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Fairholme Conference call with Bank of America CEO, 8/10/2011
Reply to @Investor: It doesn't matter if there's a crisis of confidence, whether it be BofA or SocGen or...? It does not help when European regulators consider a short-selling ban, which quickly gives everyone flashbacks to 2008 and leads a lot of people to believe the worst. As for Moynihan, how many bank CEOs were paraded on CNBC telling everyone that everything was okay? Anyone remember the Bear Stearns CEO on CNBC only days before? Dick Fuld's appearance? No one believes these people anymore - they have no credibility (like no one believes Moynihan when he says he has all of his net worth in BoA - and those who believe him wonder whether or not he should call "Mad Money" during the "Am I Diversified?" segment to maybe learn something.) What is BoA's "book value?" Where is it trading in relation to that?
One is welcome to hope for the best - I certainly do - but not preparing for a potential worst case scenario because of a Pollyanna outlook or thinking that the government is just going to do something to save us (when they all come back from vacation, I guess?) - well, good luck to those people.
I will say that I did close my ultrashort indexes yesterday and a smaller position in the HDGE ETF remains. I don't think that we will revisit the March '09 lows but to think that the problems are solved (this whole "we'll be fine because we always have been" stuff is really ridiculous - we don't have to be anything and we can quite easily screw things up further than the lousy level we've already reached) is silly. If "kicking the can down the road" is the only solution, then forget it.
Comments
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/bank-america-scrambles-shore-capital-negotiations-sell-17-billion-china-construction-bank-stake
One is welcome to hope for the best - I certainly do - but not preparing for a potential worst case scenario because of a Pollyanna outlook or thinking that the government is just going to do something to save us (when they all come back from vacation, I guess?) - well, good luck to those people.
I will say that I did close my ultrashort indexes yesterday and a smaller position in the HDGE ETF remains. I don't think that we will revisit the March '09 lows but to think that the problems are solved (this whole "we'll be fine because we always have been" stuff is really ridiculous - we don't have to be anything and we can quite easily screw things up further than the lousy level we've already reached) is silly. If "kicking the can down the road" is the only solution, then forget it.