Yesterday the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 225, so I decided to peg the financial stocks I wrote about investing in as a pool. We are often accused of bragging on the good days and having memory loss on the bad so I wanted to be transparent and forthright on the downside.
In the same time frame the DJIA has gone from 11,397.56 to 11,431.43 (even) and the S&P has gone from 1263.2 to 1266.06 last night, for basically no change either.
The market is rebounding as I write so I expect the news is even better. Although, this pool of stocks beat the market so far in the short run, I hope to track this group for a year, or at least until Major League Baseball's spring training opens in 2009.
If you want to track the story with me the first post was Serious Money: 10 finance stocks as the market bounces. I remain stubbornly optimistic that this is a buying opportunity and investors will be sorry they did not have the courage to buy stocks when they were hated. The follow-up was Serious Money: Tempting fate with 10 financials
The initial prices are as of July 29, 2008.
- Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) -- Starting at $18.45 down 63% from its 52 week high of $49.90. Now $18.47 (even)
- E*TRADE (NASDAQ: ETFC) -- Starting at $3.06 down 84% from its 52 week high of $19.39. Now $2.95 (-3.6%)
- East West Bancorp (NASDAQ: EWBC) -- Starting at $12.46 down 67% from its 52 week high of $20.88. Now $13.46 (+8%)
- Gramercy Capital (NYSE: GKK) -- Starting at $6.72 down 77% from its 52 week high of $29.45. Now $6.26 (-6.84%)
- Lehman Br Holdings (NYSE: LEH) -- Starting at $16.88 down 75% from its 52 week high of $67.73. Now $17.67 (+4.68%)
- Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) -- Starting at $26.25 down 67% from its 52 week high of $79.72. Now $26.10 (even)
- MBIA Inc (NYSE: MBI) -- Starting at $4.92 down 93% from its 52 week high of $68.98. Now $8.28 (+68.3%)
- Newcastle Investment (NYSE: NCT) -- Starting at $5.88 down 72% from its 52 week high of $20.88. Now $6.02 (+2.38%)
- Wachovia Corp. (NYSE: WB) -- Starting at $15.70 down 70% from its 52 week high of $53.10. Now $17.12 (+9%)
- Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM) -- Starting at $4.43 down 89% from its 52 week high of $39.48. Now $4.97 (+12.18%)
It bears repeating that I do not see any quick fixes or rapid business turnarounds, just a slow plodding attempt to return to equilibrium with the worst performing sector outperforming the overall market going forward. So far so good.
Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. Disclosure: I own shares of MBI, NCT & WM.
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