daffy

An Involuntary Transaction: Why BAC + CFC May Never Close

way to kill the thread H2O,

seriously, after reading that crap from you, I am sure no one will come back to comment.

Go away.

Hitting the Reset Button On Home Mortgages

I think that everything you are writing is fine and dandy as far as a bailout for homeowners go, but there seems to be one thing that people are increasingly willing to ignore.

A good percentage of people who are in danger of foreclosure shouldn't have been in the home in the first place.

I have been on my block for about 5 years now. In the last 8 months there have been 4 foreclosures (I live in Miineapolis). Of those foreclosures, one was a cut to pieces mansion for rental units that I have offered the value of the land minus tear down costs (after foreclosure). It really is that bad. Two of the home are valued higher but are really the least valuable homes on the block (they are like track homes in a neighborhood of turn of the century architecture). The final home is a traditional home symbolic of the neighborhood.

OK, now onto the "owners". The first home was occupied by some young partier who threw outrageous parties with sword fighting and the likes at all hours. Foreclosed, I am sure failure to make payments. The second two were occupied by people who had migrated home to home as renters and were always evicted (either by the city (condemnation) or the landlord). The fourth one was occupied by a couple who took out an arm loan and invested all of thier savings into a restaraunt in 2007. A start up restaraunt.

Ok, if you ask me, the only people who should have been in their home are the restauranteers. The other three occupiers did not belong in the position of having a mortgage to be responsible for. They couldn't even handle a lease for god's sake.

So, as far as I can see, at best 75% of the people in this bad debt situation should have never been there in the first place. So, no we should NOT bail them out. If the government wants to step in, well, let them help the couple who made a mistake in their mortgage choices and the choices of their business start up. At least they were willing to risk what they had to possibly provide a better life for themselves and others as well as provide for a larger tax base.

Seriously folks, you are not going to entrust your Maserati Quattroporte Executive GT to an alcoholic with a BAC of 0.33%. Just the same as you are not going to entrust your retirement porfolio to the homeless guy on the park bench.

Let's stop with the broad sweeping regulatory changes. Pretty soon home ownership will be a right, and the governemnt will be bailing out everyone. Driving is a priviledge, and so IS HOME OWNERSHIP. THESE ARE PRIVILEDGES YOU HAVE TO TAKLE SERIOUSLY AND BE RESPONSIBLE FOR.

Short Interest by Sector: Consumer Discretionary Leads

That wasn't a panic sell . . .

that was a well thought out play.

OK, now that I am getting old . . . I am going to get back to buying here in the morning.

Short Interest by Sector: Consumer Discretionary Leads

Oooops, insider buys were about 500K shares at roughly 4.06.

On 462M shares, not exactly what I would call I big deal.

I thought it was more. My mistake.

I would be curious however to see what Laytons deal says. Did he get an upfront promise of big share stake? Don't have time to dig, anyone got that info?

Short Interest by Sector: Consumer Discretionary Leads

One more thing short,

look at the insider trades and the pricing in January. I think they were at 4.01 and 4.06 respectively.

I will look for the numbers and report.

Short Interest by Sector: Consumer Discretionary Leads

It will get back to 3.70. Heck, it is at 3.76 right now.

Don't pull out too quick there short seller. Don't do anything rash.

WORST case scenario is that the price is being hammered to prepare for the Feb report which is bad so as shareholders don't see an amazing one day drop.

I am just going to keep a very keen eye on sales and and performance in the next few days. You are right, somethingis going on here, and I am going to stick it out but I do not have as much as you to loose.

Remember, the stock will bounce.

The stock will bounce.

Being rash is why the market takes bad turns, you know that and I know that. Go back and read my last comment on the other article, you now, the one where I talk about etfc and peers. I still believe that.

Think before you act here. Big money comes with some risk and sweat on the brow.

Short Interest by Sector: Consumer Discretionary Leads

Hey shortie . . . .

Your hypothesis is interesting. I too was just watching this etfc deal as I put a sell at 3.94. I will pick up in two days. I think the price will drop again before we break 4. But here is the deal, every time I saw the price come close to my call, I saw a blocks of 100K+ shares come up. WTF? Right now there is 100K shares on the block. I have never seen that with ETFC. Your right, there is price supression happening here.


In any case, don't worry about my sale, I am coming back in when it drops back down to 3.50-3.70 range. + I am still long on other shares.

I think yeserdays action was interesting in that ETFC didn't hardly even move. I thought for sure that ETFC would have bounced to well above 4 by today. In fact, my sell was for 4.17. The only reason I sold as I think it is going to go down either tomorrow or friday. Jan's readings were read on 2/13 so I expect Febs will be out this week.

I just think there will be another big sell off this week before any big news comes out.

I really think we should have seen a bigger bounce in ETFC yesterday. CFC went from 4.36 to 5.11. CFC. Yeah, that big monster in serious trouble. ETFC just has to get rid of some pesky little interest rate (12.5%) and do something about writedowns and it should bounce quickly back to 15$. Yesterday should have given that hope a reality check for the positive.

Something is amiss here.

Stocks: Risky, But Tempting

There is something that scares me worse than a 10,683 DJIA. That is statements like the following:

If you buy stocks when they're going down, they might be cheap, but they're almost certainly going to get cheaper before they rebound (if they rebound).

If they rebound?

What stocks are you looking at?

Are you telling me that MSFT is going to go down, maybe to 23 and stay there forever? Maybe they might go away altogether. Maybe MSFT will just fold, and everyone who falls under the 267.2B market cap will die.

Come on Felix. Get a grip.

Everybody seems to be focused on the short term gain that they have lost sight of a simple truth. Short-term gain tax-rates jump from 15% to 28% on plays lasting less than a year. Of course that is a simplification, and just a side note. But seriously. I am curious as to how many people are out there, at age 48, are fretting the 10-15% continued downturn that might occur over the next 4-6 months in their IRA. In their IRA. Should I say it again?

I think you made another huge mistake in your article to bring CFC into this picture. Not only is the CFC deal RISKY, it may be downright stupid. CFC is going to drag down BAC with it, and the only spread there is, is the difference between BAC*(0.1822) - CFC which puts the spread at $1.78 on a CFC current price of $4.78. CFC is valued, according to my understanding of the deal, at 6.57 when I did these numbers. You have to be careful there. $7.16 is not the price right now. So, 1.78/4.78 = 37.6% gain on something that might not happen, and if it does might get revamped, and then it will only happen in 3Q 08 . . . maybe. That is why there is such a spread. I am suprised it is not more for the risk.

OK, now that there is clarification on the CFC-BAC deal, I will have to give you credit to your statement which I take as bordering on lunacy. CFC might go away. But MSFT? GRMN? RTP? BAC?

I think you need to reel yourself back in, and maybe try and take the "Death to all Mankind" out of your fear-mongering.

And just to clarify, I am not short term bullish on the market, but over the next two years, you could say that I am moderately bullish.

I think you need to lighten up Felix.

I wish my name was Oscar.


I just would really like to know when all this "sky is falling rhetoic is going to stop". Of course the sea is choppy. Do you really think we don't know that? Who are you talking to? I am still buying in, and will continue to. I could care less what my stocks are going to do in the next month or two, or 5. What goes up, might come down, and what goes down, will usually go up. Look at the DJIA over the last 20 years and you will have no choice but to agree that USUALLY trumps MIGHT every time in the previous statement.

That is for all you math people out there USUALLY > MIGHT. Notice there isn't even an equals sign udner that symbol. Unless of course you are talking about CFC.

Bad example Felix.