#127 - Ramblings Dec2024

Once again, I got distracted away from stocks.

Here’s the only reading that stood out for me this month; published by Dirtcheapstocks on his substack, archived here.

Case Study: 3x Earnings, 20% of Net Cash, Repurchasing Stock

It was April 29th, 2022.

My strategy of “just read everything” led me to a little bank in Atlanta.

Citizens Bancshares Corpotation (Ticker: CZBS)

Up until April 2022, if you had asked me what I knew about CZBS I would have said something like this:

“Oh yeah, that’s the sleepy little bank in Atlanta. It’s probably traded around half of book value for years. Steady profits. It’s cheap, but I wonder if there’s ever a catalyst for value realization. I feel like it normally trades around 5-6x earnings.”

I would read Citizens’ annual report every year. Or at least skim it for 15 minutes to see what was going on.

On April 29th, 2022, the annual report was published. I popped it open and more or less saw the same business doing the same thing.

Discount to book, another solid year of profits, same old same.

But something caught my eye …