My Call on Wells Fargo Stock Was Accurate

On February 25, 2009, Wells Fargo (WFC) stock was selling for $13.44/share. I wrote an article where I praised WFC as undervalued:

http://willworkforjustice.blogspot.com/2009/02/treasury-on-wells-fargo.html

http://seekingalpha.com/article/122533-wells-fargo-should-emerge-from-this-crisis-stronger

At the time, President Obama had said that the government would continue to do whatever it took to support banks. Recently, the government allowed banks to use more flexible accounting to value certain assets.

Today, Wells Fargo stock reported better-than-expected earnings. WFC closed at $19.61/share, a 46% increase.

Personally, I bought Wells Fargo on margin all the way down to the single digits and sold at around $14/share. If I had Warren Buffett's money, I would have held on, but I couldn't handle having so much stock on margin. As it stands, I ended up losing some money on the WFC trades because I started buying shares at around $20/share.

It remains to be seen whether my most recent prediction--that the S&P will go to around 950--will come true. At this time, I continue to believe the S&P will rise to somewhere around 920 to 950.

Government Deficits Do Matters

Fun stuff from the Peterson Institute:

http://www.owenandpayne.com/why_you_owe.php

Each American now owes 184,000 dollars because of America's deficits.

SJ Merc on San Jose's Budget Issues

John Woolfolk talks about San Jose's budget problems:

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12058054?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com ["Top SJ management agrees to pay freezes and cuts."]

I am curious to see how cities expect to get more revenue. It doesn't seem like anyone has the stomach for layoffs and other spending cuts. Thus, Californians should expect higher taxes in some form unless they accept the fact that government has expanded too much over the last ten years. Cutting back on government unfortunately means laying off some government employees and/or reducing pension and COLA contributions. When times are flush again, we can afford to be generous. 

Silicon Valley Income Statistics

According to the WSJ (2/17/09, B4, article by Pui-Wing Tam), 42% of households in Silicon Valley earned more than $100,000/year. "Meanwhile, the percentage of households earning less than $35,000 a year reached 20%, up from 19% in 2002."

I hate these kinds of statistics--the term, "households," is so vague. It could be one person earning $101,000/year, or two adults earning $51,000/year. Still, it looks like the recession may not affect Silicon Valley as harshly as other locations. I don't see housing prices dropping severely (not any more than they already have, I mean). Despite the recent condo construction, Santa Clara County doesn't have an oversupply of housing.

Also, the new developers don't seem to have thought things through. Most of the new condos are in downtown San Jose, which won't attract families. If they were trying to cater mainly to singles and young adults, they made a mistake. Most singles won't be able to pay a high price for housing because of two reasons: one, young singles have only one income; and two, they are not in their peak earning years and probably have student loan debt.

Racial Divide?

Here's an interesting political map about Obama's and McCain's voters, when divided by race:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/03/how-did-white-people-vote.html

I enjoyed reading the comments. One comment pointed out that the map lacks a control. Without comparing the Obama/McCain map with the Kerry/Bush election, one can't reasonable conclude anything significant. Chances are, the maps might be similar for both elections, meaning there was no racial pattern in the 2008 election.

Just for the Record: NBA Draft (2009)

UConn's Stanley Robinson will be the best player out of this year's NCAA class. My ideal draft order would be this:

1. UConn's Stanley Robinson (Update: he hasn't declared for this year's draft.)
2. Spain's Ricky Rubio (assuming he declares for the draft)
3. Carolina's Ty Lawson
4. Oklahoma's Blake Griffin

Ty Lawson is a wild card. He obviously carried Carolina to the championship, but it's hard to predict PG success based on college play. Just look at UConn's Khalid El-Amin and MSU's Mateen Cleaves. At the same time, he reminds me a little of Orlando's Jameer Nelson.

I am looking forward to seeing Blake Griffin's brother develop--he may become even better than his brother.

By the way, am I the only one who thinks DeJuan Blair might be the second coming of Robert “Tractor” Traylor?

Hamed Haddadi

Today's WSJ (April 7, 2009) has an excellent article on Iranians and Hamed Haddadi, the first Iranian NBA player:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123906169774395129.html

Kudos to Joel Millman for writing a great article. Here's one snippet:

Iranians, over a million strong in North America, began coming to the U.S. in significant numbers in the 1970s, before Iran's Islamic revolution and the break in diplomatic relations with Washington. Among the most educated of all immigrants, Iranians -- or "Persian-Americans" as many prefer to be called -- are one of America's wealthiest immigrant communities per capita, according to demographers who crunch U.S. census data.

Mr. Millman definitely did his homework. I'm going to write him an email thanking him for the article right now.

Update: I am going to order Mr. Millman's book, The Other Americans.