Great comments on community banking.

What we tell clients trying to win business is you need a reason to call and there needs to be an inflection point in their business.

https://twitter.com/Schornack/status/1594340536592236546

What does this mean? If a client is perfectly happy with their bank they won’t switch relationships.

When there is an inflection point a borrower will think about their loan and relationship, measure and value it. This is where banks can win.

Anyone remember the Magic Formula by Greenblatt?

It was a simple quant method that supposedly had these enormous returns in the 17% per year range. I read the book about it in 2007, was fascinated and found a bunch of resources online.

There were some cult followers who had a yahoo groups email list with a TON of data, I joined.

Hearing very mixed things on the mortgage moratorium.

Wells/BAC/JPM saying that almost no loans on forbearance and it isn't an issue, a giant NBD.

Numbers I've seen floating around are about 2m loans 90 days + past due. According to FRED: fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSACSR

There is a 4.4 month supply right now. In 2020 6.5m houses were sold.

A rough back of the envelop is if the 2.1m houses in forbearance come on market we'll be looking at a 33% supply increase.

This is hilarious, like taking a car with a broken radiator and saying "if we paint it then it'll be fine.."

https://twitter.com/UnHedgedChatter/status/1280121498011828224

I have extensive experience with Crown. Helped write their core system that manages their assets as well as prices tower space.

The pricing model is very sophisticated and it does take into account ROIC.

Good post with some great points. I have lost count the number of times I've heard "we just hired a young person to do some marketing for us.."

1) It's always someone young
2) Execs view them as a black box but expect some sort of magical results via Facebook/Insta

https://twitter.com/JeffMarsico/status/1276528928543440897

3) In these cases marketing is never given much of a budget or even freedom to try things

Hhiring someone young isn't a bad move. The problem is they have a ton of great ideas that the bank won't let them execute on. Give them freedom!

Some really good takes on what the economy is really like.

Also some epic bad takes from techies on why the market is where it is.

news.ycombinator.com/item?id=230183… If you don't want to skim the thread I will summarize:

I think my favorite is that the market is "cheap" based on 2025 earnings.

Also a lot of BTFD sentiment - i.e. the strategy has never failed.

$CSCO's earnings are interesting. Revenue down, and guiding to more revenue down.

Corporate praised their new licensing model ~1 yr ago with expectations it'd drive revenue.

newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-… If you read any Cisco/networking forum you'd see almost universally their clients HATE the new licensing.

For many clients it was "this is reason for us to look at other vendors.."

Reality is they haven't been competitive on innovation.

I find it interesting to see some of the FinTech's in the banking space, and seeing what they're focused on. What strikes me is most have a very elementary view of banking, deposits and *quick* consumer level loans, or credit cards, and possible home loans.

All the hyper competitive low margin (except consumer loans) building blocks of banking.

Since everyone keeps talking about bubbles we must not be in a bubble. #contra We're climbing a wall of worry from retail investors who somehow mistakenly believe the market has the ability to decline. #contra

I think you can reduce scuttlebutt/in-depth DD to two factors:

1) How good is the sales team
2) How good is expense control

Most analysts can identify #2 easily and focus on that. But #1 is as if not more important. Lumped into #1 is marketing as well. How is a company identifying prospects, warming them, and then selling.

What is their sales process? What's their close rate, most common objections, how is the team organized, leads tracked etc.

The old phrase: "In a panic correlation approaches one"

We're now approaching a perfect correlation without even needing a panic.

Might be fascinating to muse on the "but what happens in a crash" scenario.

https://twitter.com/trevornoren/status/1164556534367621125

The cynical take is everything crashes terribly and the bottom falls out like never seen before.

But there is also another take: That if passive money doesn't sell then it's possible for a small portion of funds to move the market up due to limited float

Not trying to pick a fight but VC's I've talked to:
1) Already know what can go wrong and know how to avoid it
2) Understand operationally how to run a biz and get from A->B->C
3) Optimistically biased vs value (pessimistic view)

https://twitter.com/vitaliyk/status/1113638155402375168

I am a dye in the wool value investor, but I also have come to realize:
1) Finance people can't run businesses
2) Finance/capital allocation is maybe 5% of what running a business actually is
3) It's easier for an operator to learn investing vs investor learn biz

Few years ago I had a conversation with a coworker in their mid/late 50s. He was lamenting that he wasted his youth, got married late, had kids late, never saved and would be working through his 70s to just get the kids out of the house. He claimed he’d never be able to retire. A familiar sentiment.

I mentioned my thought that retirement seemed strange. You work your best years to then spend down the money when older and not as able.

When I look back at performance where I compounded the highest:
1) Wife's accounts
2) Foreign stocks
3) Names where when thinking of selling I said "wait a few more months" (usually surprise on the upside.) With foreign the reasoning is easy. I consider myself at a disadvantage, so a deal needs to be brain dead simple, and knock out cheap.

i.e. - I have higher standards