Now that Citigroup (C) and Merrill Lynch (MER) have announced that they will buy back auction-rate securities sold to their private clients, the question arises about how financial companies with weaker balance sheets will…
Merrill Lynch (MER), pole-axed by the Citigroup (C) decision to buy back all of the auction-rate securities it has sold to individual investors, buckled and said it will purchase up to $12 billion of…
In an announcement that shows how remarkable flawed the marketing and risk management at Citigroup (C) have been, the bank agreed to buy-back $7.5 billion in auction rate securities. It will also pay fines…
This morning there was interesting note out of The Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX), although some efforts have already been made down this road. The company has formed a new business group to focus on…
Freddie Mac’s (FRE) results undercut any hope that things at the quasi-governmental agency would get better soon. Actually, they were an indication that the Treasury will have to get into the act sooner and…
Morgan Stanley (MS) has gone to some of its private clients and told them they cannot borrow more on their home equity lines of credit. The customers thought they had signed up for the…
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.—Shakespeare, “The Tempest” Auction-rate securities were one of the great inventions of modern banking. By taking long-term bonds and putting them together into a stew, the banks made…
Bankrate Inc. (NASDAQ: RATE) has just posted non-GAAP EPS of $0.33 on a 70% gain in revenues to $40.2 million. First Call estimates were $0.33 EPS on $40.22 million. The trick to judging this…
Lehman (LEH) may have to raise several billion dollars. With its market cap below $13 billion, that could be painful for current holders of its common shares. According to Reuters, "Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc…
Analysts who think that money center banks are out of the woods, may want to look at the RBS results for the first half of 2008. According to The Times, "The Royal Bank of…
There has been plenty of forecasting and anecdotal evidence that US money center banks will have more write-downs in coming quarters. Most of this data is deductive. The IMF has said the mortgage write-downs…
Today before the close of the market, former Fed-Head Alan Greenspan participated in an interview on CNBC with Maria Bartoromo. The good news is that he’s no longer hard to understand at all. The…
We are seeing a substantial move in shares of Washington Mutual, Inc. (NYSE: WM). British Activist fund Toscafund Asset Management LLP has disclosed in an SEC Filing that it has accumulated a 6% stake…
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."–Abraham Lincoln…
Credit card clearing and processing giant Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) just posted earnings with an adjusted $0.59 EPS on $1.6 Billion in revenues. First Call had estimates pegged at $0.48 EPS on $1.55 Billion. …