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Banking, finance, and taxes

Wall St. Capitulates On Financial Shares (C)(MER)(BAC)(WB)(LEH)(AIG)

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published

From the viewpoint of pessimists, it was just a matter of time. The run-up in financial shares which began in mid-March would be tomahawked by a flailing economy and the leprosy of mortgage-backed paper.

Several of the banks and brokerage CEOs went on TV and out to investor conferences with news that, in their opinions, the worst was over. It has been a short and messy few months, but the world could move back to spinning on its axis.

If nothing else did, AIG (AIG) and Lehman (LEH) put an end to the fantasy. Financial companies have several quarters of rough earnings ahead. (Of course, Goldman Sachs will do just fine). Some of the weakest companies may even be dissolved or sold.

Whatever hope the market had ended earlier this week, but the sentiment became more grim today. Citigroup (C) fell below $20 for the first time in almost three months. Wachovia (WB) moved near to its low. Bank of America (BAC) and Merrill Lynch found new bottoms.

For these companies, 2008 is dead. They can only hope for some faltering improvement next year. No one wanted to believe that it is a fifty-year storm.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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