MarioP

Same thing in eastern Canada. I just heard a spot at the radio from a door and window maker : « Come see us with your pay check stub and we will pay you 10% more »

I find it special that we had a gain of 16% on those results. For me there was nothing special in it, just the consequences of the good moves during last year. Bay street seems to rediscover this company and say : "hey these guys are really doing what they told!" There is even a 20M$ earning to come from highway 407 when the stay at home order is over. And the important cashflow from Oil and gas division and the payment from LSTK project. Again there is nothing special to do to gain this. Just don't do anything foolish. It will be interesting to follow it into the next quarter.

Brk, AAPL, ATD.B (alimentation couche tard, Canada) at a lower entry price I would have MSFT, COST and SHOP in the mix. At actual price I’m happy with the 3 mentionned for 12% CARG

I never thought that earning in operating compagnies have an effect on underwriting ratio. So they can write coverage at the same price than Markel or Fairfax and have a better underwriting ratio. Now i understand even more the huge advantage of buying bond like company in the insurance subsidiary. I always tough that investment revenus wasn't include in the underwriting ratio just in earnings. And I follow Berkshire since 1990 :-\ Every body talking about breaking up Berkshire never mentioned that the insurance operations will be worth less if BRK sell BNSF.

Superb ! your timing the market definitely beat the timing in the market for the buy-and-hold folks. I don’t like the term market timing. It’s all about value and luck. Just like buying in january has nothing to do with the market. There is value in the subs not reflected in the price. So it seems a good entry point with little risk.

Agreed. However, there are some years when Fairfax will grow BV by 15%. There are 2 key drivers to Fairfax being able to hit 15%: 1.) insurance underwriting 2.) investment results - especially equities Given the hard market in insurance and how they are positioned today with their equity holdings i think they can hit BV growth of 15% in 2021 :-) I'll add a third key 3.) They will not blow a billion on some risky venture That is the main key for me. They showed us that they are able to do this. Sanjeev answer vigorously to my post but he says the same thing than me. I bought at 465 in january and waited the annual report to decide if it was a short term investment or for the longterm. Reading the report where everything positive where explain in great detail but the negative was hard to come by convince me to be a short term holder for this time just like Sanjeev position. By the way I have a very long story with Fairfax. It is probably responsible for half of my net worth. First buy in 1993 and sold at 3x BV for a ten bagger. I was one of the first to discuss about FFH with Sanjeev on MSN. Was lucky enough to buy back in 2003 in the exact day of the bottom at 70 and sold at about 8x that price. I run a concentrate portfolio of 8 to 10 stocks. I had a couple of in and out since that for a wash. Now i'm in for the ride back to BV.

What is the tax law on estate in USA? In Canada if the shares are for the children they have to pay the tax that would be calculated on a sale so you have to sell around 25% just to pay the tax for the kind of gain a long term holder have on BRKA. It is interesting that the record volume happen with upticks. High probability that Berkshire is buying a lots

In fairness to Prem, the insurance companies did have an outstanding year and the investments are almost all performing well. Security prices might not be, but the underlying companies (which is what Prem is referring to) largely are. All those answers about the rear view. I’m talking about the present, about what is written in the 2020 annual report. We had a bad year and Prem is not candid about it. That is why he didn’t convince me that the futur will be different.

What I make me dislike this letter is not one of the many point brought by many here which are good. It is simply the general tone of the letter and it began right at the second paragraph. In March, the S&P500 dropped 30% in 12 days. We absorbed the mark to market losses and thrived. We earned $218 million in 2020 and our book value per share increased by 0.6% (adjusted for the $10 per share dividend) to $478 per share. Our insurance companies had an outstanding year in 2020 and are growing significantly, while our investments more than overcame the March carnage by the end of 2020 and are continuing to perform well. Man we made 0,6% last year and every thing was outstanding????? A little more humility please. That was a bad year and start with explaining us why it was bad. Not telling me that every thing performed well. How can you tell that investments perform well when you lost more then 500M$ on a short? That is part of the investment result. Around 2001 I sold out because I was tired of the presentation of the result of insurance when there was catastrophe year. It was always something like "we had a good year if you exclude the catastrophe". How come in a good year they didn't exclude the premium collected for the catastrophe insurance? It sounds like they want the premium but don't expect to pay once in a while. If you want us to really understand how we doing without the catastrophe present us what are the premium we collected vs what we paid in 5 years periods. I was back in because of all the good news for the subs but this report remember me why it will not be longterm for me. They can make a lot in 2021 but there is a not negligible possibility that they will waste it again.

I had my list of subjects I was hoping to see in the letter. What wasn't in it : Why we invested in Snowflake, Why we invested in Japan, Why we didn't buy in march (btw I didn't neither), What is the long term impact of Covid. My reflexion after finishing the reading and before coming to see what other has to tell here : Warren told me that all this stuff is noise, not very important in the long term. Focus on the four main businesses and what will happen to them, the rest is not really important. I think the timeline of when the jewells where added is interesting : Insurance 1967 BHE 1999 BNSF 2010 Apple 2016. Geico 1996 Gen Re 1998 were important milestone. So there is many years between each jewell acquisition. Everything's else was just noise. So the 100B+ available will be reserved for a new jewell when the opportunity will be there. In the mean time almost all the operating earnings will be return to the shareholder. For now it is via buybacks. If the price of the share made it not accretive to do buyback we will see what will happen. My take on the value of Berkshire with the clue we have : Around 4 times the value of Apple (not the price which is Higher than then value because he sold 11 billions). What will move the value in the future? Look at BHE because it have enormous opportunity.

In the ‘90 he invested in General Dynamics

I was telling to my friend yesterday that Melvin and Citron were toast like LTCM. It’s not just WSB any more. Others hedge funds smelt blood and they won’t let them recover just like what was the final blow to LTCM

A potential catalyst might be Snowflake. It is the subject that I’m eager to read about in the annual report. If it is a success like Apple is the market sentiment that Berkshire is just about old economy might change Just like when the market realised that Apple wasn’t just a hardware company. There is also Stone and Byd. At some point you have to realize that Berkshire is changing under the influence of Ted and Todd

From the proxy : Warren E. Buffett, whose address is 3555 Farnam Street, Omaha, NE 68131, is a nominee for director and the only person known to the Corporation to be the beneficial owner of more than 5% of the Corporation’s Class A Stock.

They also stay because they love what they do. Money is not the only motivation in life