Liberty

The plot thickens.. http://online.wsj.com/articles/actavis-made-offer-for-allergan-in-august-1411422949 http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/botox-maker-allergan-said-to-be-in-talks-to-acquire-salix/ Apparently AGN is closer to a deal with Salix, and Actavis has tried to buy Allergan but that offer has been rejected (for now). They'll write a book about this someday...

Frankly, iphone is where the steak is at here. iPads don't move the needle as much and it will be even less if iphone 6/6+ is a blockbuster. I don't know about Apple TV. It depends on what kind of product they come up with. Also unlike an iphone this will also most likely be a one unit per household product on average, so difficult to see huge until volumes or repeat refresh cycles here. TV will be more like the ipad rather than the iphone. The product with most potential appears to be the watch, if it takes off in the fashion sense. Good probability of high volumes and super high margins. It's not one or the other. It all works together. I'll take the extra billions of FCF from these solid businesses (Macs too), knowing that people who buy iPhones are more likely to get iPads, Macs, Apple TVs, etc...

They haven't even unveiled the new iPads and (likely) Apple TV yet! ;)

Agreed about the impact of the 5C. I also think the 5s will sell better with price-sensitive people than the 5c did, relatively speaking. I think we'll also see the new storage tiers pull more people to pay $100 more to go to 64 gigs. 16 vs 64 is a no brainer, which 16 vs 32 wasn't to everyone. This should have a positive impact on ASPs.

I wish we had no-fee cards with such a high cash-back % in Canada. Best I've found is one that gives me 2% on groceries, and on with 1% on everything else, and I recently added the Amazon.ca card with 2% on Amazon.ca stuff.

FWIW, A huge part of the reason the lines were so long in NYC is the delayed launch in China. I was visiting Lincoln Center to see the Sesame Street exhibit with my kids on Saturday and there was a line for the iphone (maybe 100 people?) at the Upper West Side Apple store -- 100% Asian. I'm pretty sure they're all buying 2 unlocked no contract iPhones that are magically finding their way to Asia. That has no doubt an influence, especially in big cities like NYC. But the total number of phones sold would no doubt still have been signiticantly higher if the 6 had been launched in China at the same time like last year for the 5s & 5c. Comparing this year, without china, to last year, with China, shows just how strong this year seems to be so far. Update: Was writing this while viking posted... Update2: http://www.asymco.com/2014/09/22/iphone-launch-patterns/ http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Screen-Shot-2014-09-22-at-12.35.01-PM-620x498.png

Berkshire and Fairfax currently have very different makeups. Comparing them simply with book value isn't very meaningful, in my opinion. I'd also ask how fast Berkshire was compounding book value when it was a sub-10bn company.

Looks like Apple has dumped Samsung and is fabbing its SOCs at TMSC on a 20nm process: http://9to5mac.com/2014/09/19/chipworks-iphone-6-tsmc/

fareast, I cannot read the article I think you need to register or pay ...... But I always wondered if people realize that Larsen has compounded money much faster than say Brk for the last 10-15 yrs . No I don't have the exact numbers, but I can just estimate from Gate's share of MSFT and how he has grown it to 100+ Billion when you take the $82 bil + whatever he gave to the Melinda and Bill Gates foundation. Maybe there should be 20,000 people going to a Larsen event. WEB said Gates is the smartest person he has ever met. I give him kudos for having the insight to interview and find one of the smartest investors around..... Search google for the title of the WSJ piece. If your referer is search, you get the whole article. The piece says:

Looks like Cookie Monster was bothered by Apple's falling stock price. Looks like you think that what a journalist wrote has much to do with what actually went on inside Apple or Cook's head. I bet the two things are not be related at all. I bet it's "By last summer Cook was ready to accelerate the project" (because they though it was getting good enough to turn into a real product, after starting work on it 3 years ago) and the journalist added the part about Apple's stock price because when they looked up "last summer" that's what they found and the media judge Apple by its stock price anyway.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-18/apple-s-new-big-screen-iphones-draw-long-lines-at-stores.html

http://online.wsj.com/articles/wintrob-leaving-as-head-of-aig-life-retirement-unit-1411075441

Looks like you lost money...

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/18/allergan-valeant-fight-holds-lessons-for-all-corporate-shareholders/

:o I'd NEVER want to be on the other side of a deal that Eric does.

have studies been done on how well bookies predict events? Seems interesting, a lot of people putting their money where their mouth is. Prediction markets, like intrade when it was still open, have a pretty good track record I think. I'll take people who make bets with their own money for a living over TV pundits...

Bookies don't seem to think it's very likely: http://qz.com/267913/according-to-bookies-these-are-the-things-as-unlikely-as-scots-voting-for-independence/

http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-musk-family-plan-for-transforming-the-worlds-energy-1411055676

I don't know. Not sure it's knowable at this point. Here's an op-ed basically opinating that Allergan's board could keep fighting its own shareholders to the death even after a special meeting vote: http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/09/18/dealpolitik-allergan-fight-could-extend-long-past-december-meeting/ Interesting how far bad faith is assumed to go at Allergan... Who owns Allergan, the board, or the shareholders?

This explains it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good

Wealthy people all think they're middle class and that everybody's like them ;) 50% of American households make less than 51k a year. I bet most people with AMEXes got one because they're COSTCO members, not Netjets members... http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acsbr12-02.pdf

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1091667/000109166714000176/chtr91114425filing.htm Transcript from the goldman sachs conference.

Off-topic, but has BusinessWeek fired its entire graphic design team? What's up with this? ??? http://images.bwbx.io/cms/2014-09-17/timcook_315x420.gif

Looks like the bulls will be able to take their time loading up under 30...

Perfect wording! We should endeavor to always communicate like this, good sir!