Battered bank & financial stocks, time to buy?

[mussel]

So many bank and financial stocks such as WaMu, Wachovia, Merrill... were down up to 80% this year, is it time to go bottom fishing?

 

[Mark from Plano]

Originally Posted by mussel

So many bank and financial stocks such as WaMu, Wachovia, Merrill... were down up to 80% this year, is it time to go bottom fishing?

Only if you guess right.

 

[gamelan]

Originally Posted by Mark from Plano

Only if you guess right.

+1 like you wouldn't believe. i'm almost convinced that there's so much insider bullsh*t going on here that trying to make the guess just isn't worth it.

let's say that 6 months ago you decided, wow, Lehman looks really battered down. i'm going to buy x number of shares. but only now do you find out that a Korean bank has been doing their due diligence on the bank for the past 6 months and they've decided not to invest in Lehman. does the average investor get access to this kind of information? hell no. now your shares are worth x/10. ouch.

-Jeff

 

[sho'nuff]

isnt that what people thought with fannie and freddie? and see what happene?

 

[Tarmac]

They are great buys. As long as they go up.

 

[Kaizen]

From what I've seen, there's another huge peak of adjustable rate mortgages that will recast around January of 2011. I expect that, after a slightly stable (but still very painful) 2009, we'll see the same problems we're having now come up then. Plus, we'll have all the added problems of years of tight credit and people feeling worn down from the whole thing. So, I think we haven't hit bottom yet...for housing or financial stocks.