Comments on: Street Capitalist Portfolio Outperforms (FFH, SNS, ORH, ESMK)

By: Tariq

Tariq — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:22:17 +0000

Anonymous, thanks for catching that. I misread PF2′s return from the letter. Still, I think even a -1.2% return when one of your positions goes totally to zero, and a few others fall considerably makes a good case for taking 8-10 concentrated positions like that.

At the same time though, I know David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital employs pretty concentrated positions on high conviction ideas — I think in VII Einhorn stated that at one point Freescale made up 50% of their portfolio. That position really paid off for them.

It’s a bit difficult to know which way is best, I believe Pabrai has stated something like – he never wants any position to really be greater than 10 or 12% of the fund’s total capital.

By: Tariq

Tariq — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:22:00 +0000

It’s a bit difficult to know which way is best, I believe Pabrai has stated something like – he never wants any position to really be greater than 10 or 12% of the fund’s total capital.

By: Confused

Confused — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 23:45:18 +0000

Tariq,

Are you sure about Pabrai? Looking at the numbers on his website, it appears that all three of his funds (PIF2, PIF3 and PIF4) were down for 2007. Am I missing something?

By: Confused

Confused — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 23:45:00 +0000

Tariq,

Are you sure about Pabrai? Looking at the numbers on his website, it appears that all three of his funds (PIF2, PIF3 and PIF4) were down for 2007. Am I missing something?

By: Tariq

Tariq — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 02:59:15 +0000

Hi Z, yes I did read that article — I actually read it while writing the above post. Given Fairfax Financial’s recent performance, it seems like a desperate attempt by the shorts to try to manipulate the company’s price.

This really isn’t anything new, for example Peter Eavis repeatedly wrote negative articles on Thestreet.com trying to discredit Fairfax and say that they’re heading to bankruptcy.

The claims are pretty baseless and I’m not worried.

By: Tariq

Tariq — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 02:59:00 +0000

This really isn’t anything new, for example Peter Eavis repeatedly wrote negative articles on Thestreet.com trying to discredit Fairfax and say that they’re heading to bankruptcy.

The claims are pretty baseless and I’m not worried.

By: Z

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 02:46:36 +0000

Here's a timely article on a couple of your holdings: Fairfax gets a dose of short medicine I was wondering if you had a chance to read it, and if so, what do you think?

By: Z

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 02:46:00 +0000

Here's a timely article on a couple of your holdings: Fairfax gets a dose of short medicine I was wondering if you had a chance to read it, and if so, what do you think?