texalope

Is American Express Risking Its Cache in Current Treatment of Cardholders?

Keep in ming the Benjamin Graham allegory of Mr Market. In the short term the market is a voting machine. In the long term it's a weighing machine. If you were contemplating buying a privately held business and you could get a wonderful bargain during a business downturn you would have to seriously consider it.

Buffett's Financial Bets

If muni bond insurance is so dangerous, why is Buffet selling it. He said 77% is in a second position and he's being careful. How can you be careful? He's humasn so maybe he's talking his book. After all, MBIA is about to start selling again.

A Rare Opportunity To Buy AmEx On The Cheap

Ben graham used Book Value as a metric to determine a company's value. He believed anything above 30% over book leave you hostage to the vagaries of the market.
On a historic basis this stock is at the higher end of its book value ranges. From a classic value perspective there is no margin of safety in this price.
I agree it's a great franchise. I believe it has distince competitive advantages and great earnings power value. I also think that the replacement value of it assets is much higher than book which doesn't accurately reflect the investment made to create this company reputation over its long history. I agree that the stock is depressed from what it was. I don't think there is a margin of safety.