Spekulatius

MNPP - somebody else actually owns this puppy. I have got a few shares, but it's hard to buy - the stock does not trade every month. My largest positions are LAACZ,BRKb, EEQ,BWP, WPZ,NSS,DISCK, SNI,GRVO.PA, BAC and about 30 more positions. Edit - forgot about FMBL,QUCT and HNFSA (about 4% positions each)

Playing dumb won't save Stumpf's job, but avoids that he implicates himself. I think he knows much much more about how WFC's runs their business than what he admitted during the Congress hearing, he just don't want to present the dirty details on a silver platter.

We are in a bull market right now and yet these alternative asset managers stocks are weak - how can we assume that these stocks to up, if the market becomes weak?

There's near-zero percent chance that anyone but Moonves runs the show. I don't see this as a problem in the slightest. I agree. letting the mediocre (at best) management at VIA run the post merger CBS/VIA entity and letting Moonves go does not make any sense. The whole idea of this merger is to boost management and improve the media properties that are in decline at VIA. It is ironic that VIA was supposed to own the great assets during the spinoff from CBS, while CBS was the nature cash cow business with questionable outlook. THe fortunes made a 100% turn and this is in good part due to Moonves stewardship.

A lot of banks trade at 15% pretax earnings yield, which means a PE of 10-11. BAC, GS etc. I don't think that this is cheap given that WFC got a bit "smelly" and we are so far in the bull market. Rising interest rates could help, but then on the other side, provision for credit etc are very low and normalized will go higher - probably much higher in a recession.

After he has disposed of it.

Agreed, that were it you or I that would be the outcome ... but this will be a central bank solution, and reputation is on the line. It wouldn't surprise us to see a whole lot of 'special' CoCo/QE and long term repos. Probably some dilution, but not the major dilution that most are thinking of. SD If the German government will have to bail them out, DB stock is toast. The bailout would look more like Fannie/Freddie Mae than TARP. I can't emphasize how much ill will Banks have in Germany with politicians and the German populace.

If the balance sheet looks like a POS and the income statement looks like a POS, I assume it is a POS. I don't really short much, so I just move onto something else. I sure would not want to have anything I own, merge with this entity either. I think the Bulls would have to prove that the balance sheet is Ok, that it is Ok to show huge GASP losses in the income statement and have bonds trading at 20% yield. If anything, I would buy the bonds and hedge by shorting the stock.

I agree - A PE of 10x (roughly) for a now tainted bank is not a great entry. I do think there will be more shoes to drop, when the investigations and subpoenas begin to stir up dirt. For me, a decent entry would be in the mid 30's. JPM traded close to tangible book, when he London whale incident occured. This issue with WFC is smaller in monetary terms, but larger in reputation as terms, as it affects far mor customers. I am WFC customer and while they never opened an account for me (I hope), it was clear that they were pushing a lot unwanted products ( insurance, CC, savings accounts that didn't yield anything) to their customers. I declined them all, but it was quite annoying. LT damage to the reputation should not be underestimated. New customers will be harder to win and existing customers that are pissed off for another reason and are on her fence will be more likely to leave. Control systems will have to be implemented I avoid these issues going forward, which will be expensive as well. In addition, WFC will have to switch to a softer sell approach, which may cost them some revenue as well.

The Mars is a bad place for a human colony anyways and won't save mankind. It may be a stepping stone to somewhere else - another solar system with Earth like planets, but right now it's more like learning to swim, compared to crossing the Atlantic and discovering America. it would be way easier to build and sustain a autonomous colony in a polluted and toxic earth, than to build and sustain one on Mars. Most of the things that Elon promotes are not new. fore example the hypercompet - I have a future technology book from the 70's that describes how people could travel in vacuum filled tubes by trains powered by magnetic levitation and thrust with speed is 10k km/h our more. The physics allow this to happen and the technologies are known, but the cost and complexity of this are way beyond our time. We can't even keep a supersonic commercial jet build in the 70's flying.

Looks like a low budged Sci Fi movie. The theory well known, but making it happen is hard. Thank you Elon for trying.

You watched Trump making a fool of himself : FWIW, ISIS was probably founded 12 years ago, but has only become a factor 3-4 years ago. I guess he and his foreign advisor do not follow the news very closely.

I would guess they were not bailed out by American taxpayers in the recent past. . Wells was not bailed out. They were forced to take on TARP as a show of solidarity in the financial system. But of course, the politics of the day and the mainstream will obfuscate that fact. I think you might have missed the point that you eventually make in your own statement. Regardless whether they were forced or not - they were important for the "financial system". Feds didn't shove billions down Walmart's or Target's throat and that's why what these Big Banks do gets amplified. Precisely. Everything was/is interconnected. To that end they were required to participate, and should have been require to participate. The nonsense that Wells management spouted at the time was self serving BS. They would have gone under without the financial system bailouts. So of course they willingly participated, probably quite happily, behind closed doors. Al, Just to be completely fair, if the weaker banks failed and the financial system collapsed, how many other companies unrelated to the financial services industry would have gone under? It's all fine and dandy to say that WFC "owes" Uncle Sam some special consideration because the government prevented a financial system collapse in 2008/09. But, can we not say the very same thing for Sears Roebuck, Walmart, and pretty much all of the consumer discretionary sector? If the financial system had collapsed and US gross domestic product fell by 30% as a result, I'm pretty sure that the carnage would have been widespread. Does Sears Roebuck owe Uncle Sam some sort of special consideration for its indirect bail-out in 2008/09? What about Carnival Cruise Lines, do they owe Uncle Sam some sort of consideration for the benefits that they realised from the financial system bail-out? The deadbeats were the ones who *needed* a direct cash injection as a result of the bad management of their particular enterprise. Do not extend that category to include unrelated, well-run businesses. Nobody knew who was insolvent at that time (or becoming insolvent), so the treasury did the right thing and propped all of them. I think if they had not done so, the financial system would have gone into a meltdown and no financial institution would have survived. BY putting the support of the Us government behind them, the meltdown was avoided, I guess some folks don't remember how bad it was. Perfectly good bonds were trading for less than 50c in the dollar and 20% yields in October 2015, because there were no bids. No bank would have made it out that mess, if this had persisted for an extended period of time

The brand was always a bit bland, but has now become really stale in recent years. I used to buy at LE but switched to LLbean and brands like Columbia in recent years. LE needs to full reboot and a I don't think they have the cash available to completely overhaul their business.

Reits are not conservative investments at current valuations (record low cap rates). I think it is a terrible time trying to juice pension returns by increasing risk. This should have been done a few years ago, but not know. What is the average employee age of those covered by the pension plan. If a 30 year old workers is covered by a pension plan, when will accumulate new claims against the pension plan, as long as he works for he company. Shutting down the pension plan for new employees won't change that.

This makes a lot of sense and it was clear from the testimony that Stumpf doesn't even want to go there when it comes to clawback or forgo current year bonus. He somehow wants this thing over just like Tony Hayward wanted his peace and life back after Macando happened. Well, I think peace will haVe to wait a bit. I think this scandal is bigger than originally assumed, since it is pretty obvious, that senior management not only knew about it, they encouraged it and tried to get rid of those, that didn't want to play along. If it does need turn out that Stumpf directly was involved in firing whistleblowers, he is done for, and so is the rest of WFC's senior management. http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/21/investing/wells-fargo-fired-workers-retaliation-fake-accounts/

These guys are all on loosing streaks. I doubt they will do better betting on election outcome.

NAh, I'd rather get it spoon fed. I was not aware of any Roadshow, since it is not on their website. As far as Capex is concerned, if it is not needed to support the manufacturing, what is than needed for? I am always a bit skeptical, when there is a claim that incremental volume can be done with very little additional expenses. Als, their F1 expenses, depend on how they are doing relative to other teams. If the other teams step up their game (sponsored by large auto companies) and Ferrari falls behind, they would need to step up, because they cannot afford to be the laughing stock of Formula 1, if they sell performance cars selling for half a million. That is what they had to do in the nineties when they fell behind - they hired Michael Schumacher for a fortune and spent money to get their car performance up to where they could win. That's the core of their business and not a discretionary expense.

The Stock is fairly expensive, why would they buy back now? While I consider RACE a luxury good maker, the business can be highly cyclical and they would need to keep spending in a downturn on F1 to stay true to their image. I guess the large number f product variants (limited editions) pushes up Capex. I don't see how they could make variants of their existing cars without making new tools etc. Even if they don't produce these parts themselves, they still would need to pay their suppliers for the one time expenses.

Yes, that is how I see it. The direction of the company was completely changed (scope of business, capital raises) and with none of the changes, existing minority shareholders had a say. That's said, those that don't like it, can exit their position at a fair price (imo) right now. FWIW, I don't own this (never did), nor do I plan to.

WFC lost of whole lot of credibility for a shred of money.

This is an Animal Farm and we know who the pigs are.

Contract manufacturing is a really crummy business. Why would nobody get into that business is beyond me.

I think the lower CAD may help with the margins, but I am not sure. THis company looks pretty good and cheap too, considering the numbers that they are generating. Car suppliers are highly cyclical, so that is definitely a concern. I need to understand their competitive edge better to make an informed decision about the stock.