WFC - Wells Fargo & Company

down to recent support level of $27.

suport level changed yet?

bought some at mkt 3:59 yest but lost on LUFK

WFCGD WFC JUL 20 Call $20.95 4 $1.70 $680.00 1.4 $560.00 ($120.00) Trade | Roll | Notes


increase divi good sign
08:10 WFC Wells Fargo beats by $0.03, beats on revs; increases dividend 10% (20.51 )

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.53 per share, $0.03 better than the First Call consensus of $0.50; revenues rose 15.9% year/year to $11.46 bln vs the $10.65 bln consensus. Co increases quarterly dividend 10% to $0.34. Co reports $3 bln provision in loan losses for Q2. "Wells Fargo continued to strengthen its franchise during the second quarter. Earnings per share were 14 cents below that of last year due to $2.3 billion of higher provision expense, including a credit reserve build of $1.5 billion (30 cents per share). We were able to lend more to current customers where we believed it was prudent and properly priced. We grew core deposits while reducing funding costs. We achieved record cross-sell results with our retail and commercial customers - a testament to our relationship-based strategy and our 160,000 team members who serve our customers."

out.....expires fri.....no time to waste
WFCGD WFC JUL 20 Call $23.99 4 $1.70 $680.00 3.9 $1,560.00 +$880.00 Trade | Roll | Notes

Don't jump into these high-dividend stocks right now
12:22 PM ET 9/4/08 | Marketwatch

BOSTON (MarketWatch) -- High dividends in specialty financial, regional telecom and shipping stocks have attracted investor attention but that doesn't mean they should be drawing much money, according to Josh Peters, editor of the Morningstar DividendInvestor newsletter.

In a radio interview with MarketWatch senior columnist Chuck Jaffe, Peters said that the shipping stocks are more for speculative investors and that the specialty finance stocks are undervalued but not yet stable enough to satisfy a long-term dividend investor.

Peters noted that his strategy involves focusing on stocks that he can hold indefinitely, with steady, stable and growing dividends. He's not "looking to make a big yield for the next three months and then move into something else," which is why certain high-yield industries are off-putting right now.

For example, Peters said that shipping stocks have benefited from a shortage of ships, which has driven up prices. When competition brings out more ships and the supply/demand picture changes "you could see a pretty severe long-term retrenchment," Peters said.

That's why he recommended selling Eagle Bulk Shipping (EGLE) and Diana Shipping (DSX), and put a hold rating on SeaSpan Shipping (SSW).

In financial services, Peters said there are good dividend plays in solid, big-name stocks like BB&T (BBT), Wells Fargo (WFC) and US Bancorp (USB), and suggested that investors avoid or sell positions in CapitalSource (CSE), American Capital Ltd. (ACAS) and iStar Financial (SFI), noting that they service areas of the market that are still shrouded in uncertainty, and that their financial condition could lead to future dividend cuts.

One company in the group he liked enough to make a speculative buy was Allied Capital (ALD).

Peters didn't like the growth picture on regional telecommunications stocks, and put a sell recommendation on Frontier Communications (FTR) and Windstream (WIN).

Listen to Your Money with Chuck Jaffe.

Chuck Jaffe's podcasts features expert reviews of stocks and mutual funds suggested by MarketWatch readers; to request a stock or mutual fund for review by an expert, send your name, hometown and the ticker symbols that interest you to cjaffe@marketwatch.com.

WFC might be Next imo

Near a 52 week high, big mortgage and real estate exposure, $110 billion market cap and is one step ahead of Wamu on the bank depository top 10 list...

So why is this up today?

from the 10Q, lots of Mortgage Risk and Real Estate Risk

Fair Net unrealized Remaining
(in billions) value gain (loss) maturity
At June 30, 2008 $68.2 $(1.0) 5.2 yrs.
At June 30, 2008, assuming a 200 basis point:
Increase in interest rates 62.2 (7.0) 6.7 yrs.
Decrease in interest rates 72.4 3.2 2.4 yrs.



LOAN PORTFOLIO
A discussion of average loan balances is included in “Earnings Performance — Net Interest Income” on page 11 and a comparative schedule of average loan balances is included in the table on page 12; quarter-end balances are in Note 5 (Loans and Allowance for Credit Losses) to Financial Statements in this Report.
Total loans at June 30, 2008, were $399.2 billion, up $56.4 billion (16%) from $342.8 billion at June 30, 2007. Commercial and commercial real estate loans were $167.6 billion at June 30, 2008, up $35.2 billion (27%) from $132.4 billion a year ago. Consumer loans were $224.1 billion at June 30, 2008, up $21.3 billion (10%) from $202.8 billion a year ago. Mortgages held for sale were $25.2 billion at June 30, 2008, down $9.3 billion from $34.6 billion a year ago.



The deterioration in segments of the Home Equity portfolio required a targeted approach to managing these assets. We segregated into a liquidating portfolio all Home Equity loans generated through the wholesale channel not behind a Wells Fargo first mortgage, and all home equity loans acquired through correspondents. While the $11.1 billion of loans in this liquidating portfolio represented about 3% of total loans outstanding at June 30, 2008, these loans experienced a significant portion of the credit losses in our $83.8 billion Home Equity portfolio, with an annualized loss rate of 3.46% for second quarter 2008, compared with 1.36% for the remaining core portfolio. In this challenging real estate market it is necessary to have more time to work with our customers to identify ways to help resolve their financial difficulties and keep them in their homes. In order to provide this additional time to assist our customers, beginning April 1, 2008, we changed our Home Equity charge-off policy, consistent with Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) guidelines. This change in charge-off policy resulted in loan modifications for nearly 900 customers for approximately $90 million of loans. The core portfolio consisted of $72.8 billion of loans in the Home Equity portfolio at June 30, 2008. The following table includes the credit attributes of these two portfolios.



With $350 billion in assets, Washington Mutual now ranks as the sixth-largest U.S. depository institution, slipping in between two better-known names in the world of banking—Wells Fargo & Co. at number five and U.S. Bancorp at number seven. It’s safe to say that Wamu, as the company is often called, has garnered a lot less attention than either Wells or U.S. Bancorp, despite being just as aggressive and, in some ways, more innovative. Maybe it’s because the only Seattle companies that anybody seems to notice are Starbucks and Microsoft. Or perhaps it’s because Wamu has retained its thrift charter despite becoming more bank-like under Killinger, and no one has paid much attention to thrifts since the entire industry went up in flames in the late 1980s. Either way, Washington Mutual may be the best banking company that you don’t know much about.

wamu - mortgage division cause this problem. you can not be a great bank if your guidelines are qualifying everyone on their option arms

What's up with the uptrend since JUL?

Their CEO has been making the media rounds saying how WFC is the only bank that did not get overly involved with credit swaps and derivative securities. I guess people actually believe him; I don't trust a word any of these people say to be honest. The 10Q speaks for itself.

Guess we will find out from them on the 13th when they post earnings.. can't imagine that they would be the "only" ones not affected. Domino effect..

This may be the reason......................

Wachovia Corp. is reportedly in preliminary talks with suitors including Banco Santander SA, Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc., and the bank's shares slid lower in late trading on concerns it may take another big mortgage-related write-down

Would a straddle be a good thing for earnings?

with the bills not passing these guys are going to force to buy some more bargain deals w/ other banks and maybe regional banks.

w/ chase not having a strong west coast market they took wamu.... wells may take national city or another east coast bank..... this has some upside after the bills not getting passed

stay out of financial stocks...

i agree but this notion that this is doomsday can make this play profitable. i just like bargains and short term profits.

wfc is the next one in line in taking bargains since the govt cant do it. there will be a lot more bank fall out and you have to take the bigger banks to collect these suffering banks. Every bank already improve their market by regions except for wells fargo. wells fargo will try to get into the east coast and midwest... since chase is moving into the west coast after acquiring wamu.

this is the only financials that can be positive. for both short term and long term

stay out of finicails but i bet u jumped into WAHCU

This is one of the first times I've seen the buying company go up, i guess everybody is looking for a reason to celabrate today

Citi went up quite a bit off it. People knew wachovia is worth a decent amount. AG edwards/wachovia securities was priced alone at $4-5 a share.