Investors · November 7, 2026
A Letter to Investors
Above-average returns are available elsewhere.
To our investors,
We are sorry to disappoint investors looking for above-average returns, and delighted that we fulfilled the expectations of those looking otherwise. Our third-quarter results were average, as promised, and more than average late.
To the hedgers, speculators and otherwise reprehensible folks looking at our bank, the editor says: "Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed." You would be well judged to aim your speculation elsewhere.
Our capital is not idle. It is resting. The editor, at seventy: "I have never taken any exercise, except sleeping and resting, and I never intend to take any." Our balance sheet keeps the same regimen.
Nor are we sloppy. Other banks adjust their earnings, beat the adjusted figure and explain the difference, which the editor once called "the lumbering and slovenly lying of the present day." We do not adjust. We reaffirm full-year guidance of exactly whatever happens.
The banks you are looking for, we are not.
A. Verne Ridge
Chair and Chief Executive Officer
Mr. Ridge sent the letter to the editor, who returned it with one note, from Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar:
"As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out."
— Mark Twain
Mr. Ridge struck "above-average." The first sentence then apologized to every investor, so he put it back.
Edited by Mark Twain (posthumous)