Back on July 21, Jim listed four banks that he thought had the capital to acquire their weakened, troubled competitors: Bank of America, Wells Fargo, US Bancorp, and JPMorgan Chase. Now it looks like things are starting to unfold as planned, with Bank of America agreeing to snap up Merrill Lynch .
I should also point out that at $27.40, Bank of America has, for the first time since Jim created the Fortress Four, fallen below its price that day--$28.56. Now, I am not saying Bank of America's a buy here, there are definitely better opportunities among the financials after Monday's 500 point drubbing--even among the Four Fortresses--five if you count Wachovia, which we added on Sept. 8 because of the great leadership of CEO Bob Steel. We had Bob Steel on tonight in an interview you should definitely catch if you missed the show. I'm just pointing out that, at least for the Four Fortresses, everything seems to be unfolding as predicted.
Whether that's enough with the financial black holes of Citigroup and AIG still unfilled is something that remains to be seen.
Cliff Mason is the Senior Writer of CNBC's Mad Money w/Jim Cramer, and has been that program's primary writer, in cooperation with and under the supervision of Jim Cramer, since he began at CNBC as an intern during the summer of 2005. Mason was the author of a column at TheStreet.com during 2007, which he describes as "hilarious, if short-lived." He graduated from Harvard College in 2007. It was at Harvard that Mason learned to multi-task, mastering the art of seeming to pay attention to professors while writing scripts for Mad Money. Mason has co-written two books with Jim Cramer: Jim Cramer's Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Richand Stay Mad For Life: Get Rich, Stay Rich (Make Your Kids Even Richer). He is 100% responsible for any parts of either book that you did not like.
Mason has also had a fruitful relationship with Jim Cramer as his nephew for the last 23 years and will hopefully continue to hold that position for many more as long as he doesn't do anything to get himself kicked out of the family.
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