So we have seen how the stock market is not really as bubbled up as it seems looking at it from 30,000 feet. What are we to do, though? What are we supposed to buy? Where are we to look? I mentioned that I would do a close-up look at the components of the…
In Search of a Stock Market Bubble
So, (the sentence starts with “so” because this is a sort of ongoing discussion that’s been going on here for years) I’ve been thinking about the overall market again. Despite my telling people to ignore this and ignore that, I can’t help it; sometimes I think about this stuff. Well, it’s OK to think about…
Jamie Dimon for Dummies
Oops, I did it again. When I made the Missing Manual cover for Berkshire Hathaway, I told myself that it would be the last time I would do that. Things like that can be fun the first time but can get pretty old pretty fast. But, sorry, I couldn’t resist this time. When the news…
Market Valuation (Scatter Plot)
So, Buffett’s response (at the 2015 annual meeting) to questions regarding the valuation of the stock market was interesting. He used to just say it’s in a “zone of reasonableness”, but this time said that if interest rates stay at current low levels, the stock market is cheap, and if interest rates normalize, it is…
the missing manual: Berkshire Hathaway / Warren Buffett
New Book?! OK, so there isn’t really a book with this title. I was just having some fun. Don’t waste your time Googling or Amazoning it. It doesn’t exist. In this day and age, you can’t always believe what you see. But you know, this is exactly what I was thinking as I was reading…
Seaboard Corp (SEB): The Other Protein Trade
This is a post I wrote up a while back and never published as Kraft/Heinz and other things happened. Anyway, here it is: In December 2011, Leucadia (LUK) bought 79% of National Beef. They explained the purchase as a play on the rising consumption of protein around the world as incomes rise in emerging economies…
Loews 2014 Annual Report
The Loews 2014 annual report is out (OK, well, it’s been out a while). I was wondering how they would present their historical returns as they haven’t looked good recently. I’ve talked about how they have changed what they show in their annual reports for performance over time, and there was a discussion in the…
JPM Annual Report 2014
The 2014 JPM annual report was finally released last week and it’s a great read as usual. Dimon takes his time to talk about the goods and the bads, industry trends, competitive threats and all kinds of things. It’s one of those letters (like Buffett’s) that you learn about all sorts of things reading…
Zero-based Budgeting Book
By the way, there is a lot of talk now again about zero-based budgeting because of the Kraft-Heinz merger. Some view cost-cutters as people who just come in and blow-torch the place, take out short-term profits and destroy the business. Maybe this was done in the 1980’s. But there is a lot more to it…
Kraft-Heinz
So 3G/BRK made their move and Kraft it is. Buffett was on CNBC this morning and he said that BRK paid $4.25 billion for common stock in Heinz initially and will pay another $5.2 billion to get this deal done for a total common equity investment of around $9.5 billion. After this deal…