Big Al45

Wachovia: Waiting for a New Entry Point

I'd wait until the 3rd Quarter results are released before investing in this dog. Steele has no more than six months to turn things around.

If Steele can sell the bad mortgages, and get rid of the leftover executives from 1st Union, WB might survive as an independent company.

If not, somebody will take them over for less than $12 per share (in stock).

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

Don't know enough about most of the banks cited in your article, but think you are right about PNC.

Their financials aren't great and you can't trust them anyway. PNC caught pulling an Enron move about 5 years ago - creating an off balance sheet entity to hide factoring losses.

Perhaps most telling - the COO's 2008 bonus calculation (see pages 48 and 49 of the 2008 proxy). Demchack will get 100% of his bonus even if PNC's Asset Liability Management unit's performance is 25 basis points lower than its peers. In 2007, payment of the bonus required ALM to perform at the same level as its peers.

As soon as I read the proxy, I dumped the stock (at $68) and haven't looked back.