I'm more great in 08 than I was in 07, but I'm planning on feeling fine in 09!
Here's the deal. The lower the pps gets, the better. Even if big dogs are dumping off huge lots to take extra losses for the year, other big dogs are buying them and getting a better deal. If one or more of the big dogs is buying on behalf of a possible suitor things couldn't get sweeter, and here's why.
If company A has plans to acquire the holdings company (no matter what their motivations are) and can currently purchase shares at cents on the dollar, the result is them owning a ridiculous amount of shares that they not only got for nothing, but they are all shares that do not have to pay anything out to anybody for owning if/when they execute a buyout. If Company A owns, or plans to own 1 billion shares prior to a hypothetical acquisition(and if such plans exist they are unbeknownst to you, they will remain as such, and you certainly won't see or hear about them until the deal is done) that is 1 billion less shares that they would have to include in a payout, because they wouldn't really pay themselves a per share price for shares they own (accounting wise they actually would because they would buy the company and the price of the stocks they just bought would actually go up), however, they would actually have to spend "REAL MONEY",also referred to as "CASH", to purchase Washington Mutual Holdings, and spend enough "REAL MONEY" to represent an offer that is high enough to either make this "thing" go away forever, or, turn it into the next Great American feelgood story about how Company A, which I hope is JP Morgan, "waited to acquire the holdings company until they had the operational readiness to provide provide excellent customer service and to make the transition of a complete takeover as seamless as possible..." or some sh*t like that. It will be great when we finally start hearing mainstream stories about Washington Mutual, and I strongly believe the only way that will happen is if this ends good for everybody on this board. I am convinced that 1 of 2 things will happen. 1. Someone will buy them out on a per share basis (and it kind of matters who and why) or 2. They will emerge from Ch 11 and the stocks will be back on the big board, and they will not be back on the big board if they do not take care of their current shareholders, regardless of when they purchased their shares ( and this is why the big dogs buying is a good sign imho) Think about it, if they screwed all of the investors with their pants on, nobody would ever invest in them again, not in a million years.
So......I have given this a lot of thought, as have a lot of people, and I am highly optimistic that this is going to end up great for everybody, even the commons, but there is still the small part of me that is a cynic and sees things in a negatively speculative way that takes my "Company A" dream from above, and destroys it buy TPG coming in and buying out for next to nothing. I definitely do not see that happening, and I foresee a fine 09 for everybody!
