Friday, April 27, 2007

Some Updates:

Delta Financial
The company released their 2006 Shareholder letter, which can be downloaded at the link below. It is a great read for anyone trying to understand more about in the subprime industry.

2006 Shareholder Letter

Bancinsurance
The company reported first quarter earnings today. Net income was $.21 per share, and Book value increased to $7.54. Legal fees began to decrease, but the expense ratio is still abnormally high at 42%, compared to their historic average of 27%. They also repurchased 75,000 shares of their 500,000 share buyback within the first 24 days of its announcement. With the share price currently at $6.50, this seems like an excellent use of capital.

Other
Jeremy Grantham released his 1st Quarter 2007 Shareholder Letter, which discusses his thoughts about "the first truly global bubble."

Quotes
"The amount borrowers owe on their home-equity lines of credit has slipped in the past six months, to $561 billion at the end of March, the first such decline since 1999, according to new data from Equifax Inc. and Moody's Economy.com Inc. Although that decline was partly offset by a pickup in fixed-rate home-equity loans, total home-equity borrowing rose just 9% in the 12 months through March, well below the 21% average annual growth rate of the past five years."(my emphasis added)

"This month is terrible," Ford chief sales analyst George Pipas said in an interview. "We are not even close to where we expected to be in April." Pipas said industry volume appeared to be down 10 percent to date before seasonal adjustment,…

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