Wells Fargo & Company (WFC)

Fundamentals are just too good. Management is sound, healthy dividend is covered. WFC steered clear of most of the more insane financial instruments. May go down from $30.74 but will end the 12 months up. Buffett's right on this one.

Actually, the banks should loan the money to the friendly counterparty to buy the worthless securities.
The loan would be counted as an asset on the bank's balance sheet, giving it one step closer to appearing solvent.
Then they could count the worthless asset at face value at the counterparty, making the counterparty (hedge fund, investment bank, etc.) another asset.
With mark-to-myth accounting now the norm, they wouldn't have to acknowledge the loan was nonperforming until, oh, whenever.
A friendly counterparty is a great thing.
Just ask Andy Fastow.

All around great company. Buffett owns a big piece of it, 3.1% dividend yield, increasing quarterly earnings (year over year) since 2001, PE of 14, 19% net margins, net loan growth from $168 billion to $306 billion in last 5 years, retained earnings growth from $16 billion in 2001 to $30 billion in 2005.

Wells Fargo is a bank in CA, that has not sold off, yet. Next to Florida, CA is going to get hit by a wave of mortgage defaults. As the recession becomes more apparent and unemployment numbers climb CA is going to be hurt even more.

The Terminator may have stopped Skynet, but he and WFC will be crushed by deflation, defaults and debt.

Looks like it is near its short-term peak. More down side risk than upside potential at this price. The government's distraction with other problems may hurt the big banks maintain their stock price. Time to profit take while paper profits are still present.

This stock is solid. Wells will have to raise cash to meet stress test demands, but overall the banking industry has been oversold. I like JP Morgan also, but feel that Wells Fargo has more room to run based on today's prices.

I liked the Wachovia move. On a purely personal note- I use Wachovia and find them more helpful and personable than any other bank I've had contact with. They have a huge share of the market and seem to be doing okay with Geithner's bank tests. They've had huge gains these past few months and I see that continuing. Sure, they'll take a few more hits. Everything and everyone will. Buffet likes it. Of course, he's now heavily into it. That's not my reasoning, but I'll take it.

This company will be bankrupt within 18 months.

Wells Fargo was formed in the year 1998 with the merger between Norwest and Wells Fargo. With over $483 billion in assets and 167,000 team members across 80 businesses, it is one of the biggest banks by virtually all cross-sell and productivity metrics. The Home Mortgage division of Wells Fargo is among the largest and it finances one out of every fourteen homes in the US.

The recent performance of the company has not been satisfactory with operating revenue decreasing by 4.8% and the net interest margin decreasing from 4.86% to 4.79% over the previous quarter. The company is very conservative trying to get market share from its competitors in its current line of business rather than resorting to global expansion through acquisition. Its housing loan portfolio is 44% of the total compared to an average of 30% for other banks. A major chunk of the company’s portfolio is in the inflated California and Florida residential real estate areas. Currently the company faces threat in its stronghold, California, from big competitors who take the merger and acquisition route for serving the area. The company also derives 20% of its revenue from mortgage compared to 5–10% for its large peers. This would be a problem due to the cooling down of US housing market. Moreover, the bank’s auto loan segment had a huge loss of $150 million, accounting for 65% of net charge off due to constraints in collection capacity.

Though the bank has gone in for damage control by recruiting 1,000 collection managers, opening new branches and focusing on cross selling, it is taking a huge risk on its loan portfolio with the available free funds. It seems the bank’s record of continuous 20-year double-digit growth in revenues and earnings may come to an end and face a down turn.

Wells Fargo has made me money ever since I first bought it. I am completly comfortable with this stock.

Best cross-selling bank in the business. The ultimate one-stop shop consumer bank without the huge corporate risk of the Enron, Worldcom, Global Crossing, Tyco, Adelphia, etc. finance players.

This bank is very conservatively run by management that strives to become the largest bank in the U.S. Few people know that this bank used to be the largest before it was broken up in the early 1900's. Ever since, it has been growing at a steady rate. The merger with Norwest was a huge step towards its long term growth strategy.

It's recent ticker dip down means nothing if you are holding this stock long term. This is a great stock for your retirement portfolio, because it also pays dividends.

Contrary to the other major banks, WFC didn't buy the hype of loosening its lending practices to a catastrophic level during the real estate boom. They are positioned to buy up smaller banks who will go by the wayside because of lending practices.

Wells Fargo is a large cap growth stock. Last time I checked, it had the highest credit rating of any Bank in U.S. I think downside risk is limited and it should be a good long term investment currently paying dividend of 4.31% according to MSN company report.

I work for Wells, so what would I say. It's been good to me so far.

I can't believe I'm giving a thumbs up to a financial stock in these times. When the CEO came onto mad money it made me realize how far these guys were from this huge mess banks such as Citi and WAMU have created. This stock has been taken down unfairly with the rest of the financials. WFC is truly a bright spot in the banking sector. I almost guarantee this pick underperforms but I like the company and the management so what the heck. Not a bad dividend yield either for those looking for some income in your stock portfolios. Bravo WFC!

WFC will be scooping up deposits and assets from many of the Banks that will be failing over the next 2 years. Reference my blog for more specifics on this topic.
http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/ViewPost.aspx?bpid=86151&t=01007052586435812467

I was emoloyed with the old Norwest Bank for 9 Years,and when I left for greater opertunities,I took a small number of shares from me profit sharing accouny with me I never sold any of them and reivested the devidends in more shares. and after about four two for one splits Inow have a nice nest egg of stock.Not quite enough to live off, now that I am retired But I do not have any worries about my life style. I know that ,if need be I have plany to fall back on to help in any situation. No one could have told me how well that small number of shares would grow. If all of my stocks were to perform as well I would be one happy guy. Go Wells Fargo !!!

WFC has one of the most illiquid balance sheet. For instance, WFC has the 2007-12 leverage of ex-Bradford & Bingley now managed by the UK government since 2008-09-23. 2009 earnings estimates are slashed recently, as deposits declined for the first time between 2008-03 and 2008-06. Anyway, such a profitability level is inconsistent with pretending to reimburse the debt load standing on the balance sheet. It distributes an unsustainable dividend. Berkshire Hathaway, the largest shareholder whose stake decreased from 8.6% of WFC on 2007-12 to 7% on 2008-09, has already lost several billion dollars since 2008-09, as WFC price plummets.

Earnings, Stock Buyback, Dividend, recent Split, Loan/Loss Ratio, Competition in Geographical Area, Untainted Reputation, & future of interest rates (flat to down) all make for what should be a stellar performance among large cap financials.