Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. (BRK-A)

Size allows BRK to get better deals than anyone else. Experienced management with great track-record.

Some random ideas I pieced together:

Free Money from Fed (For His Competitors)
Wall Street is receiving a huge and free "float" to invest from the Government, whereas BRK & Insurance subsidiaries are forced to play by the rules. Temporarily, this "free float" erodes BRK's long-established competitive advantage when compared to many alternative investors. BRK has spent decades building its float, and when the Fed finally tightens money supply, the float (or rather, moat) will be re-established. This could take years though.

Buffett's Age & Culture
Despite the most substantial succession planning of any company, possibly ever (GE/Jack Welch comes to mind), this will always weigh and possibly bring down the multiples paid for BRK. Still, I find this odd. Buffett doesn't sell businesses that often, holds shares for many many years - even if Buffett was gone tomorrow, you are getting $80k of book value and likely $150-200k of intrinsic value for $103k/share. It is a STEAL. The stock is trading at a major discount whereas it should simply be trading on a parts-of-the-whole bread and butter analysis. Hell if Buffett was 55, the stock would belong at $220k/share.

Operating Businesses
His operating businesses are not sexy (other than Geico), but most of them have well established moats and should bounce back nicely. Geico's free float is always nice, as is $6k/share in earnings from these businesses in a trough year. I think it only gets better from here, with better than averages businesses that deserve a premium to S&P.

Puts on the Market
This is actually one of the catalyst to stock over-performance over the next few years. The puts Buffett sold where he pocketed $4.7B will continue to reverse themselves with even a modicum of inflation and investment gains on those dollars. Let's look at the scenarios:
1) Markets go to 0 and BRK owes $37B. I'll go ahead and say that if all the major world markets go to 0, then we're probably on a barter system or marshall law. Or possibly we're all zombies.
2) Markets are where they are today. Assuming BRK was able to get a 6% rate of return for the decade, and they're maybe 10% underwater today (based on Buffett's most recent shareholder letter), and BRK would walk away with $8.4B - $3.7B = $4.6B. Not a dollar in, but $4.6B out - in a pretty negative case. And about that 6% return on equity -- well that sounds a lot like BNI (even assuming a "lost-decade").
3) Markets are far above where they are today in 2019, possibly due to global inflation or for growth. Either way, he does not pay out a dime on the contracts. In that instance, assuming he has had a more aggressive return (i.e. 10% like GE), he's but up $12.2B - JUST LIKE THAT. There is no 'capital outlay'. No 'investment'. With a 12% IRR, its closer to $16B, or $10k of book value or CASH per share.

The puts have risk -- and every investor should ask themselves what is more likely, collapse of everything, or steady inflation to reduce the value of the world's bad contracts, thereby increasing the value of the market? Don't punish him for the 1% chance, even if it was relatively recent.

BNI
BNI Acquisition will earn solid ROE even at awful rail utilization levels. When the market swings the other way in volume, likely to coincide with higher gas prices, rails will have assets to deploy. In a peak year with high gas prices (i.e. 2013-2015), BNI could earn $10+/share (BNI share) through continual 10% increases in price & huge increases in volume. Coal is to Base Power Now as Trains are to Base Transport in the Future. It's really the "ultimate" private equity deal - and likely a worst-case 2x investment over the next decade, or a good-chance 4-5x investment, with unbelievable downside protection, assets, and inflation-pricing power.

I'd also encourage you to look at the land/track value of BNI. Cost to replicate would be closer to $100B. Sure those assets have a bad ROA, but what's important is ROE. Oh and every dollar of capex in that company is worth it. It's like building the lines of the Internet in 1980 -- they should make every preparation for the green-driven shift from truckers to rail within transport - even if it takes a decade.

However, BNI will work against BRK for the next few quarters as people say he overpaid and we continue on a trough for a few years. When the economy is back, BRK shareholders will have final laugh.

Couple other thoughts:
I think the 50:1 split with Class B is actually because he wants better coverage by the analyst community. A simple parts-of-whole analysis that GE gets every few months is rarely done with BRK in a detailed manner. With more people trading and covering him, he expects professional investors to also step up the game in analyzing BRK.

Can't say enough good things about BNI. It's a business that will be around and most likely owned by BRK when my children are grandparents. And it will likely be one of the most valuable businesses in America - perhaps eclipsing BRK's other assets. Of course by then, America will be demanding a windfall tax on Railroads because they'll be the new Exxon Mobil.

I still like the GE warrants BRK picked up - although it will take 24-30 months for those to do well for him. Still love the 10% coupon more.

It's Buffet baby!

The ratio on brk-a and brk-b is totally off. Should be 200:1 not 30:1

Warren Buffet is the Greatest!

The market seems to have forgotten everything about Berkshire that is important. Buffets bet on GS has already earned billions. GE is not in the money yet, but the point to remember is that Berkshire is still getting a hefty 10% on its loan, no losses here. Finally the insurance coverage on the ovarall market will almost certainly prove very profitable. The only weakness is in Berkshires's investment in building related businesses, and this represents only a small percentage of the company's portfolio

keep in mind who drives Bershire Hathaway

MAJOR DIRECT HOLDERS (FORMS 3 & 4)
Holder Shares Reported
BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION TRUST 1,619,680 16-Oct-09
BUFFETT WARREN E 1,501,532 1-Jul-09

dont forget that Microsoft has window7 as huge chech cow.
BRK-A can double its sharesprice in a longer run.

A short-term contrarian pick. I see the market continuing to get ahead of itself on emotion over the next quarter or so. BRK-A stockholders are investors, so they won't be moving the stock so irrationally. Net result is BRK-A stays fairly valued while S&P gets overvalued.

Just trying to ride with Warren. Perhaps entering the game a little late.

Warren, Warren he's our man..

WWWD-something for investors to live by-What would Warren Do?

I don't need to say much about Buffett skills. He made several bets last year in the recovery, getting sweet deals in companies like GS, GE. He also messed in what he had called "financial weapon of mass destruction" selling index puts for the S&P500. As we are seeing the end of the recession, we can say that in the long term his bets were right. However if we look at the stock price we can say that they are not reflected there yet..

This account tracks the performance of the investment firm Ruane, Cunniff, and Goldfarb - the investment manager of Sequoia Fund.

If you can't afford it for your real portfolio you might as well put in your CAPS ("wish I could afford it") portfolio.

super cats and Ajit Jain. Buffett will cede the reins like Graham before him. As Obiwan said "strike me down now and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine".

Investment equivalent of The Force is BRK. B or A depending on size of your pocket book.

It's all WB, when he goes the stock is worth 1/2

Easiest pick I've ever made!

on basis of past performance

I figure CAPS is the only way I would ever pay this much per share for one stock, so what the heck.

Buffet is overated as a stock picker. Even more so as an economist. Why he supports Big Government Politicians is beyond me. Nice guy though. I just don't get why he feels we don't pay enough in taxes and the government is the answer to everything. Same with Sorros for that matter. Maybe that is why they are filthy stinkin rich and I am typing comments on "CAPS". They are smarter than I am.