ANZ.NZX - Anyone holding?

[BlackPeter]

Both ANZ and Westpac are looking very undervalued. In a vacuum I would be jumping into both of these with both feet. The only issue is evaluating them relative to the opportunity cost when everything else is similarly dropping significantly and for some things undervalue territory

Clearly - currently fear is controlling the stock exchanges, but not quite sure whether the drop of the banking industry as a whole is so surprising. Just think about the risks:

Tourism worldwide just fall of a cliff - it is now fair to assume that most of the industry is loosing now at least one full season. Many tourism operators might not have the financial headroom to survive and bite the dust. The banks who gave them money might not look that flash afterwards either.

Many highly indebted countries are currently pumping huge additional funds into some first aid of their economies. Some might be able to afford this additional debt, many will do it anyway and some will crumble, particularly considering that tax take will drop at the same time. Bankrupt companies don't pay taxes anymore. Just wondering whats happening with the banks holding large amount of bonds of the countries (some of the obvious might be e.g. Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey) which won't make it financially.

Unemployment will rise worldwide. No need to employ waiters, maids, cleaning staff, chefs, airline staff and so on if nobody is travelling and hardly anybody going out. Unemployed people will have problems to repay their loans. Some might have enough financial headroom but most will not.

I am not saying this is the end of the world, but the value of our banks is currently dependent on a lot of things we can't really assess. While I think that ANZ is one of the stronger and less impacted banks ... only time will tell.

Pretty sure lower loan repay rates and higher unemployment will make life for ANZ and Westpac uncomfortable as well. Not sure about them holding sub prime bonds of indebted countries (but they well might - remember NZ Super fund loosing money in a Portuguese bond?).

I hold a small amount of ANZ shares, but I am not sure now is the best time to top up.