Audax Investments


October 15, 2009, 5:11 pm
Filed under: 1 | Tags: ,

Too big to fail when it concerns banks will eventually  lead to much higher capital requirements, or to the outright separation of commercial banking and trading operations.  The systemic risk to the entire economy is just too large to allow that to happen again.

That implies an element of operational uncertainty for banks like Citibank and Bank of America as their business models and capital requirements will be forced to change.  It will be amusing to see how that sorts itself out in the years to come. If you then include the fantasy accounting banks apply to financial statements, which adds another layer of complexity in evaluating their businesses, the end result is a lot of blur, making it very difficult for investors to even know what the definition of is is (Clinton circa 1998).

 This uncertainty about their business models complicates any fundamental analysis to the point of rendering it useless, and that leads me to believe that one should trade these firms purely on a technical basis, that is chase momentum until it stops.  To extrapolate their current earnings into the future, is beyond naïve, and probably outright silly.

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