Quarterly report pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d)

Investments In Available-For-Sale Securities And Other Cost Investments Investments In Available-For-Sale Securities And Other Cost Investments (Notes)

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Investments In Available-For-Sale Securities And Other Cost Investments Investments In Available-For-Sale Securities And Other Cost Investments (Notes)
3 Months Ended
Mar. 31, 2012
Schedule of Available-for-sale Securities [Line Items]  
Investment [Text Block]
Investments in Available-for-Sale Securities and Other Cost Investments
All marketable equity and debt securities held by the Company are classified as available-for-sale ("AFS") and are carried at fair value generally based on quoted market prices. GAAP permits entities to choose to measure many financial instruments, such as AFS securities, and certain other items at fair value and to recognize the changes in fair value of such instruments in the entity's statement of operations (the "fair value option"). The Company previously entered into economic hedges for certain of its non-strategic AFS securities (although such instruments were not accounted for as fair value hedges by the Company). Changes in the fair value of these economic hedges were reflected in the Company's statement of operations as unrealized gains (losses). In order to better match the changes in fair value of the subject AFS securities and the changes in fair value of the corresponding economic hedges in the Company's financial statements, the Company elected the fair value option for those of its AFS securities which it considers to be non-strategic ("Non-strategic Securities"). Accordingly, changes in the fair value of Non-strategic Securities, as determined by quoted market prices, are reported in realized and unrealized gains (losses) on financial instruments in the accompanying condensed consolidated statements of operations. The total value of the Non-strategic Securities aggregated $1,399 million as of March 31, 2012.
Investments in AFS securities, including Non-strategic Securities, and other cost investments are summarized as follows:
 
March 31,
2012
 
December 31,
2011
 
amounts in millions
  Time Warner Inc.
$
356

 
340

  Time Warner Cable Inc.
193

 
150

  Sprint Nextel Corporation ("Sprint")
54

 
44

  Viacom, Inc. 
360

 
345

  Century Link, Inc.
70

 
67

  Barnes & Noble, Inc.
232

 
253

  Other AFS equity securities
34

 
46

  Sirius XM Radio, Inc. ("SIRIUS XM") debt securities
392

 
384

  Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. ("Live Nation") debt securities
24

 
24

  Other AFS debt securities
116

 
206

 
$
1,831

 
1,859


Unrealized Holding Gains and Losses
Unrealized holding gains and losses related to investments in AFS securities are summarized below.
 
March 31, 2012
 
December 31, 2011
 
Equity
securities
 
Debt
securities
 
Equity
securities
 
Debt
securities
 
amounts in millions
Gross unrealized holding gains
$
1

 
62

 
1

 
57

Gross unrealized holding losses(1)
$

 

 

 

___________________________

(1)
Liberty does not currently have any gross unrealized losses that have been in such position for greater than a year.