https://www.barrons.com/articles/wells-fargo-stock-upgrade-51622822261
21 replies (most recent on top)
If investors really knew what's been happening with attrition and how our tech transformation is going, they would start shorting the stock. The real talent is leaving in droves.
Good point @lxc
Right for who? Shareholders and shareholders alone - including executive management whose comp is mostly made up of, you guessed it, stock options and grants! Charlie has his own self-interest alone at heart. He proclaims no raises in 2020 for anyone making over $150k but has the gall to put out a vote for his own raise. Lean for thee, not for me!
Anyone who was really interested in turning this place around from the tailspin disgraced leadership left behind would be investing in the people, not cutting them. Banks are a service business. Take a read of the HBR article on the Service-Profit Chain, along with the other post about employees gaining leverage. A preview:
Financial Managememt
Putting the Service-Profit Chain to Work
Editor’s Note: This article sets out a simple, elegant, and ultimately tough-minded way to build profitability in a service business. Originally published in 1994, it offers as much today as it did then and is a perennial best
Top-level executives of outstanding service organizations spend little time setting profit goals or focusing on market share, the management mantra of the 1970s and 1980s. Instead, they understand that in the new economics of service, frontline workers and customers need to be the center of management concern. Successful service managers pay attention to the factors that drive profitability in this new service paradigm: investment in people, technology that supports frontline workers, revamped recruiting and training practices, and compensation linked to performance for employees at every level. And they express a vision of leadership in terms rarely heard in corporate America: an organization’s “patina of spirituality,” the “importance of the mundane.”
TROVE
/trōv/
noun
a store of valuable or delightful things.
Leaving "in trove" lol
Charlie is doing a heck of a great job with this toxic mess. Many tainted team members remain from the scandal decade and we them complaining now.
Charlie is undoing that culture and trying to get us back to greatness. Absolutely no way to complain about his achievements.
Post ID: @myg+1bcOT4Ip
What does “people whining” prove and how so?
I think the best proof is people whine so much and yet they are still hanging on.
@ihr+1bcOT4Ip. Depressing isn’t? And you stay because? I would so quit if I was you. Seriously I would.
Here is proof Charlie isn’t doing much right:
Low employee morale, toxic work environment, still under the Federal Asset Cap, 10 consent orders unresolved, cautiously talking about raising dividend from .10 to .15 whoop de doo, he is unconfident in his own turnaround plan and is therefore spending billions of $ to artificially inflate the stock price and skew the financial ratios, internal processes are still backwards, systems are still mid-century, employees and shareholders have yet to hear about any corporate strategy/vision for the future, he is laying off American workers and outsourcing jobs to third-world countries.
So no - he is an arrogant selfish biased elitist pig, and I have zero respect for anyone who defends him.
@bhg+1bcOT4Ip.. you think? LOL
@two+1bcOT4Ip. Agree. Charlie walks wrong, sneezes wrong, sits wrong, stands wrong….
Analysts are reactive creatures. They only ever upgrade stocks when the stock has already had an impressive run. If anything this is a contrarian indicator that some big money wants to get out once it's a little bit higher.
So, go ahead and buy and let those big boys profit off of you.
Post ID: @cgq+1bcOT4Ip
Your comments show that you are a new overconfident pup, so your opinion doesn’t carry any weight.
Buying back stock can have that effect. That does nothing long term for wf health.
@lxc+1bcOT4Ip. True. If beholders are dead weight then Charlie will never do anything right.
@lxc. Some of them deserve to lose their job. Their have been talking advantage of Wells long enough. About time Wells welfare plan is ending. Charlie is doing a right thing regardless if WFC is up or down
Right is in the eyes of the beholder.
If you lose your job, your medical insurance and your home because Charlie let you go to get the stock price up a couple bucks- would you still think Charlie is “doing something right”?
We’re living in a sad world if we are judging right and wrong based on a company’s stock price.
Bank of America doesn’t have any clue what is going on within the halls of Wells Fargo.
Stifle upgraded WCHV on May 06, 2008 when stock was trading at $29.78. Price Target of $40. WCHV stock was below $1 within months.
MAY 6, 2008
UPDATE 1-RESEARCH ALERT-Stifel upgrades Wachovia to buy
By Reuters Staff
1 MIN READ
(Changes source, adds details)
May 6 (Reuters) - Stifel Nicolaus raised Wachovia Corp WB.N to "buy" from "hold," saying the bank had already raised significant capital, cut its dividend, and taken the initial step of rebuilding its loan loss reserves.
“In addition, the bank is the most levered under our coverage to the potential elimination of further asset valuation write-downs and it is inexpensive relative to what we believe the company’s 2010 EPS run rate could be,” the brokerage added.
Stifel, which has a price target of $40 on the stock, said there is more substantial upside to be had over the next 12-18 months even if there is some near-term consolidation of recent gains.
Shares of Wachovia closed at $29.78 Monday on the New York Stock Exchange.
Wells Fargo has had an impressive run this year, but analysts at Bank of America say the stock can go even higher.
To date, Wells Fargo (ticker: WFC) shares have gained roughly 55%, topping the 31% gain in the SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE). Much of Wells Fargo’s outperformance is due to the San Francisco-based bank being viewed as a turnaround story. Over the past year, Chief Executive Charlie Scharf has spoken about the bank’s need to cut costs, as well as the work it is doing to get out from under the $2 trillion asset cap imposed by the Federal Reserve three years ago in response to the bank’s fake accounts scandal.
While the comeback story is likely already priced into Wells Fargo’s stock, Bank of America analyst Erika Najarian sees more opportunity, particularly since Wells Fargo is the only bank in its peer group that still trades below pre-pandemic highs.
“WFC has both cyclical & self-help catalysts, whereas all of its peers have one or the other,” Najarian wrote in a note Friday. She raised her rating on Wells Fargo to Buy from Neutral and lifted her price target to $60 from $47—roughly where Wells Fargo trades now. She projects that earnings per share will hit $3.72 this year and $3.56 in 2022, up from previous targets of $3.37 and $3.38 per share, respectively.
She expects that in the near-term Wells Fargo could earn a return on tangible common equity, or ROTCE, in the range of 10% to 11%. Looking forward to a “normalized” era—when banks’ results aren’t also boosted by releasing reserves set aside during the pandemic for potentially soured loans—Najarian expects that ROTCE could hit the midteens.
While the turnaround and cost-cutting measures may take some time to play out, investors can expect to get paid for being patient. Wells Fargo is expected to cautiously lift its dividend to 15 cents a share from 10 cents following the Fed’s annual stress tests, Najarian notes. But even more important is that she projects Wells Fargo could buy back 12% of its stock over the next four quarters.
Wells Fargo shares gained 0.4% in Friday’s trading.