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Monday’s Links

Thank you, Buffett, Schumer, Fed

– A thank you to the Wall St. Journal for the mention.

– The best quote from Friday’s Buffettpaloosa

– His cheap politics has damaged housing almost as bad as the lousy loans

– Isn’t what they should do?

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American Express or Wells Fargo, What Did Buffett Buy?

After Buffett teased the investing world Friday saying he bought more of either Wells Fargo (WFC) or American Express, folks are speculating as to which one he bought. I was under the impression Buffett and Bekshire (BRK.a) had virtually tapped out their ability to buy more American Express (AXP) shares.

After buying 13% of the outstanding total, in 1995 Buffett agreed to the following in a letter to the Chairman Harvey Golub. The letter said Berkshire would not:

(1) acquire or retain shares that would cause its ownership of
American Express** voting securities to equal or exceed 15% of the amount
outstanding (if at such time Berkshire Hathaway has a representative on the
Board of Directors of American Express as allowed by section 4 hereof), or
otherwise acquire or retain shares that reflect ownership or more than 17% of
the amount outstanding; _provided_ that for the purposes of this commitment
shares held by officers or directors of Berkshire Hathaway shall be aggregated
with shares held by Berkshire Hathaway;

Now, Berkshire does not currently have board representation on Amex (unless I missed a recent change) so if Buffett bought more, it would only be less than 2% of the total outstanding in order to comply with the agreement. I do not think that this agreement has been altered or changed, it may have been but I do not see where. If anyone know where it as, please let me know.

We know Buffett bought more Wells Fargo this spring at prices higher than current ones saying he saw value at those prices. If he think there is value there, he must logically see more now.

Of course Amex share did plunge earlier this summer, presenting a great buying opportunity, it is just that there isn’t much more buying Warren can do under the agreement.

We’ll find out in short order what he added, my bet is more Wells Fargo.

Disclosure (“none” means no position):Long WFC, None

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The Week’s Top Stories at VIN

Here are the Top 15 this week at Value Investing News

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Berkshire’s Warren Buffett Video: 5 Parts

Berkshire Hathaway’s (BRK.A) Warren Buffett cover everything from debt to calling on donors to sue Jon Edwards.

The Buffett and Gates Energy Tour:

On Fannie (FNM), Freddie (FRE) and Oil (USO):

Buffett on former Democratic Presidential Candidate Jon Edwards:

Buffett on Debt:

Buffett on Financials: He bought more of either Wells Fargo (WFC) or American Express (AXP). My gut tells me it more Wells Fargo.

Disclosure (“none” means no position):Long WFC, none

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Wells Fargo CEO Stumpf (Video)

Okay, let’s just forget Cramer uses my Wells Fargo in 1990 analogy from 2 weeks ago in the interview. What is more important is what Stumpf has to say.

There is a commercial break in the middle of the video so do not tune out, there is more after.

Cramer actually said, “I like to challenge my own thesis when I am bullish on a stock because these are just pieces of paper.” Doesn’t that go against everything you are ever taught about investing and buying “pieces of great companies”?

Anyway, on to Stumpf.

Stumpf addresses and I think does a fantastic job refuting Meridith Whitney’s take on the company that it was playing with loan write offs to increase earnings. Stumpf points out that they took a $3 billion charge in Q2 and only $1.5 billion was write-downs ($1.5 billion increased reserves). Had they not changed to way they account for charge-offs, the difference would have been $254 million and covered in the reserves they took.

Best line. “We didn’t miss every bad party but we missed most of them”.

Video:

Wells Fargo’s (WFC) largest shareholder is Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A)

Disclosure (“none” means no position):Long WFC, None

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The Week’s Top Ten at VIN

Here is the top ten as voted by readers at Value investing News

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Wells Fargo to buy Century Bancshares in Early 90’s Flashback

So, is this a repeat of 1990-1991? While the other banks are going bust, shedding assets and dumping garbage on their books for pennies on the dollar, Wells Fargo (WFC) quietly stays above the fray and expands. Today it announced the purchase of Century Bancshares (

From the release:

“Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) and Century Bancshares, Inc. said today they have signed a definitive agreement for Wells Fargo to acquire Century Bancshares and its banking operations in Dallas-Fort Worth, and Texarkana, Texas and Arkansas in a stock-for-stock merger. As a result of the acquisition, Arkansas will become Wells Fargo’s 24th community banking state.

The acquisition – requiring approval of regulators and Century Bancshares shareholders, and expected to be completed by the end of this year – will increase Wells Fargo’s presence in Dallas-Forth Worth, the U.S. metro area with the largest population increase from 2006 to 2007, according to census data. It also will make Wells Fargo No. 1 in deposit market share in Texarkana.

Closely held and based in Dallas, Century Bancshares has $1.4 billion in assets, $1.3 billion in deposits, $1.2 billion in loans, 32 banking locations and 485 employees. It has 28 Century Bank locations in nine Texas communities – Dallas (11); Atlanta; Addison; Farmers Branch (2); Frisco; The Colony; Plano (3); New Boston; and Texarkana (7). Four Century Bank locations are in Arkansas – Texarkana (3); and Ashdown. Century Bank is the leading financial institution in Texarkana and surrounding communities.

“The combination of Century Bank and Wells Fargo will be a great benefit for our customers, our employees and the communities we serve,” said Joe Nichols, CEO, Century Bancshares. “By teaming with Wells Fargo, we can continue delivering the excellent personal service and financial advice our customers expect, and offer them more products and services, and more convenience throughout Texas and the western United States. We also will remain a leader in supporting our north Texas and Texarkana communities.”

The key here is that Wells Fargo is now one of the largest institutions on a region that is growing at a break-neck pace and up until this point, has been relatively immune to the economic malaise affecting so much of the country.

This is the same playbook Wells Fargo played by at the turn of the 1990’s during the last housing downturn. It worked stunningly for shareholders then and looks to be loading them up for similarly out-sized gains now in the year to come. You’ll remember that Wells latest 10-Q did not contain the despair that other banks like Citi (C), Wachovia (WB) or even JP Morgan (JPM) did.

Berkshire’s (BRK.A) Warren Buffett bought heavily into WFC then, one has to wonder if he is picking up more now..

Disclosure (“none” means no position):Long WFC, C, WB, None

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Tweedy, Browne Q2 Letter Released

The Tweedy, Browne Q2 letter has been released. Chris Browne if you remember is the author of the fine book “The Little Book of Value Investing

From the Letter:
“In our funds, it has been financial and media stocks that have accounted for a large part of our poor performance year to date. Even more recession-resistant companies such as our food and beverage holdings have performed poorly, as traders rotate in and out of groups of stocks in response to headline news and Wall Street research reports, which we consider extremely short-term oriented in their perspective. With the exception of a few oil companies in our high dividend fund, we have found precious little value in the high flying energy and basic material stocks which have been the darlings of the market. Strong core holdings such as Nestle (NESN) and Kone (KNEBV), where underlying fundamentals remain very strong and near-term corporate performance has been solid, have also been impacted by investor preference for all things energy and commodity-related. Following this update is a more complete statistical attribution analysis and performance history for each of our funds.

It should come as no surprise that pricing opportunities are surfacing and the discount between market value and intrinsic value is growing in the bulk of our portfolio. Our portfolio, in our view, has rarely been cheaper than it is today. In some instances the valuations seem somewhat anomalistic. For example, over the last several months we have established a position in Swiss Re (SWCEY), the world’s largest reinsurance company. The company at initial purchase was trading at 5 times earnings, 77% of book value, 70% of imbedded value and a 6% dividend yield. Earlier this year, Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett (BRK.A) purchased a 3% position in the company, and has agreed to take on 20% of Swiss Re’s property & casualty business over the next 5 years freeing up reserves for a stock buyback. We have also been buying Telecinco, Spain’s largest television production company. At initial purchase, it was trading at 4 times pretax income (EBIT), and had a 17% dividend yield with net cash on its balance sheet.

Another deeply undervalued current holding is Medikit, a Japanese medical device company, which is currently trading at 1.6 times pre-tax income (EBIT), and has a 2.5% dividend yield, once again with net cash on the balance sheet. While all of our
stocks are not trading at these extreme valuations, they are indicative of some of the incredible bargains we are seeing in equity markets. Unfortunately, great opportunity is invariably accompanied by bad macroeconomics and near-term uncertainty. If the picture were clear, the pricing opportunity would not exist. In times like this, investors must try to steel their nerves and ignore the ever present market pundits who predict stock market collapses at the end of an era. These voices seem to always drown out more reasoned thought in times such as the
present.

As you know, in recent years, we have been less than sanguine about the high valuation levels of public equities which afforded investors very little in the way of a “margin of safety”. We always promised our clients that when we felt it was time to add to their accounts, we would let them know. Well, the time has come, in our estimation, if your measure is buying businesses cheap. While no one can call the tipping point and stocks could indeed have further to fall, at current price levels, we feel we are being presented with unusual opportunities. Carpe diem.


Full Letter

Disclosure (“none” means no position):None

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Oil Prices and Dow Chemical’s Q3

Let’s look at the information gleamed from Dow chemical’s (DOW) Q2’s release and call and do a little projection for Q3.

In the call
the following exchange was had:
Jeffrey Zekauskas – JPMorgan
“Good morning. On average shouldn’t your raw material costs be down sequentially in the third quarter? Natural gas has gone from — I don’t know — $12 to $9 and oil has come from $135 to $125?”

Geoffery E. Merszei – Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Member of the Board of Directors
“Yeah Jeff, this is Geoffrey here. Just to take oil, Brent crude average price as of this morning, let’s say, $124, $125. At today’s level it is still higher than our average cost during the first quarter. The average cost in the first quarter was around $122. I’m using crude as a reference point. And we are already towards the end of the first month of one-third of the quarter. So if you use an average rate for the third quarter of let’s say around $125, $126 then you are talking about over $0.5 billion additional cost for the company to absorb.”

It would look like that based on current demand for its products every $3 plus or minus in its cost of oil results in about a $500 million cost increase or decrease.

Dow’s Q2 average was $122 and change and oil now sits at $117. What is also of interest is the price increases announced earlier this summer were only about 40% implemented during Q2. By the time Q3 is finished, they ought to be fully implemented which means revenues ought to post another record quarter assuming no dramatic demand destruction (unlikely).

What does it all mean? Should oil prices remain lower than $122 for the quarter and with the price increases now fully implemented, the 66 cents a share earnings that analysts anticipate are beginning to look as though it is far too low.

Where are we at? July crude averaged $134 and August so far is at $120 and falling. On ought to expect that to fall father as July’s numbers were boosted by the early spike to $145 a barrel and to this point in August we have been below $120 for most of it. Of course one should also assume Dow may be entering into more contracts at lower prices now and that this will reduce the average purchase below just a simple daily average reading.

What if oil stays high? Let’s go with the scenario that oil ends up at the same $122 a barrel for Q3. We still have the implementation of the price increases coming through the system that will boost revenues.

This is a fun exercise but when you look at it, as the year goes by it becomes far less necessary. Dow has essentially traded 50% interest in its oil dependent commodity business to Kuwait for Rohm and Hass (ROH) in its entirety and picked up Berkshire Hathaway’s (BRK.A) Warren Buffett as an investor to boot. Not a bad deal when you look at it that way.

It is still only 1/2 way through the quarter but I am thinking there are going to be a whole lot of shareholders very happy with the earnings surprise Dow turns in after Q3 is over…

Disclosure (“none” means no position):Long Dow, None

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Berkshire Hathaway A Value Now? No

A follow-up on a post from March based on news today for Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A).

Whitney Tilson and Andy Kilpatrick (who worte the best book on Berkshire, “Of Permanent Value”) were on CNBC today discussing the subject. Before we go on, watch what they said.

Now, earlier Tilson had this to say about housing and lenders.

Okay, so, if housing is going to drag for another 18 months, then Berkshire’s results will also. So, one would then expect lower comp. earnings and hence a lower share price.

Financials institutions like American Express (AXP), Wells Fargo (WFC), Bank of America (BAC), USB (USB), M&T Bank (MTB) make up about 30%-40% of Berkshire equity portfolio (it varies based on valuations). The argument can be made that these are the class of the financials and that may be true, but all have seen share prices cut almost in half in the last year and a half no mater their quality. The other parts are tied to housing (shares have suffered) and the consumer like Home Depot (HD), Lowes (LOW), USG (USG), Coke (KO) and others. A prolonged housing downturn could see further deterioration.

Wholly-owned subs such as Shaw Industries, Clayton Homes, Jordan’s Furniture (the are 4 furniture companies), Benjamin Moore, Home Services and Acme Brick and directly tied to housing and will suffer in the downturn Tilson predicts.

For all its holdings, Berkshire is essentially an insurance company. It has operated under “perfect” conditions for the last two years according to Buffett and eventually to run must end. Premiums are already falling and as houses are re-poed and fewer new cars are purchase, insurance premiums derived from those products will fall accordingly. I know people who are looking at homeowners and auto policies for way to decrease coverage and save money. Whether or not this is a good idea is irrelevant (I do not think it is), it is happening. Throw in a hurricane or two (we are due) and insurance could suffer quite a poor year.

For more on Berkshire’s insurance read this former post:

Back in March when shares sat at $133,000 I argued they were not a “value”. Today they sit at $111,000. Are they a value now? Perhaps but one also has to expect that the near term, if Tilson is correct is fraught with potholes for Berkshire and earnings ought to take a hit.

Based on that, share price ought to suffer also meaning you will probably be able to pick them up cheaper down the road. If I owned shares would I sell? If I needed the money in the next year, yes. If I had a multi-year time frame would I sell? No. If that was the case I would be watching down the road for a cheaper entry price, I think you’ll get it.

Disclosure (“none” means no position):Long WFC, None

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AutoNation (AN) CEO on Earnings

AutoNation (AN) released results today and the news was far better than one would expect given its current operating environment.

America’s largest automotive retailer, today reported 2008 second quarter net income from continuing operations of $53 million or $0.29 per share, compared to year-ago net income from continuing operations of $79 million or $0.38 per share. After adjusting for certain items disclosed in the attached financial tables, net income from continuing operations for the 2008 second quarter was $59 million or $0.33 per share, compared to $76 million or $0.36 per share in the prior year. analysts had expected $.30 cents a share.

Second quarter 2008 revenue totaled $3.9 billion, compared to $4.5 billion in the year-ago period, driven primarily by lower new vehicle sales. In the second quarter, total U.S. industry retail sales declined 16%, based on CNW Research data. In comparison, in the second quarter AutoNation’s new vehicle unit sales declined 12%.
Commenting on the second quarter, Mike Jackson, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said, “Despite the fact that this past quarter was the most challenging automotive sales environment any of us have encountered, AutoNation delivered solid profitability.” Mr. Jackson also noted, “In the second quarter, the industry encountered $4.00 per gallon gasoline on top of the continued housing depression and credit crisis, resulting in a significant challenge as consumers are either postponing the purchase of vehicles or they are purchasing smaller vehicles that are more economical both at the time of purchase and at the pump. We now believe that, in 2008, U.S. new vehicle industry sales will decline to the low-14 million unit level.”

Mr. Jackson added, “In continuing response to the ongoing macroeconomic and industry challenges, we are executing a cost reduction plan with a targeted annualized run rate pre-tax savings of $100 million. In the first half of the year, we achieved approximately $25 million of this benefit. In the second half of the year, we expect to achieve approximately $50 million of savings, for a full-year 2008 impact of $75 million on a pre-tax basis. Our targeted annualized cost savings include reductions in advertising spending, corporate overhead expense and store personnel expense.”

Full release:

I don’t think (at least I hope) anyone is buying share of AutoNation now expecting an immediate payoff. This is a true value investment. The deal here is that when auto’s rebound, AutoNation, being the largest and also the most well run organization of the lot will benefit the most from its currently depressed levels.

Jackson is cutting costs and making the necessary moves to position the company for the rebound.

Watch him on CNBC this morning:

Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn seems to back Jackson’s thoughts. The advantage Jackson has is that he will benefit from all the automakers, and whatever trend(s) emerge not just one.

With famed investors like Berkshires’s (BRK.A) Buffett, Sears’ (SHLD) Lampert, Gates, Leucadia (LUK) and Sullivan jumping into the sector, now it the time to be buying shares.

Disclosure (“none” means no position):Long AN

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Goldman Sachs (GS): No Value Investing Here

Still on vacation but some things need attention. Read some of Goldman Sachs’ (GS) research report on Sherwin Williams (SHW) today..

“Although the company’s long-term growth potential remains intact, we are cautious that the cost and demand headwinds will continue challenging SHW in the near term: (1) our economists expect existing home sales (key indicator for paint demand) to trough in 1H2009; (2) the overall non- residential market is poised for a downturn as a substantially tighter credit condition and slowing overall activity weigh on the sector; (3) the raw material cost spike will reach a crescendo on SHW’s P&L in 2H2008 and the consolidation among leading paint ingredient suppliers (DOW & ROH)
may exert additional cost pressure on the paint industry; (4) the double blow of demand weakness and cost spikes could limit the success of SHW’s ongoing aggressive price hikes. Therefore, we see meaningful downside risk to SHW’s earnings and share price in the short term.”

So, short term problem but long term, everything ok. Sell???

Isn’t this a textbook case of what Berkshire Hathaway’s (BEK.A) Warren Buffett means when he say “buy fear”?

I mean, things look tough so sell the hell out of it? Ought we not buy it when there are short term problem that do not affect the long term outlook and growth potential? If you are a current shareholder, Goldman is saying that sell you shares even though long term they expect them to be fine because they may dip for the next months.

These “buy” and “sell” ratings really ought to be ignored by anyone who holds securities for more than a month. They are only good for the day they are issued. Anyone remember all the “buy” recommendations on Google as it neared $700 a share?

If not, read here:

Not sure why much if this matters anyway, Dow chemical (DOW) is going to buy Sherwin anyway

Disclosure (“none” means no position):Long SHW, DOW

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Monday's Links

Sears, Bankers, Buffettisms, Hydrogen

– Some interesting thoughts on Sears

Great thoughts

– George has a great collection of Buffett quotes

– Great…..home made hydrogen bombs

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Monday’s Links

Sears, Bankers, Buffettisms, Hydrogen

– Some interesting thoughts on Sears

Great thoughts

– George has a great collection of Buffett quotes

– Great…..home made hydrogen bombs

Todd Sullivan's- ValuePlays

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The Week's Best at VIN

Here are the week’s top stories at Value Investing News

Todd Sullivan's- ValuePlays

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