Wells Fargo and the Incredible Predictability of Deposit Growth

“In the end, banking is a very good business unless you do dumb things.” – Warren Buffett

[buffett]

Buffett has been investing in bank stocks since the 1950’s, and I think one of the things he probably likes most about banking is the predictability of deposit growth. As he says, if you don’t do dumb things—if you stick to taking in deposits and lending them out, you’ll mint money.

All the money center banks reported earnings a couple weeks ago. In the process of reviewing their filings, I also spent some time doing some research on the FDIC website and I found a table that the FDIC updates on industry-wide total deposits at...