Subject: Re: Todays Barron's, Buffett moves on from buy and hol
Tex, 13 f and G filings disclose if Buffett was the buyer or seller?

I haven't looked at a 13F official form in decades. So the reporting details may well have changed. People race each other to publish and analyze changes. And others point out what isn't reported.

Back in my prime years I was interested in somewhat the same info you're seeking. In my case I was trying to separate out the stocks in Lou Simpson's portfolio.

Going on distant memory, there was a column that indicated who had sole power to buy and sell that particular listing and where that power was shared. When it was shared, they indicated who else had that power. By sorting through a lot of details, I could pretty well identify the Simpson stocks.

I quit doing it because (a) it took effort and (b) I quit caring about this level of detail. I had realized that I wasn't going to try to let their actions dictate my buys and sells. I was just being nosey. I wasn't chasing stock tips.

Buffett used to say that the annual reports included all the info he thought was important in making decisions on BRK stock. I tracked financial data by quarter on a per share basis, plotted it, did the statistics, etc. I finally latched on to what I had been told was the Gottesman criteria from the early days. Track the sum of float plus book value. When the price was significantly below that sum, buy. When I looked at the graphs, the good opportunities to buy and sell stuck out like a sore thumb. It wasn't hard to guess where the current quarter stood, you didn't have to be that close. The long term correlation of the ratio of B+F to price was close to 100%. So you were looking for some significant departure from that correlation. Ignore the noise.

Things have changed in business structure, cash reserves, a lot of stuff. So this should be less useful now than it used to be. But it surprisingly remains a pretty tight correlation. I think, as said earlier, that there's a number of items that tend to offset each other so that the change - just like P/B - takes place slowly.

I personally like Jim's 2.5 column best, and appreciate what he shares. It's sensible. P/B is still useful. I understand WEB's points, but that's going to be a lengthy process. There are followers of BRK who publish their detailed estimate of sum of the parts - with a significant spread in their estimates. I watch them all - I'm still a BRKaholic. But I think people may overwork analyzing BRK unless they're doing much more sophisticated investing than I'm doing - options, etc.

I admire their work and thank them for sharing. But it's not for me.

What is important to me is to try to identify events that might have a major impact on BRK going forward. And I'm not talking about succession. That's where I'm trying to spend my reading and thinking time. And keeping in touch with some very smart long term BRK investors who think along similar lines.