Price Discovery, But Now With Fewer “Patsies” “If you’re playing poker for half an hour, and you don’t know who the patsy at the table is . . . it’s you.” –Warren Buffett As super-cheap exchange traded funds (“ETF’s”) proliferate, Wall Street is fighting back. The latest salvo:  a new academic paper suggesting that ETF’s...Read More

2013 Berkshire Hathaway Letter to Shareholders [Editor’s Note:  The views expressed here are solely those of Ross Kaplan, and do not represent Edina Realty, Berkshire Hathaway, or any other entity referenced.  Edina Realty is a subsidiary of multiple entities ultimately owned by Berkshire Hathaway.] Perhaps the ultimate negotiating secret — buried in Warren Buffett’s most...Read More

Investment Bankers as “Crumb Catchers” So, I’m not the only one who well remembers one of the best books about Wall Street (and best contemporary American novels, period):  Thomas Wolfe’s “Bonfire of the Vanities” (1987). Set in late 1980’s Manhattan, it chronicles life as a “master of the universe” through the prism of one Sherman...Read More