Banking – Page 128 – Infinite Unknown

Integrity Bank Becomes 10th U.S. Failure This Year

August 30, 2008 by Infinite

Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) — Integrity Bank of Alpharetta, Georgia, was closed by U.S. regulators today, the 10th bank to collapse this year amid a surge in soured real-estate loans stemming from the worst housing slump since the Great Depression.

Integrity Bank, with $1.1 billion in assets and $974 million in deposits, was shuttered by the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Regions Financial Corp., Alabama’s biggest bank, will assume all deposits from Integrity, which was run by Integrity Bancshares Inc. The failed bank’s five offices will open on Sept. 2 as branches of Regions, the FDIC said.

FDIC Will Need Half A Trillon Dollars, Says Analyst

August 29, 2008 by Infinite

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s (FDIC) list of troubled banks has increased by 30 percent this quarter, and this jump is causing the FDIC and the banking community to prepare for tomorrow’s problems today.

The FDIC may have to borrow money from the Treasury Department to handle an expected wave of bank failures coming down the road, according to the Wall Street Journal.

It would not be surprising if this were to occur, according to Chris Whalen, managing director of Institutional Risk Analytics. In an interview with CNBC, Whalen said the FDIC needs a backstop.

“They need about a half a trillion dollars in borrowing authority, and they need a vehicle to own these banks while we triage them and sell them.”

Wall Street Journal: New credit hurdle looms for banks

August 29, 2008 by Infinite

U.S. and European banks, already burdened by losses and concerns about their financial health, face a new challenge: paying off hundreds of billions of dollars of debt coming due.

At issue are so-called floating-rate notes – securities used heavily by banks in 2006 to borrow money. A big chunk of those notes, which typically mature in two years, will come due over the next year or so, at a time when banks are struggling to raise fresh funds. That’s forcing banks to sell assets, compete heavily for deposits and issue expensive new debt.

The crunch will begin next month, when some $95 billion in floating-rate notes mature. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. analyst Alex Roever estimates that financial institutions will have to pay off at least $787 billion in floating-rate notes and other medium-term obligations before the end of 2009. That’s about 43 percent more than they had to redeem in the previous 16 months.

The problem highlights how the pain of the credit crunch, now entering its second year, won’t end soon for banks or the broader economy. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said on Tuesday that its list of “problem” banks at risk of failure had grown to 117 at the end of June, up from 90 at the end of March. FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said her agency might have to borrow money from the Treasury Department to see it through an expected wave of bank failures. She said the borrowing could be needed to handle short-term cash-flow pressure brought on by reimbursements to depositors after bank failures.

FDIC may borrow money from Treasury

August 28, 2008 by Infinite

(Reuters) – Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) might have to borrow money from the Treasury Department to see it through an expected wave of bank failures, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The United States of America is the Next Argentina

August 27, 2008 by Infinite

DON’T CRY FOR ME ARGENTINA SAVE YOUR TEARS FOR YOURSELF – While bankers do control the issuance of credit, they cannot control themselves. Bankers are the fatal flaw in their deviously opaque system that has substituted credit for money and debt for savings. The bankers have spread their credit-based system across the world by catering to basic human needs and ambition and greed; and while human needs can be satisfied, ambition and greed cannot-and the bankers’ least of all.

I have a bad feeling about what’s about to happen. The Great Depression is the closest that comes to mind. I, like most, was not alive during the 1930s when it happened. Nonetheless, what once was feared in private is now being discussed in public. It’s going to be bad. It’s going to make high school seem like fun.

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA THE NEXT ARGENTINA

This Time is Different: A Panoramic View of Eight Centuries of Financial Crises by University of Maryland‘s Carmen Reinhart and Harvard’s Kenneth Rogoff makes for perfect reading when flying between the US and Argentina.

There is perhaps no better analysis than Reinhart and Rogoff’s on the history of sovereign defaults; and, as such, Reinhart and Rogoff’s paper was ideal reading material when traveling between the US and Argentina , for the sovereign defaults that happened in the past to Argentina will soon be happening to the US .

FDIC: 117 troubled banks, highest level since 2003

August 27, 2008 by Infinite

WASHINGTON (AP) – The number of troubled U.S. banks leaped to the highest level in about five years and bank profits plunged by 86 percent in the second quarter, as slumps in the housing and credit markets continued.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data released Tuesday show 117 banks and thrifts were considered to be in trouble in the second quarter, up from 90 in the prior quarter and the biggest tally since mid-2003.

Merrill, Wachovia Hit With Record Refinancing Bill

August 26, 2008 by Infinite

Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) — Merrill Lynch & Co., Wachovia Corp., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and the rest of the U.S. finance industry are about to find out how expensive credit has become.

Banks, securities firms and lenders have a record $871 billion of bonds maturing through 2009, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co., just as yields are at their most punitive compared with Treasuries. The increase in yields may cost them as much as $23 billion more in annual interest versus a year ago based on Merrill Lynch index data.

FBI saw mortgage crisis coming

August 25, 2008 by Infinite

A top official warned of widening loan fraud in 2004, but the agency focused its resources elsewhere.

WASHINGTON — Long before the mortgage crisis began rocking Main Street and Wall Street, a top FBI official made a chilling, if little-noticed, prediction: The booming mortgage business, fueled by low interest rates and soaring home values, was starting to attract shady operators and billions in losses were possible.

“It has the potential to be an epidemic,” Chris Swecker, the FBI official in charge of criminal investigations, told reporters in September 2004. But, he added reassuringly, the FBI was on the case. “We think we can prevent a problem that could have as much impact as the S&L crisis,” he said.

Today, the damage from the global mortgage meltdown has more than matched that of the savings-and-loan bailouts of the 1980s and early 1990s. By some estimates, it has made that costly debacle look like chump change. But it’s also clear that the FBI failed to avert a problem it had accurately forecast.

FDIC gets ready for bank failures

August 25, 2008 by Infinite

Regulator, insurer boosts its staff and provisions as it faces its biggest challenge in decades

ATLANTA – The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is one of those agencies with a low profile but essential role similar to plumbing or electricity – you don’t notice it until the power’s out or the basement’s flooding.

These days, the FDIC’s folks are busier with the financial equivalent of fixing burst water mains and dead power lines.

Seventy-five years after it was launched during the Great Depression, the bank regulator and insurer is facing its biggest challenge in decades. Many banks in Georgia and across the nation have been battered by the slumping economy and troubled loans to home builders, developers and homeowners.

Hundreds could fail, some industry experts predict. That could force the agency to make good on its promise to insure most customers’ checking and savings deposits up to $100,000 and some retirement accounts up to $250,000, putting pressure on its insurance fund.

Columbian Bank and Trust of Kansas Closed by U.S. Regulators

August 23, 2008 by Infinite

Aug. 23 (Bloomberg) — Columbian Bank and Trust Co. of Topeka, Kansas, was closed by U.S. regulators, the nation’s ninth bank to collapse this year amid bad real-estate loans and writedowns stemming from a drop in home prices.

The bank, with $752 million in assets and $622 million in total deposits, was shuttered by the Kansas state bank commissioner’s office and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the FDIC said yesterday in a statement.

COMEX silver and gold pricing is manipulated

August 23, 2008 by Infinite

For years, the data contained in the weekly Commitment of Traders Report (COT), issued by the CFTC, have indicated that several large COMEX traders have manipulated the price of silver and gold. For an equal number of years, the CFTC has reluctantly responded to public pressure over this issue with blanket denials of any wrongdoing. Many analysts have agreed with the CFTC’s position, conjuring up various ways to explain why a massive short position held by a handful of traders is not manipulative.

The recent widespread shortage of silver for retail purchase coupled with a price collapse appears to have shaken these analysts’ confidence that the COMEX silver market is operating ‘fair and square.’ Well it should, since there is no rational explanation for a significant price decline going hand in hand with product shortages other than collusive manipulation.

For any remaining doubters that COMEX silver and gold pricing is manipulated, the following CFTC data should be considered. This data is taken from a monthly report issued by the CFTC, called the Bank Participation Report. Here’s the link for the report:

http://www.cftc.gov/marketreports/bankparticipation/index.htm The relevant data is found in the July and August futures sections. I will condense it.

Buffett Says Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac `Game Is Over

January 2, 2009August 22, 2008 by Infinite

Aug. 22 (Bloomberg) — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two largest mortgage finance companies, “don’t have any net worth,” billionaire investor Warren Buffett said.

“The game is over” as independent companies said Buffett, the 77-year-old chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., in an interview on CNBC today. “They were able to borrow without any of the normal restraints. They had a blank check from the federal government.”

Goldman Sachs analyst recommends shorting shares of Citigroup

August 21, 2008August 21, 2008 by Infinite

NEW YORK (AP) — A Goldman Sachs analyst has recommended a short-selling strategy for shares of Citigroup Inc., noting the bank is still heavily exposed to the troubled mortgage and consumer credit markets.

In short-selling, an investor borrows shares of a company and sells them, betting the stock will go down. The investor then buys back the shares, repays the loan and — if the strategy worked — pockets the difference as a profit.

Large U.S. bank collapse seen ahead, says ex-IMF chief economist

August 19, 2008 by Infinite

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – The worst of the global financial crisis is yet to come and a large U.S. bank will fail in the next few months as the world’s biggest economy hits further troubles, former IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff said on Tuesday.

“The U.S. is not out of the woods. I think the financial crisis is at the halfway point, perhaps. I would even go further to say ‘the worst is to come’,” he told a financial conference.

“We’re not just going to see mid-sized banks go under in the next few months, we’re going to see a whopper, we’re going to see a big one, one of the big investment banks or big banks,” said Rogoff, who is an economics professor at Harvard University and was the International Monetary Fund’s chief economist from 2001 to 2004.

The Disconnect Between Supply and Demand in Gold & Silver Markets

August 19, 2008 by Infinite

There is a huge demand for both gold and silver right now in India and North America. North American shops are completely bare of silver. Indian shops are empty of both silver and gold. Even the Indian banks don’t have any gold or silver. The big western bullion banks, based in New York and London, control both the gold and silver trade. Reports from India are that they are refusing to extend Indian bank lines of credit, forcing the small banks to deliver to clients, collect money, and pay down lines of credit, before being allowed to take delivery of another gold or silver shipment. This is very abnormal. Normally, if a banker’s bank knows that its customer-bank has firm orders, it would extend the smaller bank a bigger line of credit. Not now.

By refusing to extend lines of credit, the big bullion banks are essentially rationing a very thin supply. Most physical silver, for example, is being reserved for industrial and fabrication use, and investors are simply not able to get any, without waiting for months. Investor oriented shops are bare, and the U.S. Mint has suspended coin production. All available supply seems to be reserved for industrial users. You cannot substitute paper claims for real silver, in industrial use, because paper doesn’t have the physical properties of silver. So, it seems that all available supply is being diverted to industrial users, and, to a lesser extent, aside from the squeeze on lines of credit, also to jewelry fabricators. But, investors are left out in the cold. They can accept paper claims, or nothing. The most interesting mistake that the manipulators have made is in not supplying the U.S. Mint, which has run out of silver, proving that there is a severe shortage.

Merrill Lynch: Credit Crisis`Far From Over’

August 14, 2008 by Infinite

Aug. 13 (Bloomberg) — The credit crisis is “broad, deep, and global” and “far from over” for financial companies even after they reported $500 billion in writedowns and credit losses, Merrill Lynch & Co.’s chief investment strategist said.

Wall Street banks hit by downgrades

August 14, 2008 by Infinite

Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley were hit by a raft of analysts’ downgrades on Tuesday amid growing concerns that tough conditions in credit and equity markets will significantly reduce their profits.

The bearish comments by Wall Street analysts triggered a sell-off in banking shares that dragged the broader market lower, with the S&P 500 off 1.2 per cent.

Goldman’s shares fell 6 per cent after three analysts warned that the firm – which has outperformed rivals throughout the crisis – was experiencing a severe slowdown in its equity and investment banking businesses.

Shares in JPMorgan Chase dropped nearly 10 per cent – its biggest daily fall in six years – a day after it revealed that difficult credit markets had caused $1.5bn in writedowns in July.

Credit crunch misery deepens for UBS

August 13, 2008 by Infinite

Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP

UBS has underlined its status as one of the biggest losers in the credit crunch by announcing £5.1bn of fresh writedowns and its fourth quarterly loss in a row.

The Swiss bank said this morning that it made a net loss of 358m Swiss francs (£173m) in the second quarter of this year. The loss was caused by its continuing exposure to the US housing market, and a huge outflow of funds as wealthy individuals took their money elsewhere.

The new writedowns push UBS’s total since the crisis started to $42bn, bringing it closer to Citigroup ($47bn) and Merrill Lynch ($46bn).

Bear Stearns: Insider Trading

August 13, 2008 by Infinite

Aug. 11 (Bloomberg) — On March 11, the day the Federal Reserve attempted to shore up confidence in the credit markets with a $200 billion lending program that for the first time monetized Wall Street’s devalued collateral, somebody else decided Bear Stearns Cos. was going to collapse.

In a gambit with such low odds of success that traders question its legitimacy, someone wagered $1.7 million that Bear Stearns shares would suffer an unprecedented decline within days. Options specialists are convinced that the buyer, or buyers, made a concerted effort to drive the fifth-biggest U.S. securities firm out of business and, in the process, reap a profit of more than $270 million.

Whoever placed the bet used so-called put options that gave purchasers the right to sell 5.7 million Bear Stearns shares for $30 each and 165,000 shares for $25 apiece just nine days later, data compiled by Bloomberg show. That was less than half the $62.97 closing price in New York Stock Exchange composite trading on March 11. The buyers were confident the stock would crash.

“Even if I were the most bearish man on Earth, I can’t imagine buying puts 50 percent below the price with just over a week to expiration,” said Thomas Haugh, general partner of Chicago-based options trading firm PTI Securities & Futures LP. “It’s not even on the page of rational behavior, unless you know something.”

`Lottery Ticket’

The 57,000 puts that traded March 11 at the $30 strike price and the 1,649 that traded at $25 were collectively worth about $1.7 million, Bloomberg data show. Each put is equal to 100 shares of stock.

“That trade amounted to buying a lottery ticket,” said Michael McCarty, chief options and equity strategist at New York-based brokerage Meridian Equity Partners Inc. “Would you buy $1.7 million worth of lottery tickets just because you could? No. Neither would a hedge fund manager.”

Fed auctions another $25 billion to combat a serious credit squeeze

August 12, 2008 by Infinite

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Federal Reserve has auctioned another $25 billion in loans to the nation’s banks and given them more time to pay the money back in an effort to combat a serious credit squeeze.

The Fed announced Tuesday that the money would be loaned at a rate of 2.754 percent. In the latest auction, the Fed offered the loans for an extended period of 84 days, rather than the 28-day period for the previous loans.

It marked the Fed’s latest attempt to be innovative in providing the nation’s banking system with the cash it needs to combat a serious credit crisis stemming from mounting mortgage loan losses.

Fed: More banks are tightening lending standards

August 12, 2008 by Infinite

WASHINGTON – More banks are tightening lending standards on home mortgages and other consumer and business loans as a deepening credit crisis exerts a heavier toll on the economy.

Federal Reserve said Monday the percentage of banks reporting tighter lending standards rose across various loan types in its July survey. In April, the central bank had found that the percentage of banks reporting tighter lending standards was already near historic highs.

Morgan Stanley has issued a major alert on the health of Spanish banks

August 5, 2008 by Infinite

Morgan Stanley, the investment bank, has issued a major alert on the health of Spanish banks, warning that a replay of the ERM crisis in the early 1990s could wipe out the capital base of weak lenders exposed to the property crash.

HSBC warns that financial crisis will spread to Asia

August 5, 2008 by Infinite

Asia will be infected by the economic weakness spreading through the world’s leading economies, threatening the engine of global growth, HSBC has warned.

Cashing in on Hong Kong gets harder

Speaking after reporting a “resilient” 28pc fall in pre-tax profits to $10.3bn (£5.2bn) for the six months to June, despite incurring a further $10bn of bad debt, Stephen Green, HSBC chairman, said: “I don’t believe the emerging markets have completely decoupled. There is no way a serious downturn in the US will leave Asia immune.”

HSBC, the world’s third largest bank, still expects the region to grow but it will be “with less momentum than in the recent past” because of rising inflation in the face of commodity price pressures.

Analysts at Exane BNP Paribas warned that the Asian outlook “provides the greatest threat to HSBC’s premium valuation” and that “some of the gloss has started to fade”.

Hundreds of banks will fail, Roubini tells Barron’s

August 5, 2008 by Infinite

NEW YORK, Aug 3 (Reuters) – The United States is in the second inning of a recession that will last for at least 18 months and help kill off hundreds of banks, influential economist and New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini told Barron’s in Sunday’s edition.

Taxpayers will pay a big price for helping bail out the rest of the financial services industry as well, Roubini said — at least $1 trillion and more likely $2 trillion.

The banks will become insolvent because of mounting losses as a result of the housing bust and because they have only written down their subprime loans so far, he said. Still in front of them are their consumer-credit losses, for which they lack the reserves, Barron’s reported.

He also said there are hundreds of millions of dollars outstanding in home-equity loans that could be worth zero, too.

Royal Bank of Scotland poised for biggest loss in UK banking history

August 3, 2008August 3, 2008 by Infinite

Britain’s second largest bank expected to reveal it has lost £1 billion in first half

THE Royal Bank of Scotland is poised to unveil the biggest loss in UK banking history after taking a hit of almost £6 billion from the credit crisis.

Britain’s second-largest bank is this week expected to reveal a pre-tax loss of at least £1 billion for the first six months of the year, with analysts warning it could slide to as much as £1.7 billion in the red.

The loss would be roughly five times higher than the deficit racked up by Barclays in 1992 at the height of the last recession.

RBS chairman Sir Tom McKillop is already under pressure from investors after the bank’s recent £12 billion rights issue. His chief executive, Sir Fred Goodwin, who marks 10 years at the bank this weekend, also faces shareholder scrutiny.