Post #1543 by AdrianC on the Macroeconomic Trends and Risks board

Personal Finance Topics / Macroeconomic Trends and Risks ❤

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Is this political? I think it's a good question, one I keep asking myself.

Why Aren’t Markets Freaking Out?
Of Trump, Keynes and Wile E. Coyote
https://open.substack.com/pub/paulkrugman/p/why-ar...

TL;DR - the market is short-sighted.

You might ask why smart investors with long time horizons don’t foresee Wile E. Coyote moments and get very rich in the process. Some do. But for reasons that would take another long post to explain — maybe a primer one of these days — there never seem to be enough such investors to shake market complacency, no matter how unwarranted. It’s one thing to short a stock, but to short the entire market is a completely different beast.

Berkshire has $355bn and climbing in cash and fixed income, book value $494bn. Not finding compelling things to buy.

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Berkshire has $355bn and climbing in cash and fixed income, book value $494bn. Not finding compelling things to buy.

Two other pieces to look at:

Insurers have liabilities

BRK's equity and bond positions are at extreme odds of going into decline....because of probable market declines.

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Two other pieces to look at:

Insurers have liabilities

BRK's equity and bond positions are at extreme odds of going into decline....because of probable market declines.

Sure, Berkshire's insurance float is $174bn, covered twice over by the cash and bonds.

Apologies, I typed the wrong number for book in my previous post. It is $668bn ($494 is liabilities).

Some figures in $bn:
Cash $340
Fixed $15
Stocks $268
Other $25
Float $174
Assets $1164
Liabilities $494
Book $668

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I am playing on the odds of better timing later.

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