Guys, I think we've been focusing on the wrong storm.
Not Irene. She's gone.
But B-of-A. She's just "looking" gone.
Hear me out… Bank of America is not, I stress, is not Irene.
And to hear the bank's bosses tell it, not remotely close or in trouble.
Maybe so.
So why do they keep saying that?
And they keep constantly telling us that things are ok.
…that they have more than enough cash.
But then working like crazy to "get" more cash.
Like today, when Bank of America announced that it is getting some $8 billion bucks, after selling its 5.2 percent stake in a bank called Total China Construction.
…only days after getting a cool $5 billion dollars from Warren Buffett, in what it called an enormous vote of confidence, but in a deal, and I looked at it structured like something out of ”The Sopranos."
Suffice it to say, special stock, special dividend, special treatment that would never be afforded more common folk… like, oh, I don't know… us!!
By my math then, that is a little more than $13 billion bucks in less than a week for a bank supposedly not in need of the cash…
I just find all this dash for cash a sign of B-of-A maybe covering its stash.
Because it comes only weeks after that nasty European bank crisis…
The same one that prompted no less than French President Nicholas Sarkozy to cut short his August vacation to insist all was fine with French banks.
Remember that?
Now that alone was weird, because no one in France returns from a vacation… ever… even if relatives drop dead back home.
Now I know it seems like I’m obsessing and sort of overdoing this… but I just find all of this a little unsettling.
For a bank that keeps insisting things are just ducky…
They sure are quacking about a lot of deals.
And a lot of cash.
So hear me out, folks.
I'm not wishing a storm on anyone.
Just think, think here. We're still obsessing over that passing storm that packed a lot of wind…
And we’re missing the one that seems to feature a lot of hot air.
In either case…I’m suggesting this: batten down the hatches.
Bank on it.
Just to be safe.
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