Liberty

79.66 right now, looks like you go your wish.

Couple of articles about AWH: http://seekingalpha.com/article/257081-allied-world-holdings-cheap-and-profitable-mid-cap-insurance-company http://seekingalpha.com/article/265304-profitable-net-net-mid-cap-allied-world-assurance

More than evolution by natural selection, you mean? What more do you need?

That's partly why I like Altius and bought a good amount; if things go well, they have lots of projects that get more valuable. If things go to hell, they can buy lots of undervalued assets and/or repurchase stock. Heads they win, tail they win...

Thanks Goldfinger, and thanks Dazel, your updates are always very insightful. Cheers! update: Wow, really going down today. -6.13% right now

Anyone care to elaborate on that? Why was it expected, and what's going on there? I haven't been following Alderon too closely lately..

ALS has been falling quite a bit on the market lately. Anybody loading up?

This drop was pretty predictable, so someone was probably just waiting for it to back up the truck and load up.

They're certainly as well aware of this as anyone. My guess is they wanted to get the thing out as quickly as possible and figured they could fix it later with software updates. I'm not saying that's how I would do it...

Sometimes I wish we would focus more on discussing potential investments and less on how/why we disagree with each other. It's good for each side to state a position, but after a certain point, it just goes in circles and it's more productive to just agree to disagree and get back to more interesting things like 10Ks, PC market pricing levels, and combined ratios ;D Public debates are rarely resolved satisfactorily for simple evolutionary-psychology reasons. Productive discussions with divergent viewpoints are usually achieved in private, when there's no audience. My 2 cents.

As a relatively new investor, I'm constantly trying to learn, and I do appreciate it when you talk about your processes and criterias, Harry. Thanks for that.

Combined ratio of AWH for the past 9 years = 89%, but for past 10 years it's 101 because of the terrible year in 2001... the company seems to have changed a lot since then and reduced its exposure to cats and diversified to more countries and lines, so the predictive value of this record is probably not as great as for another company with a more stable and mature operation. I'm keeping it on my watchlist, but I'm still not sure if I like it enough to invest...

That's indeed my main concern, that they haven't been around that long. From what I can tell, they have experienced people in management and they've had backing from savvy players (Chubb, Goldman Sachs) since their creation in 2002, but it's hard to know if that means much... But at a P/E under 5 and book around 0.8, there seems to be a decent margin of safety there... I dunno, that's why I asked the board, to get more opinions. I'm personally undecided. I'd probably invest if they had a longer history and if management held more shares..

Harry, what do you think of AWH? I'm a fan of RLI, but AWH seems pretty solid too, and sells below book, unlike RLI, and the combined ratios have been in the low to mid 80s recently. I made a thread about it here but so far it's only crickets and tumbleweeds... http://cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/index.php?topic=4287.0

Thanks for this summary, Onyx!

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110425006250/en/W.-R.-Berkley-Corporation-Reports-Quarter-Results "W. R. Berkley Corporation (NYSE: WRB) today reported net income for the first quarter of 2011 of $116 million, or 79 cents per share, compared with $119 million, or 74 cents per share, for the first quarter of 2010." Net premiums written increased 10%. GAAP combined ratio was 96.3%. Return on equity was 12.6%. Book value per share was $26.78.

What are your thoughts about this one? I've been watching it for a while, and a lot about it seems attractive: Low P/E, selling under book, low tax rates (used to be HQ'ed in Bermuda, now Switzerland), doing share repurchases at the right time, worldwide operations in both insurance and reinsurance, conservative bond investments, good combined ratios and what looks like good reserving. What keeps me from investing is I'm not sure about the quality of management, and they don't seem to how that many shares that haven't come from stock options. I really like it when management eats its own cooking... And they are also a relatively young company, without a real long-term history. What do you guys & gals think? Anybody knows of fundamental reasons why this should be so cheap, or is it just one of Mr. Market's moods?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/canadian-investors-rescue-american-apparel/article1996130/

Thanks for the summary, Parsad, and thanks for all your work in organizing this and creating this amazing online community. And of course, thanks to Fairfax and the other CEOs and investors who came. sounds like it was a blast. If any of the people who went and had a chance to chat with the FFH people could give us their summaries of what they learned, that'd be awesome for those of us who missed it. Thanks!

Great, I'm looking forward to your ideas. Feynman was great. More investors should read his stuff; it's not directly about business, but it can help you learn how to think more rationally and ask better questions.

Have fun guys & gals and take photos for those of us who can't make it ;D

Great. Can't wait to get my hands on it (somehow)...

Thanks for your posts, VAL, they are always well-thought out and insightful. I try to have a style a bit similar to yours, and I was wondering if you had ever written about some of the businesses that are included in your portfolio? I'd be curious to see if we have any picks in common, or if some of yours might fit my criteria. Cheers!

The civilized debate here warms the cockles of my heart ;D

Thanks for the update, Dazel.