Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Stock Market Update: Wednesday, October 28, 2009

So, apparently I over-celebrated my birthday on Monday and was unable to get my act together to send out a stock update on Tuesday. As Scarlet O'Hara says: "Tomorrow is another day." Tomorrow is now today (or something like that) and here's what I think I know . . .

West Coast Bank is made up largely of former U.S. Bank employees who defected to the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War. By and large they have run a pretty good operation but the downturn in the economy has hit them pretty hard. An article from Monday's Oregonian titled, "West Coast Bank Lands New Funds, New Problems With A Cease-And-Desist Order" details some of the challenges. The opening paragraph kinda gives the high level view of things:

West Coast Bancorp revealed Monday it successfully raised $155 million in new capital while also divulging that regulators slammed the bank last week with a cease-and-desist order finding that the bank has been operating in an unsafe manner.

And how about this fun announcement:

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday said it ordered Cascade Bancorp (CACB), the parent of Bank of the Cascades, to halt payment of dividends and . . . will have 60 days to submit the capital plan, taking into account allowances for loan and lease losses, concentration of credit, and projected retained earnings.

Lastly, most of you have probably picked up that I am a BIG fan of Richard Davis and our leadership team as a whole. Today an organization called Glassdoor.com released the results of a fairly unscientific set of reviews identifying the best and worst CEOs in the country. Richard Davis came in at 100 with a approval rating of 61%. He's doing better than POTUS but I think should be ranked a lot higher. The reviews, by both disgruntled and "gruntled" employees (and some ex-employees) are kind of interesting as well, although your mileage may vary.

As far as the market is concerned, West Coast and Bank of the Cascades were both down sharply today and the Dow was down over 100 points. (Geez, I'm beginning to sound like a local news radio guy!)
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