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

If one studies the history of financial markets, a consistent theme emerges. Short-term fads tend to dictate short-term performance, but long-term performance is determined by value and fundamentals. There are periods where prices flat out do not make sense, either for the market as a whole or for individual stocks and sectors. The current investment...Read More

Yesterday, Assured Guaranty reported very strong 1st quarter earnings and once again saw an increase in both operating and adjusted book value. Over the last year, the company has grown both metrics by roughly 15%, despite adding material reserves for its Puerto Rico exposures and paying a respectable 2% dividend. The stock still trades at...Read More

As earnings season continues to develop, we have seen a bit of divergence in favor of value stocks. Companies that have been out of favor, due to difficult short-term business conditions, and that have incredibly low valuations have outperformed glamor stocks that trade at high multiples, based on the perception of safety. It is essential...Read More

There have been a few good articles lately on market valuations. We are in an extremely odd investment environment with hundreds of billions dollars’ worth of government bonds across the globe trading at negative interest rates. Basically, they are guaranteeing themselves a loss unless they can pick up a few pennies before a bigger sucker...Read More

Follow the link below to read TTCM’s latest research report on JPMorgan: Maybe The Sky Isn’t Falling For The Big Banks. Please enjoy reading! JPMorgan: Maybe The Sky Isn’t Falling For The Big Banks  Read More

Today, Assured Guaranty announced its acquisition of fellow bond insurer CIFG.  This is now the 3rd acquisition AGO has made of another bond insurance company.  The others, which were FSA and Radian Asset, have been very successful thus far.  While this acquisition is a bit smaller, it looks very safe and should add a nice...Read More

I spent my weekend catching up on some of the recently released annual reports of the big banks. The more I read, the less I could explain current share prices, which are down quite a bit on the year. Despite these companies growing in intrinsic value each year over the last 5 years, some of...Read More

Below is TTCM’s most recent research report on Assured Guaranty. We believe that Puerto Rico fears are greatly exaggerated for AGO. Follow the link to read more.  I hope you enjoy! http://seekingalpha.com/article/3964126-puerto-rico-fears-greatly-exaggerated-ago   Investing in AGO? You’ll want to read these exclusive PRO articles: Assured Guaranty – 50% Of Growing Adjusted Book Value by Tim...Read More