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Cramer on BloggingStocks: Checking in with the lonely financial bulls

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says Rich Pzena has a different take on the value of the beaten-down financial sector.

If you think the world is coming to an end, you might as well read Rich Pzena's note from Pzena Investment's (NYSE: PZN) (Cramer's Take) earnings call -- he talks about how the world just might not be ending.

Rich has done excellent work his whole career and, in full disclosure, is a friend, and I don't seek out or have many friends on Wall Street. It makes the job -- telling the truth as I see it -- a little too hard.

Anyway, Rich has been wrong, or early, or whatever you want to call it, on the financials. Someone like Doug Kass, who has been dead right on the financials, might take umbrage to my even mentioning Rich's work, but Rich deserves respect for his unbelievably great work over the years.

I liked his conference call because no punches were pulled. He just admitted plain up that his quarter was awful, just terrible, as befits a money management company that invests in value, which now means the financials.

Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: Checking in with the lonely financial bulls

Is Citigroup a buy?

Barron's reports on Wednesday's Ira W. Sohn Investment Research Conference in New York. While many different stocks were pitched I thought it was interesting that two speakers presented both sides of the Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) investment case. The short case is that Citi shouldn't pay dividends while raising capital and the long case is a $5 EPS forecast for 2009.

Former mutual-fund star Michael Price said Citi was foolish to be paying dividends while raising enormous amounts of capital. He also said that Citi's perpetual preferreds have nowhere to go but down. Rich Pzena of Pzena Investment Management was long Citi because he thinks its earnings power is largely unimpaired and that it could net over $5 a share in 2009 -- making it look cheap at its current $21 a share price.

I would like Pzena to be right. But I find Citi's financial statements to be so complex that I don't understand how he arrived at that $5 a share forecast. Nevertheless, I continue to hold the stock because I think that the pressure to fix Citi is so great that eventually someone will figure out how to do it. I think it should be split into two.

Continue reading Is Citigroup a buy?

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DJIA+73.0010,270.47
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S&P 500+6.241,093.48

Last updated: November 14, 2009: 02:34 PM

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