Well, The Brothers Linebacker had set the bank failure weekly over/under at 1.5 institutions (inclusive of banks and thrifts, exclusive of credit unions, which is probably worth another 0.5 or 1.0 per week). The week of August 15th had a bank failures happen in a non-traditional manner: Federal Trust (ticker FDT ) of Florida was a de facto failure. However, rather than actually collapsing, it was re-capped and taken over at tiny share prices. Amazingly, no banks actually were off'ed by the FDIC. I keep re-reading my blog on Vineyard National and I continue to be baffled as to what will actualy catalyze the FDIC to takeover a bank.
Oddly enough, FDT is the stock of a business I used to own shares in at one time. I purchased FDT shares beginning on March 10, 2003 (basically the stock market bottom, as it turned out) for $5.00/share then bought a bunch more a month later at around the same price. Beginning June 20, 2005 and continuing through July 5, 2005 I sold my stake at $11.20/share, which I felt represented a full price given my increasing skepticism of the Florida miracle and worry that the state was overbanked. The company would ultimately trade in the $12+ range for a period of time before collapsing under the weight of a hideous asset base.
Now it's being acquired at distressed prices by a SPAC, which is funny for reasons I may detail in another post someday.
-TTB
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