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There is no hypocrisy in following industry wide accounting practices while arguing for changes to industry wide accounting practices. Until the rules are changed, you follow the existing rules. To do otherwise is grossly irresponsible to your shareholders. Incidentally those forwards...

Yeah, you're right, the screaming groupies are drowning out reasonable discussion. Now remind me, how much did Berkshire make shorting the dollar: A) Nearly 2 billion B) Negative 900 million Enough with the cheap shots, tomcole.

<i>To re-phrase, Warren left some money on the table.</i> Everyone leaves money on the table. Unless you sell at every top and buy at every bottom. As for the 900+M Warren supposedly left on the table, we'll see about that. He's still short. <i>Since you're apparently fluent with the...

:)

Bullshit. Berkshire made $1.95 billion dollars shorting the dollar between 2002, when they entered the position, and the end of 2005. Gains on foriegn currency forward contracts (pretax, millions), directly from Berkshire's annual reports: 2005: -955 2004: 1,839 2003: 825 2002: 297

Here's Buffett's own words, from the March 2004 letter to shareholders: "And, again, our usual caveat: macro-economics is a tough game in which few people, Charlie and I included, have demonstrated skill. We may well turn out to be wrong in our currency judgements. (Indeed, the fact that so...

You're right, his stated goal was not to speculate on currencies, but rather to hedge what he considered the risk to Berkshire's value from the poor fundamentals of the dollar. This is laid out in detail in a letter to shareholders a few years ago. However, since Berkshire's balance sheet is...

Too early? You're too late. Buffet was short the dollar five years ago. It's been a very profitable trade. Martin

<i>the world is awash in heavy sour....</i> Today, the US is awash in light sweet. <i>SPR is of little help since there are no direct pipelines to the west coast from the GOM....</i> So imports flow to the west instead of the east. Oil is fungible. Summer driving season is winding down...

Markets will continue to shrug this off. Oil is a global commodity. Alaska is a drop in the bucket in the world market. If oil prices were driven only by US inventories, it would be $40, not $80. Today the US is awash in crude, not even counting the SPR which will be cracked open on the...

The September contract stops trading by the last week of August. If you hold your long position, you're going to get delivered 10 billion BTUs of natural gas, which you then have to store for two months. Where's the profit in that? Martin

This years NG pricing has been dominated by high inventory levels. Storage is far above normal for this time of year. Storage capacity is finite. The entire US storage is sufficient for maybe 2 months of consumption, and it's almost full. Demand for storage capacity is high, and supply of...

One very odd thing about the consumption tax is how it treats savings in the transition from an income tax regime. Consumption tax moves the tax burden from income to spending, so it is neutral for consumers. However, saving occurs between income and spending, so any savings accumulated under...

The minis have no liquidity outside the front months. Some futures markets will quote calendar spreads. As I understand, these markets are made by spread brokers to the underlying futures. I know NYMEX has calendar spread options, but I don't know for sure about plain calendar spreads. If...

Hey guys, Anyone know an online broker where you can execute native intramarket calendar spreads on Nymex contracts? Thanks, Martin

Good trade. Someone was asking about seasonality. Summer prices are always lower than winter because of storage costs. I'd put on a QM/QG spread at 9:1 or so in the heating season. Always watch how the rolls will affect your QM/QG spreads, particularly in February, March, October, and...

If you want to know why natural gas rallied, look no further than last week's storage report. The net storage on the week was negative, the first time that has ever happened during the warm months since storage statistics have been kept. It's unprecedented. This weeks report (covering last...

Steve, great satire. I love it. You speak redneck like a native. You had me going there for a while. Martin

Natural gas royalty trusts. SJT, HGT for example. Will be more of a pure NG play than buying an operating company. Martin

The Logitech sub is nice for a computer system but it would be badly out of place in a B&W system intended for serious music listening. I'd second the recommendation for Hsu Research. NHT also makes some good subs. I haven't listened to any Velodynes lately but they have a great rep. Martin