I am thinking of doing my workshop on EWBC.  This is a regional bank, primarily in southern California, with some branches in China, with about a $1B market cap.  It's 5-year revenue and EPS growth have been impressive at 24.8 and 20.7, respectively.

Lately the stock has been pounded such that its trailing PE is only 6.8.  This is primarily on account of the expectation that loan losses will increase due to the real estate market.  The bank has stayed away from sub-prime housing loans, but has made construction loans which have taken on some additional risk lately.  Based on my preliminary analysis, however, I think the market has driven the stock down below its value, even after accounting for a larger loan loss in the coming year. 

I bought some shares and am thinking of buying more. 

Is anyone else in the StockCentral community following this stock, or interested in a workshop on it?

I was also thinking we might send an email to all StockCentral members in the southern California area, to see if anyone is a customer of this bank.  This might give the workshop some additional insights on the company.

I'm attaching a preliminary stock study.

I also own some EWBC and have been following the company.

The poor last qtr.,  lower analyst projections for the coming year, and the existing credit market problems are all contributing

to the negative market performance. A workshop on the bank would be interesting.

Incidently I cannot read a .itk file as I am a SA user.

Steve Gideon

I felt that EWBC had value even prior to being "pounded down" and would be most interested in your analysis.

Steve, et. al.,

I've attached my SSG with my judgments.  It's a pdf file so that everyone should be able to view it.  Here's what I am thinking about this company: as long as the company can maintain ROE above 12% during the real estate doldrums, I'd be OK with it.

Bakul