drmalaka

Bank of America Buyback Announcement: Who Cares?

Wow this is almost as incredible a piece of good news as when LEH raised $4 billion that they did not need but managed to spend in a month. Buy, buy, buy. No more writedowns, the ninth inning is here. Until of course a month from now when news starts leaking again of potential write downs.

Soup Target; Cramer's Mad Money (7/22/08)

Cramer is a fool. Last week he said C was going to single digits. Which one is it? Before that he said stay away from banks when they reach single digits, now WM and WB are good buys?

As for oil, its drop is a bad macro event. Oil is dropping because of a fear that global demand will drop because of a global slow down. Duh, a global slow down is not good for equities, it is bad. Global growth is all that has kept this theoretical market going at all.

These 32 Commercial Banks and Thrifts May See the Dung Hit the Fan

Reggie, as always a great article. You have so much back up information that those who throw barbs at you just do not want to do the work and understand what is really happening.

Ebuddy, Reggie did not say sell all those stocks, he has more articles and will select the best shorts. Your points are correct, so the answer might be that those are not on the short list.

The first comment is just a stick your head in the sand attitude. Trust the market, they know. First, don't forget the lowlife scumbags you are trusting. Second, how forward looking was the market in Q3 07 when it ran to new highs? What about NASDAQ in March 2000? To blindly follow that is idiotic, at least take a moment to listen. Read what Reggie and others have to say and then decide who you agree with.

There is very little room in these banks for defaults, it is not like they have a gross margin of 50% so a few defaults would mean nothing. Generally speaking, I would figure that losing all the principal on one loan would cancel out the profits of twenty five or thirty loans at least. If they lent out money at 10% interest the interest payments on ten loans of equal value would cover one complete loss. Then you have to factor in that they only make the spread between what they borrow for and they lend out. Add in overhead and costs and I might be underestimating the number of quality loans one complete loss cancels out.

Reggie you are spot on. If a bank holds a high percentage of these potentially zero value loans (and I agree with your hypothesis that a lot of these will be zero) then that bank is going to be in trouble. I love how you are going about this.

All those above who are so positive on this sector, do you really believe that housing will come back by the end of the year or early next? 11 month supply of houses compared to a usual 5.

Financials and Retail: Not as Dire as They Seem

This might not be the best way to read corporate financials Philip. You might want to check EPS and PEs instead. B of A is a much bigger bank since 2003 so we would expect them to be making more money just because of the aquisitions. But there are more shares outstanding now, so you must compare those relative numbers not absolute values.

As for your calls, the least you could have done is picked some of the better financials. WM is as bad as they get. July 12.5 cheap? I have a feeling WM did not make a loan unless the borrower promised to default. Single digits very soon for this one. And C is no better. They raised cash ten points ago at an 11plus percent interest and now they need more money. I am not sure if the conversion price for the note includes a ratchet down protection like the one MER has, if C has this too then raising money through equity is even costlier.