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Another earnings season has come and almost gone, and just as it is every quarter, the big banks earnings calls were some of the most interesting.
Back when I started out in the markets - in the dinosaur days of Quotrons, leisure suits, and landlines - you had to listen to earnings calls with the overpaid executives as they happened. It consumed hours at a time.
Nowadays, I can quickly and easily download the transcripts from the calls, allowing me to take a closer look at just what makes the biggest American banks (and thereby, the biggest global banks) tick.
Let me say up front that there's no chance I will be investing in these financial behemoths, but they do lord over just about every aspect of the financial markets, as well as saving and investment behavior.
They're the field generals of the U.S. economy - a "rank" that makes their insights extremely valuable fodder for those of us looking to make a killing from the small soldiers known as community banks...
About the Author
Tim Melvin is an unlikely investment expert by any measure. Raised in the "projects" of Baltimore by a single mother, he never attended college and started out as a door-to-door vacuum salesman. But he knew the real money was in the stock market, so he set sights on investing - and by sheer force of determination, he eventually became a financial advisor to millionaires. Today, after 30 years of managing money for some of the wealthiest people in the world, he draws on his experience to help investors find "unreasonably good" bargain stocks, multiply profits, and build their nest eggs. Tim tirelessly works to find overlooked "hidden gems" in the stock market, drawing on the research of legendary investors like Benjamin Graham, Walter Schloss, and Marty Whitman. He has written and lectured extensively on the markets, with work appearing on Benzinga, Real Money, Daily Speculations, and more. He has published several books in the "Little Book of" Investment Series and a "Junior Chamber Course" geared towards young adults that teaches Graham's principles and techniques to a new generation of investors. Today, he serves as the Special Situations Strategist at Money Morning and the editor of Peak Yield Investor.