Metavante Stock Appreciated 33%, but No Commentators Mentioned That as a Reason to Sell

Exhibit 50 in my report is called "The Automation in Banking Fund." It's a fictitious mutual fund to track the investment value of bank tech companies. When it appears on my computer screen, the profit or loss column shows just that. The figures are green or red. Only one of the 23 publicly traded bank tech companies used green ink in that column on April 9, 2009. But before April 1, it used red ink like all the others. And it was a good shade of green-33 percent higher than a year ago (the exhibit tracks April to April). If there was one good reason for Metavante's owners to sell MV, it was to make money. Even I didn't mention that in my blog about the merger with FIS.I think some of us have come to realize, especially in this past year, that anyone who made scads of money had to be a scoundrel. It has almost become un-American to make too much money, especially while so many other things are in trouble. So I'm fixing my blog that was posted on April 1, 2009 with this comment: Sometimes companies merge to increase the value of their stock, and that's not a bad thing.

Disclaimer: Art Gillis does not own stocks in any of the companies displayed in Automation in Banking.