Partner24

A value investor can have 3 or 100 stocks in it's portfolio, that doesn't change the fact that he's a value investor or not to me, but the first would prefer focused portolio management and the other would prefer diversified portfolio management. That being said, that concept goes further to me. To own Berkshire Hathaway is far different from owning a phase 2 unique product pharma company. One has very diversified streams of operational cash flows while the other is surviving on hope. And when you think about it, most of active business men have an extremely focused investment portfolio. A lot of them own only stocks in 1 company (their own) that is generating operational cash flow in just 1 industry. Cheers!

I guess this is wishful thinking, but if Wal-Mart would be 25% cheaper, I would consider it very seriously. In the meantime, I can confortably wait since what I already own is very cheap and has very favourable long term prospects. Cheers!

Hi Christopher, there is a lot of interesting "jockey stocks" in that list. I think that's the first time that I hear someone who own shares of Bidvest, one of the most undercovered success story that I know. I've owned shares of that company since a few years now. Where did you hear about that company? Cheers!

No one has influenced my life more...not a single teacher in elementary, high school or university...no one. I would bend over and kiss my own ass if Prem asked me to! But the biggest lesson I've learned from them is to be independent in your thought process. So Sanjeev, if Prem ask you to bend over to do what you wrote, please keep an independant thought process! ;) Cheers! :)

Amen.

The media reports what is happening, not where the world is going. I would add that the media report first what the people want to hear, because the more that's what they want, the more people read them, the more advertising revenues they get.

I've been wondering about that for some time. Not have any good recipe yet, but you may want to study the Shelby C. Davis family story. Also, I wonder if it would be possible to create a trust with some rules in it: - Invest in low cost indexes related funds only. - Give money to the adult heirs only if they work. If they don't, give some money to be able for them do choose any kind of daily work they love, but not enough to do nothing.

Ahah good one. Here is another one: If you want to catch fish, you have first to dip your fishing pole into the water. Watching The Weather Channel will not put food on your table. Partner24, 2010 ;) P.S.: Or you can try to shoot them in a barrel too ;D

Well Sanjeev, I remember a sentence that looked like that: "Worry top-down. Invest bottom-up".

Some Tom Gayner quotes: All across the globe, we face persistent unemployment issues, the ongoing deleveraging of the economy, increased savings rates and new labor pools from the developing world, which are creating more in the way of global supply than demand. All of these factors create pressure on prices and worries about deflation. These facts and worries can be seen clearly in the low levels of inflation expectations and interest rates. I don’t hear bondholders talking about things like the fact that Disney just raised the admission price and the tuition and medical bills among others continue to rise. The popular idea of investing in bonds today strikes me as about the same as the chance of Dow 36000 a decade ago. The arguments were well-reasoned and seemed plausible at the time. A bull market can make you believe some incredible things. Today the multi-decade bull market has been in bonds, not equities and I think that similar incredible ideas are out and about in the financial markets. I don’t think that committing our capital for returns of roughly 3% is a good idea that will stand the test of time. In 1904, the New York City subway system opened with a fare of $0.05. The fare stayed the same 44 years until 1948. Over the next 62 years, prices increased regularly and now stand at $2.15. Investing in long-term fixed income instruments at today’s interest rates makes sense if you think the coming decades will see the subway fare remain at $2.15 or thereabouts. Cheers!

Would you think Warren Buffett would do something like that? "Listen, you don't understand my very generous compensaton plan, so I'll delay the occasion for you to vote. So, listen to what I have to say again because you have to agree with it before we do the meeting". No, it's more like: Warren: "I want to be paid 100 000$ per year, and that's all". Shareholder: "That is not enough. Please increase your salary". Warren: "No. That's enough to me". Simple. Clear. Shareholder friendly.

On surface, it looks cheap. Smith long term track record seems to be very good, Mass Financial compounded book value per share figure so far have been stellar,but Smith is very secretive and don't seems to like to disclose a lot of information. Do you still have doubts? I do. That's why I did not bought a single share on Mass Financial yet. A collective search would be a good idea, since it might be a good long term investment candidate, and we like investment vehicles managed by great investors like Prem, Warren and the likes.

Can I have my brownie points? ;) Berkshire Hathaway 1999 Chairman's letter: Recently, a number of shareholders have suggested to us that Berkshire repurchase its shares. Usually the requests were rationally based, but a few leaned on spurious logic. There is only one combination of facts that makes it advisable for a company to repurchase its shares: First, the company has available funds -- cash plus sensible borrowing capacity -- beyond the near-term needs of the business and, second, finds its stock selling in the market below its intrinsic value, conservatively-calculated. To this we add a caveat: Shareholders should have been supplied all the information they need for estimating that value. Otherwise, insiders could take advantage of their uninformed partners and buy out their interests at a fraction of true worth. We have, on rare occasions, seen that happen. Usually, of course, chicanery is employed to drive stock prices up, not down. The business "needs" that I speak of are of two kinds: First, expenditures that a company must make to maintain its competitive position (e.g., the remodeling of stores at Helzberg's) and, second, optional outlays, aimed at business growth, that management expects will produce more than a dollar of value for each dollar spent (R. C. Willey's expansion into Idaho). (...) Recently, when the A shares fell below $45,000, we considered making repurchases. We decided, however, to delay buying, if indeed we elect to do any, until shareholders have had the chance to review this report. If we do find that repurchases make sense, we will only rarely place bids on the New York Stock Exchange ("NYSE"). Instead, we will respond to offers made directly to us at or below the NYSE bid. If you wish to offer stock, have your broker call Mark Millard at 402-346-1400. When a trade occurs, the broker can either record it in the "third market" or on the NYSE. We will favor purchase of the B shares if they are selling at more than a 2% discount to the A. We will not engage in transactions involving fewer than 10 shares of A or 50 shares of B.

At least they've called that a mistake. Everybody do some mistakes from time to time. Here is two main categories of people: 1- The ones that do not recognize their mistake and keep digging themselves into some holes. 2- The ones that try to recognize their mistakes and learn from them (some call this "candor"). I think that Fairfax and Leucadia managers are in the second category.

and is open to shareholders on record as of July 12th. I wonder what would have happened if he would have done that before. I guess a lot of shareholders have already voted with their feet.

LRE seems to be a very well run insurance company on the underwriting side. On the investing side, they care about rule no. 1 (don't lose money), but even if I like their conservativeness, I also like opportunistic people like we see at Berkshire, Fairfax and others.

So what left? I'm not a bond investor, but if I would have to own bonds, I would try to search for things that are more attractive on a risk adjusted basis. When people favor something, there is something else that becomes unfavored.

Only a few points more than 150? Pfff! ;) (just kidding)

How "ironic". They were against government interventions before the 2008 crisis. They were asking for government interventions in the middle of the crisis. They are now back to "Go". It sounds like a child who wanted to play with the BBQ alone without any parent restriction, then burned himself and cried for care and now want to have full access to the /$%/% BBQ again!

If I'm asking for a loan and the institution want to know how much I'm worth, do they wish me to disclose my equities portfolio value in any other way than MTM? Ironic, isn't it? If I'm buying a new life insurance policy and I smoke, how about using a lung scan that I had 10 years ago? I mean, when I hear a bank complaining about MTM accounting, it does not sounds far more different than hearing a car driver complaining that it is because of the radar that he got a police ticket, not because he was driving too fast! Cheers!

Is Sardar is making a run at Wendy's? Well, I don't know, but if it were the case, what would you think Dave Thomas (Wendy's funder) would say if he were still alive? I'll let every one of you think about your own Thomas post mortem quote. ;)

Congragulations Stephen for that well deserved cup from your team! Our Montreal Canadiens were a very good surprise this year (their performance in the series was a "Fairfax like" turnaround if you compare it to the regular season) and here in Quebec we were delighted by them, but in the end the best must wins and this year, it's been Chicago! Hat off to them! I hope you had a nice celebration. Cheers!

you are only as good as your word, and when you take a $900K salary and then tell partners you are there to make money with them and not off of them, well...you've got to back that up! That's right. Talk is cheap. Like I said before, sometimes, what someone is speaks so loudly for itself that I can't hear what he's saying (or read what he wrote in his communications with the people's pocket where he wants to put deeply his fingers in shareholders) ;-) Cheers!

Hi accutronman, I guess you follow Michael Smith and Mass Financial. I've tried to find more information about him and the company, but Smith is a very secretive man. When you read it's letters, while it's fairly candid, he is not as comprehensive and you don't get the same feel than when you read FFH and BRK letters. Do you know him? Have you followed this company enough to share some insight with us? Thank you very much.

My concern with BP is I just have no way of assessing the current situation as there is so much yet to be understood. I second that.