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April 29 “中国国务院常务会议今天决定，对现行固定资产投资项目资本金比例进行调整。将降低城市轨道交通、煤炭、机场、港口、沿海及内河航运、铁路、公路、商品住房、邮政、信息产业、钾肥等项目资本金比例，同时适当提高属于“两高一资”的电石、铁合金、烧碱、焦炭、黄磷项目以及电解铝、玉米深加工项目的资本金比例。会议要求，金融机构要认真评估项目，在提供信贷支持和服务的同时，切实防范金融风险。该报道没有提及具体下降的比例。 ”
放开资本金杠杆的规定，基本同意对银行业绩“短多长空”的看法，当然，短多是靠赌。。。
但是关于这种提高监管杠杆的做法，有两点想法：
1. 如果有一个项目，银行原本判断预期效益很差、缺乏地方财政收支保障、并且地方政府资本金不足，因而不愿意投入贷款，难道现在仅仅因为发改委说资本金要求的比例从20%降为15%了，这个项目对于银行就变得更具吸引力了么？在中国，好的项目（效益好或是现金流有保障）遇到的问题也许不是资本不足，而是被泛滥的国有垄断资本粗暴对待、把好项目变成滥项目。。。即使偶尔遇到资本不足，也会有国开行领军一堆银行通过软贷款补足资本了。（兴业管理层昨天已经在业绩发布会上说，感觉二季度好的政府项目已经非常稀缺了）
2. 放开私人资本投资固然是件好事，但投资不足的原因是中国民间资本不足么？政府仅仅说“放开”已经说过很多次了，如果后面看不到投资体制和政策法规上质的改革的迹象，扩大杠杆又有何意义？银行还是会愿意把金融资源投向拥有政治垄断资源的国企。以《意见》中拟扩大资本金杠杆的邮政行业为例，最近正在二次审议的《邮政法（修订草案）》，对于邮政专营权范围的界定继续采取了回避态度，民营邮政的合法经营范围仍然得不到保证。在没有魄力解决这些制度问题的情况下急着提高杠杆，我们需要观察这届政府是否真的在制度上缺乏创造力。。。
当然，后面还是要观察一下我们的银行是否依然将自己默认为隶属于政府的杠杆、工具，会不会有点个性，做出一点点短空长多的事情。。 April 23 彼得林奇某本书的主旨，之前只是第一感觉地赞同，现在越来越从实践中认同了
“普通投资者只要动用3％的智力，即使没有富裕的金钱、良好的专业教育，也一样可以获得良好的投资回报，甚至超过华尔街的专家。”
“普通投资者更有机会在生活中早于专业投资者发现上涨10倍的大牛股。”
April 22
Warren Buffett on Wells Fargo （后有简略翻译版）
'Banking is a very good business unless you do dumb things,' says Wells Fargo's largest shareholder.
Interview by Adam Lashinsky
Last Updated: April 20, 2009: 11:40 AM ET
SAN FRANCISCO (Fortune) -- As the largest shareholder of Wells Fargo through Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB), Warren Buffett knows the San Francisco bank deeply. He first invested before Wells Fargo was bought by Norwest, where current Wells Chairman Dick Kovacevich was CEO. As part of his reporting for his feature on Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500), Fortune Editor at Large Adam Lashinsky spoke at length with Buffett by telephone on March 26.
Fortune: How is Wells Fargo unique?
Warren Buffett: It's sort of hard to imagine a business that large being unique. You'd think they'd need to be like any other bank by the time they got to that size. Those guys have gone their own way. That doesn't mean that everything they've done has been right. But they've never felt compelled to do anything because other banks were doing it, and that's how banks get in trouble, when they say, "Everybody else is doing it, why shouldn't I?"
What about all the smart analysts who think no big bank can survive in its present form, including Wells Fargo?
Almost 20 years ago they were saying the same thing. In the end banking is a very good business unless you do dumb things. You get your money extraordinarily cheap and you don't have to do dumb things. But periodically banks do it, and they do it as a flock, like international loans in the 80s. You don't have to be a rocket scientist when your raw material cost is less than 1-1/2%. So I know that you can have a model that works fine and Wells has come closer to doing that right than any other big bank by some margin. They get their money cheaper than anybody else. We're the low-cost producer at Geico in auto insurance among big companies. And when you're the low-cost producer - whether it's copper, or in banking - it's huge.
Then on top of that, they're smart on the asset size. They stayed out of most of the big trouble areas. Now, even if you're getting 20% down payments on houses, if the other guy did enough dumb things, the house prices can fall to where you get hurt some. But they were not out there doing option ARMs and all these crazy things. They're going to have plenty of credit losses. But they will have, after a couple of quarters of getting Wachovia the way want it, $40 billion of pre-provision income.
And they do not have all kinds of time bombs around. Wells will lose some money. There's no question about that. And they'll lose more than the normal amount of money. Now, if they were getting their money at a percentage point higher, that would be $10 billion of difference there. But they've got the secret to both growth, low-cost deposits and a lot of ancillary income coming in from their customer base.
Insurance revenues for example, which had double-digit revenue growth in 2008.
And I would say that most of the critics of Wells don't even know they've got that business. That business alone is worth many billions of dollars. And their mortgage business, as you can imagine in this period, I mean, the volume that is poring through there, is huge. The critics have been right on other big banks, so I think they're inclined to sweep Wells in as well to some extent. And if you've been right on Citi and you've been right on BofA, it gets easy to say, well, they're all going to go.
We own stock in four banks: USB, Wells, M&T, and SunTrust. SunTrust I don't know about because South Florida is going to be the last to come back, and they've got a concentration down there. The other three, they're going to have a lousy year, but they'll come out of it with far more earnings power. The deposits are flowing in. The spreads are wide. It's a helluva good business.
Dick Kovacevich specifically told me to ask you your views on tangible common equity.
What I pay attention to is earning power. Coca-Cola has no tangible common equity. But they've got huge earning power. And Wells ... you can't take away Wells' customer base. It grows quarter by quarter. And what you make money off of is customers. And you make money on customers by having a helluva spread on assets and not doing anything really dumb. And that's what they do.
Incidentally, they won't lend Berkshire money. They're not interested in national credits or any of that stuff where the spreads are narrow. We did a big deal about six or seven years ago on Finova, which we did jointly with Leucadia. And what was then the old First National of Boston sort of headed the deal up, and people would come in for $500 million or $200 million. Wells wasn't interested. There wasn't enough money in it, basically. I got a big kick out of that because that was exactly how they should think. Everybody else wanted to be in it, and they were doing it for 20 basis points or something of the sort. And they'd make commitments for all kinds of credit for 6 or 8 basis points, and the ones that were in the underwriting business, they would do it just get the underwriting.
But back to tangible common equity...
You don't make money on tangible common equity. You make money on the funds that people give you and the difference between the cost of those funds and what you lend them out on. And that's where people get all mixed up incidentally on things like the TARP. They say, 'Well, where'd the 5 billion go or where'd the 10 billion go that was put in?' That isn't what you make money on. You make money on that deposit base of $800 billion that they've got now. And that deposit base I guarantee you will cost Wells a lot less than it cost Wachovia. And they'll put out the money differently.
They'll have to work through a lot of this stuff that they inherited from Wachovia. Those option ARMs, they explained exactly how they break them down, and in the end they may lose 3 or 4 billion more. Nobody knows exactly. But I would say that California residential real estate is not deteriorating. It hasn't moved up. But it has flattened out with good volume recently. So my guess is that the option ARMs will work out about as they guessed.
What if the Treasury imposes new capital requirements? Will it hamper their earnings power?
I don't think it'll hamper their earnings. But if you make them sell a lot of common equity it would kill the common shareholder. It wouldn't increase the earning power in the future, and it would increase the shares outstanding. Wells, if they want another $10 billion in common equity or something like that in Wells, they'll have it in a very short period of time at this dividend rate. [In March, Wells cut its dividend by 85%.] Wells will be piling up the equity while they're paying nominal dividends. They could afford to pay the old dividend. But since they won't be paying the old dividend, that's $4 billion a year or something that they'll be adding to equity.
I would have been fine if they had just said, 'Look it, we'll quit paying any common dividend until our equity has gone up by whatever it might be, 10 or 15 billion.' And they'd get there in no time. Then they could pay the regular dividend. They elected to do it this other way because everybody seems to be kind of doing it. The idea of forgoing all or most of the dividend for a year to build the common equity ratio up, if that's what the government wants, that's fine. But that isn't really the key to the future of Wells, unless the regulators make it the key to the future of Wells. The key to the future of Wells is continuing to get the money in at very low costs, selling all kinds of services to their customer and having spreads like nobody else has.
How is Wells differentiated from the banks you own and the ones you don't?
Wells just has a whole different attitude. That's why Kovacevich calls them retail stores. He doesn't even like the word banking. I mean, he is looking to have a maximum enduring relationship with many, many millions of people. Tens of millions. And at the base of it involves getting money in very cheap. When you do that that's a helluva start in the business. The difference between getting your money at 1-1/2 % and 2-1/2% on a trillion-dollar asset base is $10 billion a year. It's hard to overemphasize that. He thinks more like Sam Walton than he thinks like J.P. Morgan. I'm talking about the individual there. He's a retailer. He's not trying to influence Washington or be the most important guy on the scene or anything like that. He's just trying to do business with millions of people every day and make a few bucks off of them.
Now that you mention it, Kovacevich has done a pretty good job of annoying Washington, wouldn't you say?
That's hard to tell. There's an advantage to being that way too. He's not going to cozy up or be sycophantic toward his regulator, and I would say most bankers probably are now. They need to be. But his strong point is retailing not diplomacy. I kind of like that. It's hard for a guy that knows his institution forward and backwards to have somebody come in that really may be working off a check list or something and is telling him what to do. And I'm sure that Dick gets antagonized by that sometimes. In the end, he's got the record. And he's got the business to back up what he's doing.
To the extent that his tangible common equity is low, a) nobody was even talking about that a year ago. And b) they should be talking about earning power. But it comes about in part because he saved the FDIC's bacon on Wachovia. I mean they had a deal on Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) that had big assistance involved in it, and the FDIC moved about what would have been about 5% of the deposits in the United States without a dime of expense to the taxpayer or the FDIC to Wells. And Wells took it over. And if they'd gone to Citigroup a) they would have looked like idiots, and within a very short period considering what happened to Citi. So to penalize them because they solved the FDIC's problem without cost to the FDIC would be a little crazy. And I imagine that's what gets Dick a little riled up.
So what is your metric for valuing a bank?
It's earnings on assets, as long as they're being achieved in a conservative way. But you can't say earnings on assets, because you'll get some guy who's taking all kinds of risks and will look terrific for a while. And you can have off-balance sheet stuff that contributes to earnings but doesn't show up in the assets denominator. So it has to be an intelligent view of the quality of the earnings on assets as well as the quantity of the earnings on assets. But if you're doing it in a sound way, that's what I look at.
How confident will you be in Wells when Kovacevich retires?
Well, John [Stumpf] is in charge. Dick is a terrific help to John. I play bridge with John on the Internet. He plays under the name of HTUR. His wife's name is Ruth. My bridge partner, who I probably play bridge with four times a week, developed online banking for Wells. A woman named Sharon Osberg. And she's worked with those people. And she told me about John Stumpf ten years ago. I've had some insight through her on these people. But the real insight you get about a banker is how they bank. You've got to see what they do and what they don't do. Their speeches don't make any difference. It's what they do and what they don't do. And what Wells didn't do is what defines their greatness.
How is John's bridge game?
John is a very good bridge player. But he doesn't play as much as I do. I play all the time. He's smart. He's a different personality than Dick. Dick is a real sales person. They both subscribe to the same principles of banking. They just don't think you have to do things that the other guy is doing.
First Published: April 20, 2009: 6:13 AM ET
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股神巴菲特：銀行業很不錯 除非你硬要做蠢事
股神巴菲特堪稱是最了解 Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC-US；富國銀行) 的人之一，由於透過旗下控股公司 Berkshire Hathaway 買進 Wells Fargo 持股，巴老現為該銀行最大股東。他在 Norwest (西北銀行) 尚未買下 Wells Fargo 時，即投資該銀行。
以下摘錄 Buffett 接受《Fortune》雜誌電話訪談，針對 Wells Fargo 提出的部分看法：
問：Wells Fargo 特殊的地方在哪？
答：很難想像一個這麼大的事業還能有多特殊，你會認為，他們的規模一旦漸漸擴大，就會與其他銀行沒有差別。但其實不然，Wells Fargo 有自己的一套，當然這不代表他們做的決策都是對的，但他們從來不會盲目跟從其他銀行，被迫做些事情，只因為其他銀行都這麼做，這就是為什麼其他銀行身陷泥沼，因為他們都很盲從。
問：某些分析師曾表示，沒有哪一家大型銀行可以靠現行的模式存活下來，Wells Fargo 也難以倖免，針對這樣的分析，你有何意見？
答：他們 20 多年前就講過一樣的話了。銀行業是非常好的事業，除非你老幹些蠢事。你可以很便宜地取得資金，不用幹些蠢事。但是銀行常會掉入做蠢事的循環，而且是一窩瘋地發蠢，就像80年代國際信貸的事情那樣。Wells Fargo 表現比其他大型銀行好一點的原因就在於，它們的運作模式要好上一點。
問：以保險收益來舉例，該公司去年保險部門收益呈現雙位數成長，即決策模式的不同？
答：我會這麼說，大部分批評 Wells Fargo 的人，甚至不知道他們有經營這項事業，光是這項事業就價值數 10 億美元。還有他們的房貸事業也很龐大。對於銀行業界的批評，只適用在其他大型銀行，並不適用於Wells Fargo。
問：Dick Kovacevich (Wells Fargo 總裁) 特別交代我要問問您對有型普通股權益資本比率 (tangible common equity) 的看法。
答：我只在意有沒有獲利的能力。Coca-Cola 不具有型普通股權益資本比率，但是他們的獲利能力強大。至於 Wells…你決不能忽略他們的廣大的客戶群，他們的客戶群一季季增加，而客戶就是獲利的泉源，他們靠著資產積極擴張，加上不做蠢事，吸引了廣大的客戶。
Wells 對獲利空間小的事不感興趣，也不靠 TCE賺錢，但是你可以從人們給你的資金中賺錢，從匯聚資金的成本與借貸出去之間獲利，有些人會把這事跟 TARP 混為一談，但這不能賺什麼錢，真的賺錢是要靠他們現在擁有的 8000 億美元的存款基礎。而且我敢說，Wells 這8000億美元的存款基礎，其保有成本比 Wachovia 要少得多。
問：如果財政部對資本提出新的要求，會怎樣呢？會對 Wells 的獲利能力有所損傷嗎？
答：我不認為會損傷 Wells 的獲利能力。但是如果讓他們大量出售普通股，這會扼殺一堆普通股股東，也無法在未來增強獲利能力，反而會增加流通股數。Wells 倘若需要 100 億美元的普通股權益，他們可以藉由削減股息，在很短的時間內達到。(Wells 在 3 月時削減股息 85%) 但是，這種削減大部分年度股息以恢復 TCE 的作法，並非 Wells 未來該做的事，除非是政府要求他們這麼作，否則 Wells 未來該做的應該是繼續以低成本獲得資金，再對客戶販售各種服務，擁有比別人大的獲利空間。
問：Wells 和你所持股的其他銀行有何不同？還有和那些你沒有持股的銀行有何不同？
答：Wells 整個態度都不一樣，這就是為什麼Kovacevich 自稱是零售商，他甚至不喜歡「銀行」這詞。他希望和數千萬的人都能保持不朽的關係，基於此點，他能夠用很低的成本獲得資金，一旦起頭的成本夠低，就是事業成功的開始。他就像是個零售商，他不想擁有影響華府的能力，或是成為呼風喚雨的角色，他只是想每天能和數百萬的人接洽生意，然後從這數百萬人身上賺點小錢。
April 21 社保和邮政的相关法规里满眼的“国务院另行确定”、“国务院另有规定的除外”
4万亿之后还没看见任何实际的东西
经济下滑的二阶函数的忍耐也是有限度的。。。 April 12
华尔街日报这篇报导，算是政治经济互动角度的说法。
在地方政府的授意下，去年四季度各项宏观数据很有可能存在大幅低报现象，有的是故意压低，有的则是故意关停导致的数据下降，四万亿推出后，地方政府完全有动力这么去做，以便让自己所在管辖区争取到足够多的资源。这些被虚假压低的数据在一季度恢复本来面貌，加上所谓的再库存化和一些行业的触底反弹，很有可能对宏观数据的所谓反弹起到了不小的作用。并不是说经济没有一点点反弹，而是说不能忽视这里面的作用。对我的启示作用就是，如果往后面，数据开始出现局部打架的现象，就更要警惕了，这些所谓的波动以及由这些波动所激发的信贷和投资冲动也许只是海市蜃楼。。。
如何看待中国经济减速时期的GDP统计
2009年04月10日 华尔街日报
1. 相对论在宏观经济问题中：就像运动速度达到一定水平，就从牛顿跳跃到爱因斯坦一样；是否流动性注入到一定程度，问题的性质也会发生变化，经济的problem of credit变成了problem of liquidity并由流动性注入来解决？
2. 美国消费信贷的模式改变：延续第一点的想法，是否只是家庭消费杠杆的潜在增长率答复下降，短期内杠杆绝对值大幅下降至潜在增长率之下，然后继续回复速度相对之前较慢的增长；当然，这并非说杠杆没有峰值，而是说目前也许只是一个双顶形态的第一顶，以前支撑杠杆不断上升的力量和令其下降的力量达到了一定平衡，短期内因为后者的压力突然释放而发生了剧烈的调整，但是可能从5-10年水平来看，前者的力量还不至于很弱。这个前者就是中国，中国是支撑美国杠杆提升的一个主要力量，但从目前情况来看，中国的杠杆还有很大的提升空间，经济结构短期内也不会发生很大的变化。
一点疑问 April 03
FASB放松公平价值计算标准
2009年04月02日 21:53 新浪财经
新浪财经讯 北京时间4月2日晚间消息，在来自美国国会和金融企业的压力下，美国财会标准委员会(Financial Accounting Standards Board, FASB)投票决定放松公平价值计算标准。此前花旗集团(Citigroup) (C)和富国银行(Wells Fargo) (WFC)等金融行业巨头都表示，在市场不活跃时这项规则并不适用。
今天FASB针对公平价值计算方法--又称“按市值计价(mark-to-market)”--的修改，允许公司“在很大程度上”依据自己的判断来评估资产价值以减少某些特定投资的减计亏损，其中包括抵押贷款证券等资产。
FASB批准的经修正之后的公平价值计算方法适用于企业界的第一财季财报。一些财会分析师认为，新的财会标准将使银行界的净盈利增加20%以上。
今年3月12日，美国国会金融服务委员会成员曾向FASB主席罗伯特-赫兹(Robert Herz)施加压力，要求FASB修正公平价值计算方法。 April 02 A:比存单：保单相比存单具有抗通胀的优势，因为存单的利率不会随加息变动，而保单如果有分红或者万能的这种利差分享的功能，会随着基准利率的上升而上升；
比理财产品：理财产品只讲收益率，而且理财产品期限都不长，保单有很多保障功能
B:那老百姓会问，我能不能就买三个单独的产品呢——存款（养老+小孩上学念书考虑）+理财产品（投资收益率考虑）+纯保障险种（死亡和伤病保障考虑）
A:这个就是理性的组合
B:你的意思是说保险的盈利就是存在于集体的非理性行为基础之上么。。
A:当然也不能这么说,其实买理财产品本身你也可以认为他为什么不自己理财呢, 保险产品对于购买它的人来说就是后两种产品的组合体嘛
B:其实意思就是，买一份长期的带分红、保障、养老功能的保险产品就是把理财、保障的很多责任外包给保险公司打理了，买的是他的这个规划
但你不觉得中国人就是喜欢自己把钱捏在手上玩么。。哪怕受很多损失，也要在那里自己倒腾。。 社会中明显缺乏一种信托信任关系
A:如果有税优的话，还是会刺激他改变。当然，你说的这个信任也是个问题，保险行业整体形象不行
B:所以大家总是讲，连那帮年轻的，收入还算可以的白领都没买保险，说明以后空间很大，但反过来一想，他们为啥不买呢？到底是对未来的问题预计不足，认为经济、收入都能很快地发展下去，物价涨幅不高，房价涨幅不高，因而养老压力不大；还是缺乏责任感，对下一代的教育已经打算撒手不管；还是想拿着钱在手上随时进股市博一把几下就赚足养老的钱。。。
又或许是因为很多涉及民生的政策太不明朗，个人无法或者说在这种不明朗的环境下没有养成那种为自己的未来做规划的习惯。。税收、户籍、房价政策、社保、生几个孩子，没一样有谱，让你觉得会变，但是不知道怎么变。。。
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