bob zimway

U.S. Big Banks: Survival of the Simplest

Citi soars, Goldman sours, a stark kabuki today. Nothing is what it seems. The Goldman stock buy adds 9% to the float. The Horror. It pledges to repay the TARP. Party pooper. It's their "duty." Uncool. Meanwhile Citi is a kon-tiki raft of band-aids and failed greed sailing ahead of secret winds.

"In less than two months, the hopeful enthusiasm that welcomed the Obama administration has given way to growing worry and frustration. I find myself wringing my hands, not over the goals President Obama has set but over the ineffectual ways the administration has pursued them." (WaPo)

"One needs to be an effective manager to manage effectively. 5 days, 50 days or 500 days, if you can't lead, you can't govern effectively."

We all know what led to this, and it didn't happen in the last 50 days. If some people examined their own behavior leading up to this debacle instead of throwing off on every man trying to improve it, Obama and friends would have a lot less dead weight to haul.

"In less than two months, the hopeful enthusiasm that welcomed the Obama administration has given way to growing worry and frustration. I find myself wringing my hands, not over the goals President Obama has set but over the ineffectual ways the administration has pursued them." (WaPo)

Well, instant gratification is what got us in this mess. It's day 51 of Obama's administration, fer God's sake.

Citi's Balance Sheet Is Just Too Big to Fix

Of course, Citi is a speculative play. The whole market is. But Citi holds a special distinction of being propped up in its trade to trade pps. Anyone following the ticker the last four days could see the safety net. Anyone thinking of shorting won't get too far. Today's action would have been a wild roller coaster without that crutch. It's a poker game with a good tell: the day it drops as much as five cents, there's your signal that the crutches are off. Have fun, comrades.

Republicans on Letting Banks Fail

Obama cannot let go of Citibank. Republicans are hoping that he'll fail, of course, and would disavow any part of the collapse of that whole credit network.

But the Fed is propping it up daily and volumes are coming down to where it is cheaper to do so. If a bottom of at least a portion of the market can be indicated by an approaching flattening of downward trading volume, look to C.

Investors have a clear message blinking at them every day, and C pps is going up every day, 1.01, 1.02, 1.03, and I'm surprised that the finance bloggers haven't picked up on it.

Five Reasons Citi's Worth the Long Risk

Just for fun I bought a few C jan '10 calls at 2.50. Why? Aside from being
perverse about conventional wisdom anyway, I came at it like this: Geithner has made Citi an example of limited gov't ownership combined with market forces, ie, private money and motivation. He's betting on Citi to make it, and if a Saudi prince or two can get a phone call and a deal, I could imagine a rallying point in the private/ extra-govt sector focused on citi, with its 30 country presence. The motivation being, we're all affected if it tanks, some more than others. The rolodexes are spinning right now.

Five Great Bets on Alternative Energy - Barron's

On Mar 01 12:05 PM anarchist wrote:

"solar and wind are not on my investment watch list."

I don't blame you, although the silicon glut is going to get the solar industry going in the US stimulus wave. Wattage costs are also coming down. IMO we could see some pps rise this yr.