Monday, July 6, 2009  Bookkeeping: Closing Fidelity National
Financial (FNF)  I am still scratching my head at the wild
divergence in performance [Jun 18, 2008: A Very Strange
Divergence in Title Insurance] between our 2 title insurance
stocks - Fidelity National Financial (FNF) and First American
(FAF). One thing the recent action has done is created almost
identical valuations at around 10x 2009 estimates, so at this
time I don't see a major advantage of holding both anymore. I am
going to close the weaker of the two charts, FNF - and take a
30% loss on the last 0.75% stake. We have a reasonable 5% loss
in the remaining stash of FAF.  If the past 15 years are any
indicator this is the point that FNF will begin to outperform
and FAF will crumble! :) In theory both should be somewhat
hostage to mortgage rates but this divergence says something
'extra' has been percolating lately.  Been cleaning out the
portfolio of some underperformers the past week or two, to get
leaner and hopefully meaner, so this is anoth