Bank of Ireland: deep local moat

Summary: I hold this bank due to historical reasons. I had great returns on the stock bought before and during covid. I don’t think if it is a great value buy now, more like a hold or a decent buy. However if you saw my portfolio reviews, it is a large position in my portfolio. Therefore I can not not cover it for my readers. At about 10 average PE ratio (7 for 2021 earnings and 2023 estimates) and exposed to rising rates, it is still decent value due to the moat in Ireland.

I used to live in Ireland and this was the most talked about stock. It had been a market darling for some time, and it crushed the Irish shareholders in the great financial crisis. I had no idea about stocks back then but I did some speculative buys and this is how I got started. I was really stupid but it was basically like “hey Bank of Ireland was 35 cents and it is now 8 cents, we should buy some”. I had value in my blood!

You have to understand that Bank of Ireland was probably talked and traded more than Berkshire in the USA. So it’s like if that Berkshire went down a lot and was recapitalised and suddenly you had average joes telling “Berkshire went from 200 to 45, I should buy some" even in non investing circles.

I was hesitating to do this article because it is outside of my circle of competence to know the full risks of a bank. Should I avoid the article, should I write about it? After all, it is a big position due to my trading history during covid, so I ended up going for the article because, it would be weird to avoid talking about one of my big holdings. However I am not a banking expert. Therefore I will lay the business opportunity for the company, and only a banking qualified follower can dig deeper and evaluate the Risk to form an opinion.