Just spent some time looking at the Bank of the West branch system that $BMO just bought off $BNP. It's just amazing how poorly it was managed. Almost like BNP forgot they had it; or needed USD deposits so badly that they did all sorts of uneconomic stuff.

A game on US bank consolidation 1980-2030 would be fantastic: 20,000 players vie to become nationally dominant or hit 10,000% TSR. Play solo with tremendous AI or massive multiplayer online once they understand merger accounting. And, of course, the FDIC is the ultimate NPC.

Headline that $KAP.L wants to mine uranium in Jordan? WTF is the point of being the low-cost producer with limitless reserves then? Is this foreign policy? Corruption-driven? Are the reserves not so limitless?

$FNB announces it will open 30 new branches. Unlike others, their new branches of the last few years have done pretty well. And this may obviate the need for yet another punishingly dilutive acquisition.

$USCB buying back almost half of Patriot's 22% position at a hair under market. So, accretive to EPS. But the outside catalyst is basically saying "my work is done here".

Instead of a poll tax you have to be able to understand the difference between median and mean.

Former CEO of FirstBank (Colorado), which is being acquired by $PNC, is now CEO of $FIBK. He just posted on LinkedIn that he wants to hire a ton of folks in Colorado. In the circle, the circle of life.

In another lengthy layover in a Euro airport. Though the route networks are as dense as the U.S., it’s 1 flight/day rather than 3. And trains are only occasionally alternative solution.

Since this is national Dump on Luis Arraez Day, he scored 66 runs while leading the NL in hits. That's the lowest figure for the hit king (in a 150+ game season) since Hal Chase's 66 in 1916. You really never want to be on the same list as Hal Chase, who was a very bad man.

The first scene of The Last Rifleman is a WWII French battlefield. But the field had a split rail fence rather than a hedgerow. I couldn’t go on. Don’t take suspension of disbelief for granted. You’ve got to earn it. This applies to life as well as art.

And so $WAL becomes the poster bank for why NDFI lending can offset years of growth in lending to people you have actually met in your community.

I bought $WAL at its lows ($8) in 2023 because I figured the USG would stop the panic. I sold it the next day at $16 because I knew that I didn't understand the bank. Yesterday confirmed that second conclusion, And yet, I seem to have left a great deal of money on the table.

Aurelius

The elimination of the CDFI program can't be a good thing for UBAB. Looks like that was 1/4th of last year's earnings.