“Maybe it is time to differentiate the banks. That's what I saw Mike Price do in a fascinating interview on Bloomberg, where he says he doesn't like Wachovia (WB) or Citigroup (C). At this point we know of two kinds of banks -- the ones that have refinanced or don't need refinancing and those that need capital badly. I think it is obvious that Citigroup, Wachovia and Washington Mutual (WM) need capital, the last being truly a joke because Kerry Killinger -- still the CEO! -- came out last week at an analyst meeting and said the company didn't. John Thain lives! A portfolio that shorts Citigroup and Wachovia and goes long Goldman (GS) and U.S. Bank (USB) -- no capital needed -- may be not bad here if you can get the ratio right. Everyone's cutting Goldman numbers, which is logical now, except at a certain point, the shrinking of this industry is going to make them a huge share-taker, and they will actually be able to raise price one day. But the real problem numbers are with Citigroup and Wachovia. The latter has a plan, which I believe will be to split the bank in two: a good bank and bad bank -- a la Mellon in the 1980s, a very successful split -- but people have to remember that the split was initially a voracious user of capital. That initial drawdown hasn't happened, although the rally in the stock makes it right. The writedown sets the company up for the capital raise I believe is coming. Citigroup is different entirely. It is just a giant deposit base with everything else offsetting that deposit base. I still can't see how they can make it without raising a huge amount of capital. They will, and the bank will stay in business because of that capital base, but the idea that they don't need more capital when we didn't even know the size of the hit in auction-rate preferreds is a little ridiculous. I am sure they have no idea how much capital they need, and they have no idea how bad their portfolio is. Which reminds me of AIG (AIG). I am deeply focused on their inability to value what they were on the hook for at their Dec. 6 meeting, the one where they basically said if everything goes bad in the 2006-2007 vintages they would lose no more than $500 million. Yes, that's an "M," not a "B." That's because they didn't know what their real exposure was because it was all based on models and then blessed by a Wharton professor. The stuff's pretty embarrassing. Of course, no one gets shamed for it because we are on Wall Street, where anything goes and Fortress (FIG) pays some guy $300 million to generate what? Losses? Sorry. I am outraged. Citigroup is like AIG writ large. AIG made this really big deal about how they pulled out of all of these mortgage markets in 2005 because they "saw it coming." Of course, despite the pullout, they had tons of exposure to it and their exposure to Europe is now really atrocious -- they seemed to have no standards there are all, despite their admonitions about how careful they were -- and I am confident will make it, so AIG has to do a capital raise. The real crime of this bank run -- AGAIN -- is that other than Merrill (MER), nobody raised funds. No one. Now we have to endure another downturn, where I believe WB and C will have to force one on the market. They are the shorts. The well-capitalized ones are the longs. Just as they should be.”

From a recent Mad Money show: "That's one of the best in the group. They're buying back a lot of stock and I'd be a buyer."

From a recent Mad Money show: "I've been behind wireless towers for awhile now. I like the business and I'd be a buyer."

From a recent Mad Money show: "No, we've been bearish since the CEO was one. The business is not proprietary. I want to stay away."

From a recent Mad Money show: "Scrap steel is going down with the rest of steel. I think the second half of the year will be strong for steel. This one's a buy. "

From a recent Mad Money show: "I think both Ford and General Motors (GM) are making some drastic changes. I'm considering them, but I'm not there yet."

From a recent Mad Money show: "I have a hard time getting behind them here. I like Research In Motion (RIMM) and Amazon.com (AMZN) and Google (GOOG) more. "

From a recent Mad Money show: "Even if oil goes to $70, I'm sticking with it. Batteries are the future and I like it."