Blog

 I've gotten some questions lately to the effect of where are you & what's up with the blog. There are a couple of reasons I've been laying back. One is that I'm very busy right now, writing the investing book and also, in beta, doing the investing. I would rather spend my time that way and I think many of you would rather that I do that as well.

In terms of when, the book will be done when its finished and there are always surprises in these things so it's best not to give an arbitrary deadline.  As the date gets closer you'll get some heads-up comments.

Another reason I have not written much lately is that there isn't much I want to say about Buffett or Berkshire. At some point, people have accomplished enough in their career that they should get to rest on their laurels, meaning that it isn't appropriate to comment on every little thing they do and say. If anything important happens, I'll write about it -- probably for Bloomberg -- and post the link here. I have a Bloomberg column coming out on another subject shortly that you'll learn about if you subscribe to my feeds, twitter, etc.

From time to time I read something noteworthy enough to pass along. This is an interesting piece from the Templeton Foundation that has implications for investing as well as life in general: The Hodge Hill Prophecy. 

I hope you've enjoyed visiting the blog and I will continue to tune in, but for awhile at least, not as often as in the past couple of years.

Best to you all,

Alice

Cool move from Buffett after Wall Street Journal editorial page calls for him to disclose his tax return. Buffett dares Rupert Murdoch, publisher of the Journal, to meet him at Fortune mag with his tax return. If Murdoch shows up, Fortune will publish both his and Buffett's.

Would anyone care to place odds on Murdoch agreeing to publish his tax return?

 Today Berkshire Hathaway authorized a share repurchase at 10% over the book value of the stock. This is the first time since the end of the Internet bubble, which was the only other repurchase authorization that Berkshire has made.  At that time, the announcement ran the stock up immediately and no shares were repurchased. The same will probably happen now.

This time, Berkshire has authorized a standing repurchase as long as Berkshire maintains cash/equivalent balances of at least $20 billion, which should support the stock price at 110% of book value. (The press release contains the standard disclaimer that the underlying businesses of Berkshire are worth considerably more than this amount, though any such estimate is necessarily imprecise.)  

It will be interesting to see if Berkshire actually buys back any stock (I'm betting that if so, it will be not a significant amount).  

The main twist that occurs to me is that this announcement opens up interesting possibilities for acquisitions. If the stock market tanks, Berkshire's book value would be affected but its stock might still remain a good acquisition currency because of the repurchase "floor" on the stock. (Berkshire's book value is more than its investment portfolio.) This would let Buffett make deals that would otherwise be out of reach. 

 Story from the FT. I give some information. Tomorrow in WaPo I have an op-ed about how Obama should deploy Buffett to make larger points.