Citi Bank Scales Back Retail Banking Operations

Citi Bank which is one of the largest financial institutions in the world and in to a little bit of everything and a little bit too much, has announced plans to scale back their retail banking operations and has said it will be reducing the number of branches.

They will keep the operation going for the long term but will focus only on the cities that they have a strong and secure presence.

Cities of Focus for Citi Bank:

• Chicago
• Washington
• New York
• L.A.
• San Fransisco

Citi Bank has tried over the years to establish a retail and community banking presence such as their counter parts Bank of America and Wells Fargo who each have 6000 locations a piece. Citi has never been able to capitalize on the market with only 1000 branches of their own and they will be closing many of those.

Overall this is probably a good move by the board over their in the struggling land of Citi Group. Their operations have been spread all over the place over the last decade and have failed to manage any sort of synergy such as Bank of America.

Disney Buys Super Heroes and The rest from Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics, the creator of comic book legends such as the X-Men, Spider-Man, and the other 5000 super heroes and evil doers, will be part of the Mickey Mouse family. That's right, Disney has acquired the rights of the Marvel Comic Book Characters and it only cost them 4 Billion dollars. That comes to just under a million dollars a character. Though obviously the value of each character varies considerably.

It is no wonder these marvel comic movies have been coming out by the cluster and in record time over the past few years. I honestly think that all the block buster hits hitting the big screen falsely increases the perceived value. The earnings potential, over the next decade or less, may be over estimated. None the less this is still an excellent buy for Mickey and the Disney Family for the long term.

I think another issue this brings up is the flood of weird financial garage sales of "name and labels" even Dow Jones Industrial Average is up for grabs. That just seems insane.