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Zions Bancorp: Shareholder Confidence May Be High, But Bank's Valuation Still Troubled

That is one way to look at it.

But this is not the first time ZION has been able to raise capital during this crisis nor the second, and as you note, likely not the last.

My view is that ZION will be among the last regionals standing. The deposit base in the mountain States will stay loyal as long as Zion's has a prayer, and then pray some more. There is a strength and sacredness inherent in the institution's reputation that will not be easily shaken. That is not to say it can't happen; only that the signals will need to be louder and clearer than for other banks in other places.

Therefore, the belief here is that the stock is considerably undervalued due to the extant discount in the share price that there is some significant chance that Zion's might not recover; the probability of which is less than 1% IMHO.

The $37B Roubini Forgot at Wells Fargo

And where did Meredith Whitney have it wrong when she responded to a CNBC question a few weeks ago: "which bank do you think is most certain to see its share price decline from here"? Whitney's reply: Wells Fargo!

The Upside-Down Logic of Obama's Stimulus and Merrill's Depression Call

"most portfolio managers still don't know that a recession is not defined as back-to-back quarters of negative real GDP"

one of my pet peeves relate to those who smugly make this claim.

truth is the 2 negative Qs used to be a widely accepted definition established via an unknown history. those who criticise this definition don't offer alternative other than vaugue double speak or that a recession is what the venerable trio of economists say it is.

i think they a both BS. to me a recession is when consumer spending falls to a rate below population growth plus inflation. so if inflation is 2% and population growth is 1%, then we are in a recession if consumer spending falls below 3% growth.

that at least makes some sense.

Some Thoughts on Dow Placing Dividend Cut on the Table

>>>>>"t... CEO will not cut the dividend".<<<...

i think it is important to get the quote right: he said on CNBC last month:

"not as long as i'm CEO!" in response to the Q about a possible div cut.

your inaccurate quote goves him an out that the BOD did it, he did not. Lame as that sounds he is already trying to sluff it off on the BOD.

The Reagan Counterrevolution

i am one reaganite who supported ron paul and then voted for obama and would vote to either expel or jail all neo-cons, the modern war criminals and plutocrats. we need a maximum law, a law that prohibits compensation to all voting board directors, and a 90% wealth/inheritance tax on all the royal descendants as early steps to the restore the makings of meritocracy. we seek liberty and justice for all not just a few. government regulation has been massively redistributing wealth in America for decades. wealth has been ripped away from the poor and middle classes to the few super rich. they were the main group to become better off during the last phase of "growth"

as buffett ( the only honest man on wall street i know of) said before congress recently,

Buying USO Is a No-Brainer

a lot of replies in a short time. not the kind of thing you see when something is a " no brainer."

i agree with milton friedman, you can find the oil price bottom by looking at the 1998-1999 price adjusted for inflation as long as production capacity exceeds demand, regardless of what OPEC does.

don't see how $10 is possible but low $20s look very likely and a break below $20 is hardly implausible. oil will go back up when global growth returns. problem is, this is not a normal cyclical downturn, it is a permanent deleveraging haircut.

what i don't understand is how oil bulls find $20 oil shocking. we were half of that in every investor's lifetime.

if your want a no brainer, ie something that is at unsustainable and unprecedented levels, look at long treasury rates. buy TBT, go away for 10 years, and watch your money outperform.

Buying USO Is a No-Brainer

Commodities bubble turned out to be a scam by manipulators this time around. In the 1970s, it was rather all about OPEC. After OPEC drove up oil from $3 in 1972 to $40 in 1982, the late economist Milton Friedman wrote a piece in Newsweek predicting oil would drop to its natural price of $10, i.e. the 1972 price adjusted for inflation. He was dead right!

All that assumed, of course, that a commodity is a commodity, meaning the world has all the supply it needs at marginal cost/revenue.

This time Boone Pickins and others said it was different and that the world simply did not have the physical capacity to produce sufficient amounts to meet the 86 million barrels per day demand. For now and the next few years at least, that is not the case as demand seems to have fallen off a cliff.

What does all this mean for societies today? It means as long as demand is exceeded by supply capacity, you should be able to find the bottom in oil prices by looking at the price in 1999 in today's dollars adjusted a little for marginal drilling costs. Expect to see the $20s before it turns back up. Same should be true for copper and other commodities with demand challenges. Several years hence, prices will soar for oil and copper as inflation escalates. but not for a good while.