“Successful Investing takes time, discipline and patience.  No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time:  You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”- Warren Buffett The bull market that started in March of 2009 is now on the verge of its 6th and a half year,...Read More

It has been an interesting few weeks. While Federal Reserve officials have been hyping up the possibility of raising interest rates in June or July, Friday’s incredibly poor jobs report seems likely to delay any hike until September at the earliest. For many short-term oriented traders, bank stocks have become a trading tool to speculate...Read More

The basic tenets to value investing and margin of safety are the following: Every stock is a fractional share of an actual business. Every business or stock has an “intrinsic value.” The “intrinsic value” of a business generally changes at a much slower rate than the price of a publicly traded stock can change. Over...Read More

The new era of banking that started after the Financial Crisis, consists of much higher regulatory and capital requirements.  This has reduced returns in the industry but arguably has made the banking system more financially sound.  It should come as no surprise that smaller banks have been more negatively impacted and are losing market share,...Read More

Dramatic regulatory changes and capital requirements have undeniably changed the landscape for banks.  The short-term impact has been lower profits and revamped business models.  While most market participants are shorter-term thinkers and might come to the conclusion that things have changed for the worse forever, I’d argue against that.  While certain businesses such as proprietary...Read More

This is a very interesting article on Goldman Sachs (GS) development of a private bank to service wealthy clients with loans.  Due to its status as a bank holding company Goldman Sachs has additional costs and regulations that it didn’t have before the financial crisis.  It also provides new business opportunities and I believe this...Read More

This is an interesting little article detailing how Byron Trott formerly of Goldman Sachs (GS), brokered the deal with Warren Buffett in 2008 for a $5 billion investment.  It’s nice hearing somebody under oath detailing how Warren Buffet’s decision making process works. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-23/goldman-sachs-s-trott-tells-jury-of-secrecy-around-buffett-deal.html INVESTING IN THE FINANCIAL MARKETS INVOLVES RISKS. OPTIONS ARE NOT SUITABLE FOR...Read More

Goldmans Sachs (GS) is staying aggressive by taking principal investments in the tech sector similar to a venture capital firm.  While the strategy has worked out quite nicely for Goldman lately I’m somewhat surprised to hear this due to the Basel III guidelines which reduce the attractiveness of principal investments for banks.  I would expect...Read More

Lloyd Blankfein was interviewed on Bloomberg today and I though he made some salient points.  One thing that I thought he was right on about was the fact that while everybody is predicting dire returns on equity for financials including the investment banks, Goldman Sachs (GS) had a 12.2% ROE in the first quarter despite...Read More

When most people think of Warren Buffett’s investment philosophy they think of his large positions in iconic companies such as Coca Cola, Burlington Northern, Geico, Wells Fargo, etc.  These investments are core positions where he was able to allocate huge sums of money with the understanding that the franchise values would continue to grow over...Read More