The analyst covering CSE basically ripped them a new one stating their underwriting has proven to be horrible and there is no reason to believe it's any better now. He also pointed out that shares have grown from 169M in 2006 to 323M currently. I did a check and they were 99K in 2002. I don't have any financial background and have been trusting that the issue is just getting past current credit problems but now I'm starting to feel like a boiled frog.

On the flip side I became a boiled frog through an M* rec early in the downturn and I do know they tend to be behind the curve. They were high on all of the financials early on in the crisis with 5 star ratings on just about every financial that no longer exists. They did a 180 a few months later and since then have been working on making up for their bad bullish call by kicking the financials while they are down (to regain some street creds?).

If you go back to earnings before the stuff hit the fan they CSE averaged ~$200M. If we assume that's about where earnings get back to when the economy recovers with 323M shares outstanding that translates to earnings of ~$0.62. Give them a 15X multiple and you get a share price of ~$9.28. Maybe some of you guys with financial backgrounds have reason to be more optimistic but it looks to me that CSE is probably a high single digit to low double digit stock when the economy recovers assuming they don't have to dilute shareholders anymore. I'd be happy to hear I'm missing something.