BRKA

Berkshire Hathaway Recovering Lost Ground

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Image Shown: Shares of Berkshire Hathaway Inc Class B started to recover some of their lost ground in early-July, and the company’s second quarter earnings report has kept the momentum going in the right direction. By Callum Turcan On August 8, Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRK.A) (BRK.B) reported second quarter 2020 earnings that beat consensus top- and bottom-line estimates. Due to the impressive recovery in US equity markets (SPY) since bottoming in late-March, Berkshire Hathaway’s investment portfolio put up tremendous performance last quarter, though its first quarter performance was harrowing. We include Berkshire Hathaway Class B (ticker BRK.B) as a holding in our Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio. Earnings Overview Unrealized gains on investments offset a large impairment charge relating to Berkshire … Read more

Second Quarter Earnings Roundup

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The figure above shows the performance of the simulated Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio from inception May 17, 2011, through December 15, 2017, relative to its declared benchmark, the S&P 500 (SPY), on an apples-to-apples basis, with dividends collected but not reinvested for both the newsletter portfolio and the SPY, as reported in the monthly newsletter. The simulated Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio outperformed the S&P 500, including reinvested dividends in the benchmark, since inception (May 17, 2011) and since the inaugural release of the newsletter (July 13, 2011) through the end of the measurement period (December 15, 2017). The results are hypothetical and do not represent returns that an investor actually earned. Past results are not indicative of future performance. Valuentum … Read more

Berkshire Hathaway Expands Its Bet on North American Natural Gas

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Image Shown: A look at the Cove Point LNG export facility in Maryland, one of half a dozen that are currently operational in the US. Image Source: Dominion Energy Inc – February/March 2018 Fixed Income Investor Meetings Presentation By Callum Turcan On July 5, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, a majority-owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRK.A) (BRK.B), announced it was acquiring natural gas pipeline and storage assets along with an equity stake in a liquified natural gas (‘LNG’) export facility in Maryland from Dominion Energy Inc (D). This deal is valued at $9.7 billion by enterprise value and is expected to close by the fourth quarter of 2020. We continue to like Berkshire Hathaway in the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio. Berkshire … Read more

Interview with Valuentum’s Callum Turcan

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Callum Turcan helps head up Valuentum’s research product and is co-editor of the company’s newsletters. We sat down with Callum to get his thoughts on new developments in the market and economy. Let’s kick things off with his thoughts on the recent Berkshire/Dominion deal. Callum: Interesting deal with Dominion (D) and one that likely fits in with Berkshire Hathaway’s (BRK.A/BRK.B) long-term utility/infrastructure strategy in North America. Berkshire has steadily grown its wind power generation business over the past decade, but until battery storage technology progresses further (with an eye towards the need for serious cost reductions), natural gas will continue to be used to meet electricity demand when wind turbines are operating at reduced capacity (and in general, as new … Read more

Berkshire Hathaway Prepares Itself for COVID-19

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Image Source: Berkshire Hathaway Inc – 2019 Annual Report By Callum Turcan Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRK.A) (BRK.B) reported first quarter 2020 earnings on May 2, which due to significant unrealized losses in its investment portfolio (a product of the market swoon in the early months of 2020) the firm swung to a large loss on a GAAP basis. As Berkshire Hathaway’s leadership team has often noted, the 2018 accounting rule change that forces companies to recognize unrealized gains and losses in the income statement can make GAAP net income and GAAP diluted EPS figures near meaningless without digging deeper into the firm’s financials. For convenience and to better showcase its actual performance, Berkshire Hathaway also includes its ‘operating earnings’ within … Read more

JB Hunt Scales Back

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Image Source: JB Hunt Transportation Services Inc – First Quarter 2020 Earnings IR Presentation By Callum Turcan JB Hunt Transportation Services Inc (JBHT) offers trucking freight and other logistics services to customers in North America, including intermodal services (which is the firm’s largest business segment by revenue). On April 14, the company reported first-quarter 2020 results, which showed its top-line beat consensus expectations while its bottom-line missed consensus expectations. Part of the reason why JB Hunt missed bottom-line expectations was due to incentive pay increases related to the ongoing coronavirus (‘COVID-19’) pandemic and the need to compensate frontline workers for the risks they are taking (and we appreciate all the work frontline workers are doing during these challenging times). Shares … Read more

Fed Cuts 100 Basis Points, Launches More QE

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“Now, stocks and other assets are being sold, some indiscriminately. It is truly becoming a stock pickers market as opposed to a quant-led and index-led market. It takes a different kind of bravery to buy on massive down days and one must have conviction in their research that the company will not go away if massive downside scenarios do in fact emerge.” – Matthew Warren. In this piece, we cover our assessment of what the global markets might be facing in a bull-case, base-case, and bear-case scenario. Our base case is a substantial recession in the US and a financial crisis of some unknown magnitude. By Matthew Warren The tremendous (mostly downside) volatility in all asset markets globally during the … Read more

Dow Fell 9.99%, Worst Point Drop in History, More Nibbling?

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Dow Fell 9.99%, Worst Point Drop in History, More Nibbling? — Image: On March 12, 2020, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2,353 points, the most in its history, and the most in percentage terms since Black Monday in 1987. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 9.99% March 12, 2020, to 21,200.62. — From Value Trap: During the dark days of 2008 and 2009…where widespread and indiscriminate selling was prevalent, correlations among stock sectors rose considerably. According to data from Morningstar, average daily correlation over the trailing six months between individual stocks increased to 0.66 at the end of 2011 from just 0.10 in 1994. The average sector correlation for monthly returns on the S&P 500 index was 0.84 during the Financial Crisis … Read more

Buffett Makes Another “Unforced Error” in Airlines

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Image Source: Value Trap: Theory of Universal Valuation By Callum Turcan The commercial passenger airline industry is nearly impossible, to downright impossible, to generate meaningful shareholder value in. Specifically as it relates to the US, since the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 (which among other things allowed airlines to set their own routes without always needing to seek regulatory approval which in turn greatly increased competition, lowered fares, and saw a boom in travelers and miles traveled) various airlines have gone under (such as Pan Am in 1991 and Delta Air Lines (DAL) in 2005 along with others) as competitive advantages once created by government barriers no longer existed. This is true globally as well, as rising competition from private … Read more

Berkshire Reports 2019 Earnings

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By Callum Turcan Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRK.A) (BRK.B) reported fourth quarter and full-year results on Saturday February 22, and we appreciate the firm’s performance across most of its business lines, keeping in mind that losses at its insurance-underwriting business during the fourth quarter weakened its company-wide performance. That being said, the insurance business can be volatile at times, which is why we appreciate Berkshire’s large railroad, utility, consumer goods, and other business segments. On the topic of Berkshire’s insurance-related exposure to the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic (which has since spread from China (FXI, MCHI, KWEB) to the rest of the world, shutting down economies in South Korea (EWY), Italy (EWI), and elsewhere), insurance firms fundamentally altered the structure of their policies after the … Read more