I keep watching AIB‘s stock every day, I don’t know why this stock in particular interests me. I have warned against buying it a couple of times, and it dropped almost 50% since the previous warning. Now at the current pricing of $1.13, a drop of 1 cent is a drop of about 1%, this is ridiculous, but not as funny as SIRI.

But now I keep wondering, what if AIB is the next AIG, clearly the Irish government doesn’t want this bank to fail, they keep on supporting it, and now the Irish government is virtually running it. What would be their interest if the bank is bound to collapse? None, of course.

I read somewhere today that the current book price (after all this mess) of AIB is around 41 EuroCents, which translates into 57 cents (USD), at the current exchange rate, so probably that’s the absolute bottom, and if ever reaches 60 cents, I will buy 2000 shares, just for fun and out of speculation (well not really, I’m sure the Irish government will not let this bank to fail). Of course, the official book price is $13.66 (the stock is trading at less than 10% that amount).

I can’t but feel a huge resemblance between AIG and AIB (with the exception that the former collapses from over a $1000 to less than $1 in less than a year, while AIB was more graceful in its downfall). AIG is now trading at $41.81, could AIB rebound in a few months?

Only time will tell, and only the very bold investor would buy AIB right now.