Today’s higher than expected August CPI report, rattled the market dramatically, causing the Nasdaq to drop by 5.2%, the S&P 500 by 4.3%, and the Dow to drop by 4%.  This was the biggest down day since June of 2020 and the 8th daily decline of greater than 3% on the year.  The recent decline...Read More

The Nasdaq is now officially in a bear market as defined by a 20% decline from the highs, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones indices are in corrections, with losses greater than 10%.  The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the economic sanctions brought against Russia in response are a major deal for the global...Read More

It looks as though the PROMESA legislation is going to be approved by the Senate and signed by the President in the very near future. While far from perfect, this legislation is also far from being a worst case scenario for both creditors and bond insurance companies. It is hard to overstate just how attractive...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

Yesterday was a significant day for our portfolios’ because there was a lot of news about Puerto Rico, which impacts our positions in AGO, MBI and Ambac Financial Group.  Firstly, Puerto Rico paid all of its $355MM due on its notes issued by the Government Development Bank.  Most of these bonds were backed by the...Read More

Despite cities such as Stockton making headline news for refusing to honor its debt obligations, the number of defaulted municipal issuers is actually down by 32% from the first half of 2011.  The total dollar amount of defaulted muni bonds is down to $800 million from $1 billion over the same time period last year....Read More

It looks like Bank of America has the right man for the job in CEO Brian Moynihan.  The company has done a phenomenal job boosting capital through divesting non-core assets.  The banks has very strong reserves which should insulate it from future credit losses.  Due to all of the turmoil from lawsuit regarding reps and...Read More

There was a significant court ruling that will be a big help to what has been one of our largest positions AGO.  MBIA which is a competitor to AGO in the same line of business one a ruling versus Bank of America about what they need to prove to show losses from fraudulent reps and...Read More