Partner24

Stock issues (twice in past several months) has led to some dilution of value. Agree, but that's not as much significant as some people seem to think. Shares languishing downwards on relatively low volume with no corporate capacity for buy-backs in fore-seeble future Voting machine stuff. Not significant unless you or Fairfax want to buy or sell some FFH stocks. Continued soft pricing in insurance market Yes, but that can't last forever. It's a cyclical industry that is difficult to predict. We're not in a good cycle indeed, but that will ultimately create some opportunities for patient and strong capital. Fading new opportunities for strong capital gains growth. Well, there is plenty of very decent quality insurers and reinsurers that are cheap out there. Opportunities arise for those who search. You don't find gold by saying that there is no gold out there. You find gold by digging.

Oh my, when are we gonna see Peter Eavis write several articles about Greece liquidity crunch? ::)

Maybe there is an overreaction in the media, but does that media overreaction is deeply reflected in the stock price? I don't think so. It is very difficult to me to predict the long term effect of what's happening right now to Toyota brand, but it sure do not help. Maybe it will, maybe it won't, but I don't like the "maybes". And Toyota already has a significant market share in it's industry. Beside gaining few percentage points of market share and general industry growth tailwind, what will drive it's long term growth? Further cost reductions that will add to the margins? Not sure they can still do that a lot without putting Toyota brand at significant risk. That would sound to me "penny wise, dollar stupid" kind of cost reductions. And I don't see how they will not ultimately faces some new competition (like BYD or someone else), and maybe some will be significant over the long run. So add all of these, and I'm not tempted to buy. I prefer to stay with my actual very boring and quiet holdings. I saw the Peter Lynch interview posted here and it was interesting. He said something like a private investor can find 3 or 4 stocks per decade and that's quite enough. I couldn't agree more. Toyota is not an idea like that to me, but that's just my own opinion.

Well, 4 years later, maybe you could just put this on the PremWatsa.com website: http://www.gifs.net/Animation11/Science_and_Body/Hands_and_Feet/Clapping.gif Cheers! ;)

That's another stellar year for Fairfax. I'm delighted by these results. Some years ago, I told that we were making steps in the right direction. I must say now that we've made huge steps in the right direction! ;D Suffice to say that our balance sheet is far better now than in our lean years period. Furthermore, I'm impressed by the Fairfax shift toward quality-at-a-good-prices investments. While the equity portfolio hedge removing and strong investments in equities was a historical event for Fairfax recently, maybe we'll see Zenith acquisiton as an another historical shift few years from now. Cheers!

Reading some of the stuff on Deep Capture is like reading a book review of "How to destroy the capitalist system for fun and profit" Ahahah that's the quote of the day :) I have nothing to add.

Well, suffice to say that they are investing within their circle of competence ;)

Main US listed equities investments at 12/31/2009 market value: 1- Wells Fargo 2- Dell 3- Johnson and Johnson 4- GE 5- US Bancorp May have some mistakes. Take it with a pinch of salt.

"What a bunch of slime-bags!" Please don't insult slime-bags by comparing them to us. Mr. Slime, the CEO of The Slime-bags association.

Each time I see or hear the word "Fitch", the first thing that comes in my mind is "Who cares?". I never read their reports anymore. Maybe I sound a little bit rude, but I remember the feeling that I had a few years ago about them with their Fairfax reports and I think that memory will last for decades. Cheers!

Hi Dr Malone, It's nice to see you. I watch it too with a lot of interest. That being said, each answer provide you with more questions with this show, so I've concluded that it would be better off for me to just wait and see because a lot of reflexion and theories that I've heard find themselves unfunded few episodes later. So, in short, finding good predictive answers the the Lost show is outside of my circle of competence ;) Cheers!

Some may prefer that because it reduces the gap between intrinsic value and market price, but I'm of another group that believes you sacrifice the quality of your shareholder base...and not by a little bit, but by alot! Cheers! Well, I guess I'm between the two groups. I can buy a piece of a business for 0,10$ or 3000$, I doesn't matter that much. If I buy 2X 1/8 or 1 X 1/4 of a pizza, I still get 1/4 of the pizza anyway. Is the pizza taste good, made with good ingredients and sell for an appropriate price questions matter far much. That being said, having a higher price per share is per se a good filter because people who don't understand the "doesn't matter much how many slices a pizza has" concept don't buy them, but to me it becomes inappropriate when the price per share is too high so some young, but potential long term and business oriented shareholders can't afford them.

No, it is not ridiculous. You do not build statues of persons who are pessimistic on this society. To build a civilization, you need energic, ambitious, goal driven and optimistic people...not people who always think that sky will fall on their head. One of our more respected Prime Minister who funded the Caisse de Dépôt here in Quebec, when we was recently asked what when wrong with this institution, said that managers used to be driven by the "good father of a family" (I don't know how to full translate it in english) principle. Wall Street, over the last decades, forgotten this principle and we now unfortunately need to put some unperfect rules like that to kick some bu***s on Wall Street. Very respectfully submitted, Partner

Writing and blogging about Buffett the person, and not just Buffett the investor appeals to a much wider audience of readers. How can you determine the sex of a fly? Members of both sex talk about Warren Buffett. So, how? The males are on the can of beer talking mostly about Warren Buffett the investor. The females are on the phone talking mostly about his private life ::)

Here they are: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=104364&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1382801&highlight=

Buy the ones who are shrinking their business and sell the ones who are not. Well, that's a good start! :D The three companies that you have listed above are cheap and well managed.

No. It's tought to me to get a clear view about the long term consequences of the recent turmoil around Toyota (in doubt, I try to avoid) and the long term growth prospects of TM are somewhat limited. JMO.

They will be probably released after market close today because their conference call is tomorrow morning at 10:30 a.m. http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=104364&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1380852&highlight=

The day was wrong. It will be done in a few days. Cheers!

Regarding Westaim, Cameron MacDonald seem to be the new jockey here. He's a GoodWood fund manager and a focused value investor. I do not know him and have not heard of him before that transaction. It would be interesting to dig more about him. He seems to want to shift Westaim toward a diversified conglomerate with good businesses bought at good prices. Does somebody know more about him? Regarding Jevco, I don't know much about that insurance company. They seem to be a specialized insurer in automotive industry (higher risk profiles) and have recently diversified into more traditional fields. Somebody have more information about that company? It could be a TIG kind of situation, but it also could be a Northbridge one. That's what I'm trying to figure out actually. A jewel or a poisoned kool-aid glass?

1,065 at National Bank Direct Brokerage. I would prefer FFH to convert that money into Canadian dollar themselves since they have far more negociation power with 200 millions dollars than every one of us with our own individual account.

If I was an owner of a toaster store, and several miscreants would try to close my shop with repeated public lies, fraud, diffamation, etc. I would'nt just still sell toasters and let them keep doing that without any personal reply. Patrick Byrne has balls. He is a real boxer and he's a cancer survivor. If he did just kept selling toasters like too much executives do, these miscreants would still kill several public companies with infamy and injustice without any serious consequence. To me, he deserve a lot of admiration for his fight for the right cause. That being said, I think he is getting quite emotive (a very understandable behavior in these circumstances) and it is dangerous to make mistakes when you feel like that. Prem strategy to be quiet for some time and then strongly fight back in court is a good one too. But, I think that Patrick's public replies helped a lot of people to realize what is truly happening and why these guys must be stopped. What he has accomplished so far is mind blowing to me. Without him, I wonder what would happen with these miscreants today.

Well,: the main pros that I see: 1) at least we are not diluted as common shareholders 2) it's financialy safer than debt 3) cost of that capital on the short term basis is reasonable the main cons that I see: 1) are we getting too much outside capital thirsty? Do we really need that cash now? 2) why giving us dividends and then re-issue capital? ??? 2) the mid and long term cost of that capital is variable, so unknown at this time. 3) dividend is not tax deductible

FFHWatcher, You bring a very good question. There are things that are important in investing and in wich you can predict with a high enough level of confidence (that are within your circle of competence), and things that are important in investing and wich you can't predict with a high enough level of confidence. Macroeconomical stuff is unfortunately in the number two category for me. Just an example. If you would have asked me five years ago what would happen with overall Canadian residential real estate, I would not have been really optimistic, but I knew that I wasn't knowledgable enough to put my money in this prediction, and rightly so because 5 years later, it's not going that bad after all. Am I optimistic for the next 10 years? No. Will I try to find an investment product to materialize and try to make money on that sentiment? No, because it's not within my circle of competence enough. Does that mean that nobody can predict macro stuff? Absolutely not, but I remain skeptical on predictions, because very very few get the calls right over and over again.

I mean, this guy is good at investing showbusiness. If you want to be entertained in investing, I guess he's a good guy to watch. That being said, if I want entertainment, I'll watch Lost or The Simpsons episodes or some french speaking episodes ;-) Cheers!