Jim, always being to fast I forgot to ask: What "disaster scenario"? The market in general oder (Hi, newfydog :) Berkshire?

I am curious as
- you always preach that market tops are rounded, with a lot of time to get out
- and seem to have most of your non-cash portfolio in Berkshire, so probably assuming it's the very last company where a sudden disaster could happen (especially as you seem to not have taken out insurance against such before by buying puts).

No real change in intent--it remains mostly for entertainment (given the scale of the position), but I haven't yet been sufficiently entertained!

There seemed to be a decent chance we would see lower prices than when I opened the position, considerably lower than we have seen so far. Some might call that a disaster (really it would be pretty normal). The current price is 17% above what it would be at the average P/PeakBook of the last 20 years, so "normal" might be around $407.25/B. And we're 24.7% above the 25th percentile of that ratio.

The "disaster puts" comment is really just an observation about owning any puts: they really soar in value in a big price disaster, percentage-wise...if nothing else, it's nice to have something to feel good about at such times, and as mentioned, fresh funds to go shopping.

Of course the US market is for the moment more exuberant than I might have anticipated, so my original guess may not happen any time soon.

Jim