QVM Group

S&P 500 Internals: Understanding the Index's Path

granger:

Thanks for the kind words
.
EFA and EEM are based on indices that did not come into existence until recent times, so there is a much shorter data history for those indices. I'll look into what is possible.

The Dividend Dilemma

Moody's says this about TARP preferreds, which may be helpful for interpreting non-TARP preferreds (at least until the next rules change announced by the feds):

"Although called Senior Preferred Stock, the TARP preferred stock is pari passu with existing preferred stock, other than preferred stock explicitly junior by its terms, and common stock. While outstanding, a bank cannot increase common dividends or redeem or repurchase junior preferred stock and/or common stock until the earlier of three years or with the UST’s approval."

Large Banks' Net Income History

dick,

Sorry. Can't give individual or position specific advice through this medium.

There is not sufficient information in this article to determine what you should do with the stocks or their options.

You or your advisor must dig into the data for CITI and the industry to make an informed guess about the future of CITI stock.

As you know the market is quite fickle recently, but then with Leaps, you have the luxury of taking a longer view.

It may be easier to prognosticate about a security representing basket of banks that about a specific bank, but even there the surprises keep coming.

I have written several other articles about the banks that are published at Seeking Alpha and on my blog. Collectively they should be of more use to you than this article alone.

Your broker most likely has reports from S&P or other major research sources which you should read as well. Then read all you can about the sector and CITI at Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Reuters and elsewhere.

You may have a long-term winner or a loser, but if you are a winner, you may experience periods of great pain on the way to victory. You need a well reasoned logic for being in a position when it goes against you in order to stay in.

Large Banks' Net Income History

mikeg3 and Just Some Guy:

Based on your questions, I have added the following to the end of the post on our site:

Post Script:

We received a request to clarify the meaning of FY1, FY2 and FY3; and a suggestion that if it may refer to history and could alternatively be labeled 2007, 2006 and 2005.

FY 1 is the first prior fiscal year.
FY 2 is the second prior fiscal year.
FY 3 is the third prior fiscal year.

It would be inappropriate to use 2007, 2006 and 2005, because that would tend to suggest a calendar year basis for the data versus a fiscal year basis. Additionally, different companies have different fiscal years.

For example, if one company has a fiscal year ending December 31 and other has a fiscal year ending June 30, then as of July 2008, the first company is in fiscal 2008 and the second company is in fiscal 2009.

Note that for GAAP purposes the "year" number (e.g. 2007 versus 2006) is based on the date on which the fiscal year ends, whereas for tax purposes the year number is based on the date on which the year begins.

For these reasons first, second and third prior fiscal years as FY1, FY2 and FY3 is more accurate, and is the convention for stock data reporting.

Large Banks' Net Income History

FY 1 is the first prior fiscal year. FY 2 is the second prior fiscal year. FY 3 is the third prior fiscal year.

Large Banks: The Worst Is Yet To Come

Arohan, you may be right, but the timing is still very much up in the air.