Rabbitisrich

So the article is the author's presentation of Census data, and not a transcription of a Census report? Social security and medicare shouldn't be included in the trend analysis without some discussion of demographic shift.

It refers to a tender or exchange offer, so the specificity implies that open market purchases aren't covered. However, it makes sense to remain agnostic on the issue because an open market bid is arguably an offer to "substantially all holders". The intent seems to be to exclude open market bids. BAC adjusts for stock dividends but not for issuances.

Does anyone have the link to the Census figures? I couldn't locate it on the from the "releases" section.

This is related: http://www.springerlink.com/content/5b6qld7wqgelj345/ There was another study where participants who had been directed to think of deceased relatives were less likely cheat. The effect held even for people who expressed disbelief in the afterlife. I'm trying to find the study but am getting a lot of cheating spouses results.

Looking at the debt schedules from the AR and the liquidity at holdco + upstreaming potential (last year $17B, this year $4.5B + statutory net), there is no way that Whalen is talking about debt maturities. He must be referring to a surprise legal development or something similarly abrubt...

There is plenty of room for upstreaming, if necessary. Last year, the holdco received $17B in cash, and this year it's authorized to receive $4.5B + statutory income. The North American bank sub. has ~$160B in cash + equivalents + fed funds sold and repos. The holdco has $120B+ Tier 1 common equity (Basel I). BAC handles the holdco problems you mention by focusing on "Global Excess Liquidity Sources", which are largely composed of government guaranteed securities and cash. Even if you impose a duration or stressed liquidity haircut, you still get a reasonable liquidity profile.

From Monetary Regimes and Inflation, you want to get into gold and fine suits.

Brett King offers some good comments about the physical branch model on his blog, Bank 2.0: On interchange fees: Note that the author has been crowing about uneconomic bank branches for some time, even as efficiency ratios stayed within a reasonable range for conservative banks. He's still worth reading despite the "if only ___ then I would be right" attitude.

The trend towards larger companies probably accompanies a trend towards financials and O&G discussion. These are areas where everyone is looking at similar information, but the subjective weightings are so different. Blame "macro-tourism".

Tariq Ali posted an interview with a bank analyst on his site, Street Capitalist. Plan Maestro has a lot of strong posts regarding financials on Variant Perceptions. Junto's post above is great. Tom Brown's technical posts are also strong. The long, but thorough, way is to read an AR of a top super regional like USB and focus on their notes, particularly the significant accounting policies. I like USB's AR because it doesn't read like a barrage of semi-useful figures. A careful read-through will inform you about how to think about banking.

My guess is that NRSRO ratings improve communication. You don't really need a great analyst for that purpose; you just need a widely followed one, regardless of how he/she became widely followed in the first place. It would be difficult for a competitor to enter that status unless Fitch/MCO/S&P hugely screwed up while the competitor massively outperformed. That's a high volatility environment. In a normalized volatility environment, such excellence in rating might hurt more than help given the issuer-selected system. Catch-22 for a new entrant, which is probably why Egan-Jones was so keen to stand out during the wackiest period of 4Q11.

How likely is it that Germany would institute a hard currency regime given the current account rebalancing that would occur in a two euro scenario?

Looks like an interesting presentation, Parsad. Are you going to make the full set available? The problem with trying to read the minds of the EZ leaders is that there is no way in hell any of these bureaucrats are going to throw themselves on a sword and promote monetary expansion without reaching consensus on consolidated fiscal expansion as well. If it "works", then your political enemies say that you unnecessarily put your country at hyperinflation risk. A political animal will wait until its constituents express desperation. If the German elite, for example, secretly supported the logic of Keynesian policies, then they would probably look very similar to austerians until the last minute.

I would jump into the high return on tangible asset businesses like the ratings agencies, Verisk, Fiserv, etc... Anything with big profits and a fat goodwill entry that grows at a slower rate than earnings. Financial tools and products will be relevant so long as the world economies grow.

I'm adding to my position, despite reservations about investment banking in general. Historically, purchasing deposit oriented banks at TBV has been a good idea. Problematic inflows haven't been jumping at a worrisome rate and the changes in accounting for TDRs and 2nd liens haven't revealed icebergs. I'm focusing on stabilizing collateral values rather than weak coincident indicators and the recent trend in real wages. Europe, then China? Still a good idea to keep cash for 1 or 2 homeruns.

http://www.americanbanker.com/bankthink/JPM-Risk-Management-CIO-VaR-hedging-1049268-1.html

The nice thing about the current price, and trends in collateral values, is that Moynihan doesn't have to be an amazing risk manager and revenue builder. He just has to stick to his stated principles and prioritize risk managers versus profit centers.

Whoa, this VAR comment is pretty interesting. I'm surprised Dimon didn't get pressed more on the issue. Investors need to know whether new VAR model was a simple mistake in construction, or whether perverse incentives interfered with its selection.

I haven't heard the call but a Felix Salmon post referred to a trade on CDS spreads adjusting towards the spreads of the underlying issues. So they go long the bonds by shorting the CDS, but the change in CDS spreads outpaced the bonds'. So if I read Salmon correctly, and he interpreted Dimon rightly, then the hedge was meant to protect JPM from the risk of some credit environment improving.

There have been older threads that included criticisms of Chou's holdings. Hester's post--"the great Francis Chou"--may have seemed like an attack on Chou personally. However, I interpreted it as a comment on (perceived) excessive adoration by board members.

The problem isn't just a small sample size, but also a comparison of "really" religious people to the non-religious. So many ways to skew your impression, from survivorship to poor specification.

Speaking of, Chan Lee, from Petra Capital Management presented four ideas at the most recent Value Investors Congress: http://www.marketfolly.com/2012/05/chan-lee-on-korea-as-goldmine-of-ideas.html The Samsung Climate Control and Pangrim investor relations pages are entirely in korean. The Petra Capital newsroom contains more than one article with a skeptical view towards chinese fixed capital spend ("China's Investment Boom" from 11/2009): http://www.petracm.com/abo_9

Is there a morningstar/valueline type service for Kospi financials? Regarding China, Michael Pettis has been offering cautionaries since at least the beginning of the 00s: http://www.mpettis.com/2012/04/09/the-ways-china-can-rebalance/

Is Hempton's description of the sales team (commissioned, older, conversational) a valid depiction? GNW pushes long-term care insurance through the AARP network. Can you launch an affinity sales strategy to 40+ MM people?