With all the talk lately of a sharp economic contraction, Wells Fargo (WFC) investors and depositors might find it entertaining to know how their bank, with its famously strong balance sheet (uniquely AAA rated), prospered during the great depression of the 1930s.  

Specifically, according to "Stagecoach," a history of the bank published by Simon & Schuster in 2002:  "From 1929 to 1936, Wells Fargo increased the number of its deposit accounts from about sixty thousand to nearly eighty-five thousand and doubled its deposit base from from $125.6 million to $250.7 million. Customers, especially business customers, were voting their money with their feet and moving to solid ground."

A. Overview:

These many months of panic in the prices of U.S. bank stocks have been equally savage among some European bank stocks. One diamond in the rough is Allied Irish Banks (AIB), not to be confused with Anglo-Irish Bank, which is also publicly traded. Allied Irish is a well-run institution with a dominant position in the attractive Irish economy and with a well-covered dividend currently yielding over 9%. Importantly, the company has a long history of maintaining and steadily growing the dividend -- a point which distinguishes it from most other European firms.

Brookfield Asset management (BAM) is a very fine firm. I hold it as one of the main positions in my UpDown account and in my real accounts. I believe that the market is currently holding down BAM's share price for several reasons. The firm faces formidable competition in the execution of its asset management strategy but, on balance, I'm optimistic that they will emerge as a leader in the field.

The stock is probably worth about U.S. $35 today (about five dollars more than its current price), and should trade significantly higher in the 2009-10 time frame as the housing inventory overhang clears, commercial real estate finds its legs, and as the market wakes up to the many other positive attributes of Brookfield. Details follow.