It’s just amazing to me to have those sorts of opportunities in a very expensive market
...
And Warren missed such an "amazing" opportunity to finally put a BIG chunk of the cash hoard in a business he understands? I don't think so.

On the one hand, they appear to have normalized earnings of around $20 per share, so today's price of $191 does at first blush look pretty attractive. "Normalized" in the sense of what the current year might be if it were neither unusually good nor unusually bad. Analysts expect very good growth in the next few years, too.

But a really good business with really good management probably wouldn't have had a write-off of over $15 a share last year. I honestly don't know enough about the Discover Financial deal to say whether it's a "real" loss or not. If it were truly a "one time" thing, then yes, one might speculate that today's price is a great deal because investors are myopically overemphasizing trailing year results which are atypical. Operative word being "if".

Jim

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