Junto

My point is that while a child may be gifted in certain tasks (math, writing, etc.) there may be other aspects which he is less gifted in (i.e. relationship building, social skills, teamwork etc.). There are quite a few academically gifted but socially awkward teenagers out there, at least there was when I was in middle/high school. Relationship building, social skills, and teamwork skill building does not occur during class. At least, not in a functional class. It occurs after class activities, sports, etc. The key is requiring students to be both active in school and in after school activities.

Premarket futures strong right now.

Because the past five years have not had significant increases in loss histories? I didn't read the article but based on my understanding, I don't think from a loan perspective it will have a huge impact given recent year's loss histories.

I tend to follow local broker blogs and information for my market area (Minneapolis & St. Paul, Minnesota). There are several in my market area that are very useful in tracking local activity (Local Realtor Association etc...). Also, we have a publication called the Finance & Commerce that is a daily paper that tracks the market closely and provides permit, judgments, foreclosure information. They are owned by The Dolan Company (http://www.thedolancompany.com/) which may have the equivalent in your area. From a blog/publication perspective, depending on your passive investment interest. This blog has a nice feed: http://blackswanzine.com/ This magazine is a good free magazine and blogs: http://nreionline.com/

Thanks for posting this. I didn't realize they were a public company. I work with their product daily in the banking industry and see them continue growing their customer base in the community bank and regional bank space.

That is such a garbage comparison. The guy does not appear to be running any form of fraud. He may be/is using the system to his advantage.

I don't think you are the first on this board. The fact remains if you have invested in his targets along with him, you would have done very well. Having said that, I was invested in SNS and rode it to BH until selling out a long while ago.

+1

Are you assuming that interest rates will hold their current levels? The debt serving costs of the government have dropped significantly during the past four years, what happens when inflation does start to come through? This is my concern. Greek/Europe style debt crisis is not applicable to the US because of its control of the money supply. After all who has been one of the largest buyers of the US debt over the past 24 -36 months as yields have fallen? The larger concern is stabilizing the debt growth to historical levels of GDP and moving towards a balanced budget. My opinion is that Romney has more and better managerial experience and credibility to appoint the necessary people into the positions of power that can make progress and turn the wheels of government in the right direction. Obama's appointments is where he has not succeeded as a manager/commander of the government.

If you are sad because politicians in whole are hypocrites you may never find yourself happy...it is par for the course after all. The election this go around is more focused on economic policies underpinning the two parties which I think is the largest positive. The social agendas are what loses me in these elections. There is no question my vote is Republican. Obama had his chance and has not effectively accomplished anything. Regulations and red tape have only increased and business outlook in this regard is not positive. Romney and Ryan in my opinion are walking down a better path and direction. I think as a Commander Romney will be more effective in placing competent people in key positions to turn the wheels government. This is where I think Obama has failed. Good orator, bad manager.

Kraven, the teaser rate is more to do with the likelihood the average customer doesn't hit the metrics that are needed and then get a near zero or zero interest rate on the funds for the reporting period. Furthermore, by driving debit card activity the bank gets fee income from the card's use. It isn't much, but still noticeable when most transactions are small dollar amounts and the fees are paid on a per use basis. This is how the bank makes money on it. The actual rate paid on the account is likely lower than posted rates due to these net events happening. MVP, check out this link for fdic insured institutions: http://www2.fdic.gov/idasp/index.asp Credit Unions: (http://www.ncua.gov/Pages/default.aspx) - Financial Performance Reports http://webapps2.ncua.gov/NCUAFPR/

I upgraded from the HTC EVO after my screen broke the day before it came out. It is the best phone yet I have owned and my wife is jealous (she is on an Apple I-phone 4). Light, large, and battery lasts much longer than all my past phones. Plenty of app space which was a problem for me with the EVO and the camera works very well. I use the I-pad half as much now... Hard to believe what has changed over the past two years.

Market is firming in Minneapolis/St. Paul as well. Here is info from the weekly skinny from Realtor association (http://mplsrealtor.typepad.com/) The report card for this week showed higher grades than last year at this time for both buyers and sellers. Activity levels are higher on both sides, which is indicative of recovering confidence in the local market. Prices in certain areas have already turned a corner, and it is not unreasonable to expect a continuation of this trend. As summer begins to swelter, also keep a watchful eye on active listings, absorption rates, days on market and percent of list price received. Being schooled in these metrics is like having an open book during the final exam. In the Twin Cities region, for the week ending June 9: • New Listings increased 0.4% to 1,582 • Pending Sales increased 29.4% to 1,231 • Inventory decreased 31.0% to 17,540 For the month of May: • Median Sales Price increased 10.5% to $169,000 • Days on Market decreased 19.6% to 125 • Percent of Original List Price Received increased 3.8% to 94.6% • Months Supply of Inventory decreased 44.7% to 4.6

why do you say that? There was a debate after the iPad 3 was released that Apple was losing its edge after Steve Jobs. A look at what they have announced shows that they have not. What is more interesting today is that they are announcing a lot of integrations - with other Apple devices (iPads, iPhones and Macs), social networks, cars, etc. It almost seems that the theme of this release was integrations. This is very important. Essentially, they're deepening the moat around their castle. The question is are they overvalued? How many businesses have continued to produce revolutionary products that see adoption rates that Apple has? How much growth can they achieve and can they efficiency allocate the capital earnings or will they ultimately destroy it searching for the next best idea? I don't see anything special in their announcement today, seems to continue on the path of other companies such as Google. I have never been an apple guy. I do use a first gen i-pad that my wife received at work but nothing else. I prefer my Android phone to my wife's I-phone. I am sure I have enough exposure to Apple in my mutual fund based 401k accounts that I don't need to own it in my value portfolio. Having said that, I will certainly be watching it, just not investing in it at this time.

Imagine you have $100m that you want to save. What are your alternatives? You don't have FDIC protection (and there is no reasons why bank accounts can't have negative rates), and you can't put that in a safe under your bed. Sure, regular Joe's with $5,000 don't have to accept negative rates, but they aren't the majority of deposits. Not arguing that we will see those rates, but I'm just saying that there is some reason for why T-Bill yields sometimes go negative. It could happen for longer dated issues too. Ben To protect $100m you only need to purchase 400 certificates of deposit -- each one from a different bank. The $250,000 in FDIC protection is only the limit of protection that you have from each individual bank. Untrue...time to do a refresher on FDIC insurance limits and the flexibility of using beneficiaries on accounts...or even easier instead of buying a negative bond put it in a non-interest bearing account which is fully secured with no limit on FDIC insurance. http://www.fdic.gov/deposit/deposits/index.html

Will check it out, thanks. $1.4b in total assets, $1b in lending. I am still in the very beginning of looking at it and thought that there may be some resources which would make my work more effective in looking at some of the peculiarities of banking, like reserving, credit quality and such. My other 'bank' investments have been in in companies that had no mortgage business so this is a different animal to me. I have written some posts that could be of interest on New York Community Bank http://www.businessbankertwincities.com/search/label/NYB Tim Koch is good for management review. I have seen poor bank performance and been involved first hand on working through a tough banking scenario. Currently in the process of raising capital to fully recap a community bank after a very tough four years. I have also studied strong performing banks. There is a laundry list to go through but here are some to consider: Loan loss history, not reserves but actual charge offs and gain or loss on sale of Oreo Efficiency ratio Loan concentrations Book value Return on capital Market position, competitive position Interest rate sensitivity Economic environment immediately surrounding bank market area It has a lot do with trends and performance. Management is very important. Regulators look at banks and rank them on capital, asset quality, management, earnings, liquidity, and sensitivity. Not a bad start to do it that way as well. Capital is always king in the banking world.

I think the better question is understanding what type of commercial property you ultimately want to purchase. Triple net lease, Class A/B/C space, turnaround plays, industrial, office, retail, or performing properties. A lot depends on your time resources and your abilities as to leasing, negotiating, financing support, and property management/maintenance. At 27 units, I am sure you have more or less the basics down but moving into commercial is certainly a slightly different skill set. I would also recommend researching the cycles of the different types and classes of real estate. This should be to your advantage as the economy recovers. If you can slim down your market focus, you will be able to network more efficiently in your market area and get better leads on potential investment opportunities.

Are you looking for guidance/management experience on actually turning around a business?

There are certain areas that really did not get hit very hard or at all by the downturn (Edina, MN for instance has several neighborhoods meeting this description). There has continued to be tear down / rebuilds in niche areas. My colleague has a friend in Richfield who in the last month had a bidding war on their home after dropping the price $10,000 they recouped the drop and then some ($210M PP). This is an older neighborhood first ring suburbs. We also have some OREO in outer suburban areas that sold much faster than I would have anticipated (211 acres of raw land surrounding an upscale development). We also are part of another project in an nice outskirt development that is seeing an increase in lot prices and another receiving multiple offers from large builders trying to secure lots. I live in the suburbs and try to watch the market near my home which seems to be going well. There are two brand new developments in the dirt this year and one development that has nearly sold out throughout the recession (granted at much lower prices than originally projected). My personal data points are all turning positive. Conversations with other community bankers in and around the Metro are also starting to turn positive. We will see if the momentum holds through the summer but right now it is certainly more positive than it has been since 2008.

Completely backwards looking. I think residential real estate is decoupling across the country and becoming more localized than it has been in recent years. In the Minneapolis / St. Paul, Minnesota area, the market is certainly picking up. I have seen this first hand. Pricing is firming and inventory levels are down. We have under contract or offers on as much property as we sold in all of 2011 and 2010 already in March 2012. Now we need them to close :) Now you couple this with the rental market at sub 3% vacancy rates (sub 2% for a while) and rental rates pushing $2 / SF, people will start moving back to home ownership from renting. It is the herd mentality still and once the momentum turns, the prices will start to rebound. Certainly provides opportunities for us that like to play the contrary positions and move the chips into the game while the others run scared. I not saying that the market is going to bounce hard, but the bottom I feel is in. We will see how it ultimately plays out. I am certainly more positive than Shiller is on the outlook.

Bought a small position in WPX recently in the low $18's.

Ragnar been following your posts on this one. Liked CEO take on Floridia casinos you linked on your website. Thanks everyone for the short list, will review.

Anyone on the board have some good small cap stocks that have good growth stories? Trying to stay out of the flashy names and something more industrial. Any thoughts out there. Working through my screens.

Cardboard I am with you. I have not invested because the combined ratios historically are not good and his whole operating basis is to earn a larger investment return on the float than his losses on the insurance business.

I disagree with you here wholeheartedly. There are more regulations, examinations, fees, and other changes making its way through the system right now that making a statement like the one you made is very much premature. The landscape is changing and the risk levels taken by banks are declining. There will always be bad actors and higher risk institutions that fail (reminder MF Global was not a bank). The key is to make sure they do not take the system down with them. The regulatory environment is rigorous right now. I believe the system is being reformed. Buy now, sell when the economy is growing again and loan demand is increasing for four or five consecutive quarters.