figures? Remember to exclude mark-to-market changes. Over what periods? You're going to need to adjust net income. Berkshire's net income includes investment gains and losses.

Berkshire Hathaway

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/berkshire-hathaways-ceo-in-waiting-has-a-lot-of-warren-buffett-in-him-plus-more-11620156155

2020 Revenues: $31.7 mil Operating Expenses: $22.2 mil Gross income from operations: $9.5 mil G&A: $6.2 mil Operating Income: $3.3 mil Pardee Resources is basically a royalty company. Why are operating expenses 70% of revenue? Why is G&A $6.2 million or 65% of gross income from operations?

It sounded like RichardG was comparing puts and calls that were each X% OTM, i.e. different strike prices from one another. A call option on an equity that's 10% OTM will usually have lower implied volatility than a put option on the same equity that's 10% OTM. Put/call parity works for options of the same strike, but not different strikes.

Would it make sense for this volume to be accounted for by Berkshire repurchases? It seems like repurchasing the A shares would strengthen the voting power of non-selling shareholders like Buffett.

Maybe he doesn't have a webcam.