WaMu shares hit hard

Already battered, Washington Mutual shares fall as potential capital sources’ attention is diverted.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Don’t forget about Washington Mutual.

Concerned that Wall Street has done just that, the nation’s largest savings-and-loan plummeted 22% in mid-day trading. Investors are concerned that potential sources of capital have disappeared in the upheaval this weekend on Wall Street that saw Lehman Brothers (LEH, Fortune 500) file the nation’s largest bankruptcy and Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) scoop up Merrill Lynch (MER, Fortune 500).

Washington Mutual (WM, Fortune 500) shares were battered last week, losing 36% of their value as investors grew increasingly nervous that the bank didn’t have enough capital to see it through the tsunami sweeping Wall Street.

Read moreWaMu shares hit hard

Lehman Files Biggest Bankruptcy Case in History

Sept. 15 (Bloomberg) — Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the fourth-largest U.S. investment bank, succumbed to the subprime mortgage crisis it helped create in the biggest bankruptcy filing in history.

The 158-year-old firm, which survived railroad bankruptcies of the 1800s, the Great Depression in the 1930s and the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management a decade ago, filed a Chapter 11 petition with U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan today. The collapse of Lehman, which listed more than $613 billion of debt, dwarfs WorldCom Inc.’s insolvency in 2002 and Drexel Burnham Lambert’s failure in 1990.

Read moreLehman Files Biggest Bankruptcy Case in History

Bank of America Said to Reach $44 Billion Deal to Buy Merrill

Sept. 14 (Bloomberg) — Bank of America Corp. reached a deal to acquire Merrill Lynch & Co. for about $44 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported, after shares of the third-biggest U.S. securities firm fell by more than 35 percent last week and smaller rival Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. neared bankruptcy.

Read moreBank of America Said to Reach $44 Billion Deal to Buy Merrill

Jobless set to top two million as the UK economy heads for meltdown


A JobCentre office

The true scale of the jobs disaster facing Britain is revealed today as experts issue dire warnings that up to half a million workers will lose their jobs over the next two years, as companies cut costs and scale back investment plans to survive the economic downturn.

Official figures are widely expected to reveal this week that the number of people out of work and claiming benefits increased for a seventh successive month in August.

Finance companies based in London’s Square Mile have already laid off thousands of workers since the US mortgage crisis unleashed chaos in the world’s markets last summer; and the 5,000 UK-based staff at crisis-hit investment bank Lehman Brothers are awaiting news this weekend about how many of them will be made redundant.

Read moreJobless set to top two million as the UK economy heads for meltdown

N.Y. Fed calls meeting to forestall Lehman collapse

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — As U.S. Treasury officials made it clear the government will not bail out Lehman Bros., the Federal Reserve Bank of New York met Friday night with Wall Street executives in an effort to forestall the collapse of the investment firm and shore up rapidly weakening financial markets.

The New York Fed called the emergency meeting Friday evening with the heads of major financial institutions and the group reportedly plans to continue meeting throughout the weekend if necessary to come up with a plan to save the ailing Lehman Bros. (LEH:Last: 3.76, -0.46, -10.90%) and prevent further damage among financial companies.

Read moreN.Y. Fed calls meeting to forestall Lehman collapse

Washington Mutual shares sink below $2 on capital worry

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Washington Mutual Inc (WM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) shares sank below $2 for the first time since 1990 as anxiety grew about the largest U.S. savings and loan’s mortgage losses, capital needs and survival prospects.

Its shares were down 17 cents, or 7.3 percent, at $2.15 on Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange, but fell to $1.75 earlier in the session. The stock has plunged 44 percent in the previous two days.

Wall Street is worried that Washington Mutual, like Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc (LEH.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), may not have time to right itself, and that new the chief executive, Alan Fishman, will not find a buyer or raise enough capital for the Seattle-based thrift.

Read moreWashington Mutual shares sink below $2 on capital worry

Lehman survival questioned on scramble to sell assets

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc’s survival was called into question as its chief executive scrambled to sell assets to cover losses from toxic real estate investments, sending shares down as much as 46 percent.

The investment bank’s need to raise desperately needed cash, broadly outlined by CEO Dick Fuld on Wednesday, failed to assuage investor concerns. The stock dropped $2.92, or 40 percent, to $4.33 on Thursday after falling as low as $3.88.

The steady stream of grim tidings and the dearth of details from the company stoked fears that some of Lehman’s clients and trading partners might take their business to more stable firms.

Read moreLehman survival questioned on scramble to sell assets

Lehman posts $4 billion quarterly loss, plans sales

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc plans to sell a majority stake in its asset management unit and spin off commercial real estate holdings, hoping to restore investor confidence and ensure its survival after reporting a record quarterly loss of about $4 billion.

Shares failed to rebound on Wednesday morning after plunging 45 percent a day earlier, reflecting Wall Street disappointment that Lehman did not announce more concrete actions.

Read moreLehman posts $4 billion quarterly loss, plans sales

Lehman sinks as much as 40 percent on capital worry

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc shares sank as much as 40 percent Tuesday on concern that talks on a possible investment from Korea Development Bank had broken down and that the fourth-largest Wall Street investment bank would be unable to raise needed capital.

Read moreLehman sinks as much as 40 percent on capital worry

Merrill Lynch Cut to `Sell’ at Goldman on Writedowns

Sept. 5 (Bloomberg) — Merrill Lynch & Co., down 50 percent in New York trading this year, was cut to “sell” at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. on concern the firm may post more writedowns tied to credit-related investments.

Goldman added the third-biggest U.S. securities company to its “conviction sell” list, according to a report by analysts including William Tanona. The share-price estimate on the stock was lowered 23 percent to $22, compared with yesterday’s closing price of $26.21.

Merrill, battered by more than $40 billion of credit market writedowns, has sold mortgage-linked assets to reduce risk and free up capital. The company trades at 1.25 times book value, compared with 0.95 for Citigroup Inc., the only firm that’s reported larger writedowns and losses stemming from the credit market crunch, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Read moreMerrill Lynch Cut to `Sell’ at Goldman on Writedowns

Lehman May Shift $32 Billion of Mortgage Assets to `Bad Bank’

Sept. 4 (Bloomberg) — Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. may shift about $32 billion of commercial mortgages and real estate to a new company that will be spun off in a move similar to the good-bank-bad-bank model used in the 1980s banking crisis, two people briefed on the discussions said.

Read moreLehman May Shift $32 Billion of Mortgage Assets to `Bad Bank’

Korea Development’s Min Confirms Talks With Lehman


A man walks past the Korea Development Bank headquarters in Seoul on Aug. 24, 2008. Photographer: Nasha Lee/Bloomberg News

Sept. 2 (Bloomberg) — Korea Development Bank is in talks to buy a stake in Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the fourth-biggest U.S. securities firm.

Chief Executive Officer Min Euoo Sung confirmed the discussions in an interview in Seoul today. “I cannot comment further,” said Min, who headed Lehman’s Seoul branch before joining the Korean bank in June. Matthew Russell, a Hong Kong- based spokesman for Lehman, declined to comment.

Read moreKorea Development’s Min Confirms Talks With Lehman

Lehman Brothers in urgent talks on capital injection

The Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers is this weekend locked in talks with a group of foreign government-backed investment funds in an effort to secure billions of dollars in new equity capital.

The Sunday Telegraph has learned that Lehman has intensified talks in recent days with Korea Development Bank, the South Korean ­government-backed lender, about a capital injection of as much as $6bn (£3.3bn). KDB has drafted in bankers from the heavyweight advisory boutique Perella Weinberg to provide counsel on the talks, which could be concluded this week.

Read moreLehman Brothers in urgent talks on capital injection

Lehmans puts another 1,500 jobs on the block

Lehman Brothers is planning to axe up to 1,500 more jobs, as part of its desperate struggle to reduce costs, raise money and rebuild its battered balance sheet.

The job losses, which are still being planned by executives at the company’s New York head office, are expected to be spread among its 26,000-strong global workforce, including at its European headquarters in London, where it employs more than 4,500 people.

Rumours of the cuts began circulating internally at Lehman late on Thursday, adding to the gloom at the company, which is engaged in a fire sale of assets in order to replace billions of dollars lost on mortgage investments since the credit crisis began.

Read moreLehmans puts another 1,500 jobs on the block

Merrill, Wachovia Hit With Record Refinancing Bill

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.

Read moreMerrill, Wachovia Hit With Record Refinancing Bill

Subprime pain sweeps the world

More than 100 local councils, charities, churches, hospitals and nursing homes across Australia are sitting on a $2 billion black hole after buying subprime investments structured by Wall Street banks during the bull market but which are now potentially worthless.

Melbourne’s Metropolitan Ambulance Service and local councils are among those facing losses of hundreds of millions of dollars in the subprime meltdown because of bad debt they bought through a global investment bank.

Read moreSubprime pain sweeps the world

The Wall Street Journal Senses Something is Wrong

A subscription to the Wall Street Journal costs several hundred dollars a year, so most people out there don’t get it and DollarCollapse.com rarely posts links to its articles. But everybody should see today’s edition, which probably sets the modern-day record for disturbing headlines. Here’s a sampling of what subscribers read this morning:

Read moreThe Wall Street Journal Senses Something is Wrong

Fed: No more bailouts, except Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

This is article very important, because…
“The credit crisis has obviously entered into a new phase – the government has one bailout left in them, and this is it,” said Jeffrey Gundlach, chief investment officer of TCW Group in Los Angeles, which invests $160 billion.
And now all the related articles below make much more sense and here comes the meltdown of the financial markets.
If you do not know how to prepare yourself: Solution
If you want to know more on what is going on: World Situation
Take care. – The Infinite Unknown

____________________________________________________________________________________

NEW YORK – The U.S. government is signaling it won’t throw a lifeline to struggling financial companies – except for mortgage linchpins Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – marking a shift to a new and potentially more volatile phase of the credit crisis.

Such an approach could mean beaten-down investment banks like Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and regional banks must now fend for themselves as they try to recover from billions of dollars in mortgage-related losses. That is bound to unnerve an already turbulent Wall Street and make investors even more anxious as they await financial companies’ earnings reports that are expected to be down a stunning 69 percent from a year ago when all the numbers are in.

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And, for consumers already squeezed by tightening credit standards, it could mean getting a mortgage will become even harder.

Read moreFed: No more bailouts, except Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Fannie, Freddie Shares Plummet on Capital Worries

Shares of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the largest providers of funding for U.S. home mortgages, closed at their lowest levels since 1992 on concern the companies need to raise more capital amid larger-than-expected losses.

Corporate “federal agency” debt obligations and mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by the companies also plummeted relative to government debt as investors thinned positions, analysts said.

Freddie Mac

FREDDIE MACFRE
11.91  -2.59  -17.86%  NYSE
Quote |  Chart |  News |  Profile

[FRE  11.91  -2.59  (-17.86%)   ] stock tumbled almost 18 percent Monday, to $11.91, while Fannie Mae

FANNIE MAEFNM
15.74  -3.04  -16.19%  NYSE
Quote |  Chart |  News |  Profile

[FNM  15.74  -3.04  (-16.19%)   ] shares dropped most than 16 percent, to $15.74.

A pending accounting change could also force Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to raise capital at a difficult time, according to Lehman Brothers.

The rule aimed at forcing companies to account for securitized assets on their balance sheets could mandate Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to boost capital by $29 billion and $46 billion, respectively, the analysts wrote in a client note on Monday.

Read moreFannie, Freddie Shares Plummet on Capital Worries

Dow suffers worst 1st half since ’70

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Marc Faber: ‘Misleading’ Fed Should Let Banks Fail

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Dow and S&P 500 were little changed on Monday on the final trading day of the second quarter as record oil boosted energy shares, offsetting weak financial stocks amid nagging concerns of further credit losses.

But even with the pause on Monday, the Dow and S&P posted their worst one-month drop since September 2002. The Dow also suffered its worst first half since 1970.

The Nasdaq ended the session lower, hurt by a drop in the shares of Yahoo as it battles with shareholders after takeover talks with Microsoft fell apart.

Read moreDow suffers worst 1st half since ’70

As Bill Evolves, Mortgage Debt Is Snowballing

When Congress started fashioning a sweeping rescue package for struggling homeowners earlier this year, 2.6 million loans were in trouble. But the problem has grown considerably in just six months and is continuing to worsen.

More than three million borrowers are in distress, and analysts are forecasting a couple of million more will fall behind on their payments in the coming year as home prices fall further and the economy weakens.

Those stark numbers not only illustrate the challenges for the lawmakers trying to provide some relief to their constituents but also hint at what the next administration will be facing after the election. While the proposed program would help some homeowners, analysts say it would touch only a small fraction of those in trouble – the Congressional Budget Office estimates it would be used by 400,000 borrowers – and would do little to bolster the housing market.

“It’s not enough, even in the best of circumstances,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Economy.com. The number of people who will be helped “is going to be overwhelmed by the three million that are headed toward default.”

Read moreAs Bill Evolves, Mortgage Debt Is Snowballing

This Recession, It’s Just Beginning


Vincent Quinones works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday after the Federal Reserve issued a mixed assessment of the economy. Yesterday, the Dow Jones industrial average closed down 358 points. (By Andrew Harrer — Bloomberg News)

So much for that second-half rebound.

Truth be told, that was always more of a wish than a serious forecast, happy talk from the Fed and Wall Street desperate to get things back to normal.

It ain’t gonna happen. Not this summer. Not this fall. Not even next winter.

This thing’s going down, fast and hard. Corporate bankruptcies, bond defaults, bank failures, hedge fund meltdowns and 6 percent unemployment. We’re caught in one of those vicious, downward spirals that, once it gets going, is very hard to pull out of.

Only this will be a different kind of recession — a recession with an overlay of inflation. That combo puts the Federal Reserve in a Catch-22 — whatever it does to solve one problem only makes the other worse. Emerging from a two-day meeting this week, Fed officials signaled that further recession-fighting rate cuts are unlikely and that their next move will be to raise rates to contain inflationary expectations.

Since last June, we’ve seen a fairly consistent pattern to the economic mood swings. Every three months or so, there’s a round of bad news about housing, followed by warnings of more bank write-offs and then a string of disappointing corporate earnings reports. Eventually, things stabilize and there are hints that the worst may be behind us. Stocks regain some of their lost ground, bonds fall and then — bam — the whole cycle starts again.

It was only in November that the Dow had recovered from the panicked summer sell-off and hit a record, just above 14,000. By March, it had fallen below 12,000. By May, it climbed above 13,000. Now it’s heading for a new floor at 11,000. Officially, that’s bear market territory. We’ll be lucky if that’s the floor.

In explaining why that second-half rebound never occurred, the Fed and the Treasury and the Wall Street machers will say that nobody could have foreseen $140 a barrel oil. As excuses go, blaming it on an oil shock is a hardy perennial. That’s what Jimmy Carter and Fed Chairman Arthur Burns did in the late ’70s, and what George H.W. Bush and Alan Greenspan did in the early ’90s. Don’t believe it.

Truth is, there are always price or supply shocks of one sort or another. The real problem is that the underlying fundamentals had gotten badly out of whack, making the economy susceptible to a shock. The only way to make things better is to get those fundamentals back in balance. In this case, that means bringing what we consume in line with what we produce, letting the dollar fall to its natural level, wringing the excess capacity out of industries that overexpanded during the credit bubble and allowing real estate prices to fall in line with incomes.

The last hope for a second-half rebound began to fade earlier this month when Lehman Brothers reported that it wasn’t as immune to the credit-market downturn as it had led everyone to believe. Lehman scrambled to restore confidence by firing two top executives and raising billions in additional capital, but even that wasn’t enough to quiet speculation that it could be the next Bear Stearns.

Since then, there has been a steady drumbeat of worrisome news from nearly every sector of the economy.

American Express and Discover warn that customers are falling further behind on their debts. UPS and Federal Express report a noticeable slowdown in shipments, while fuel costs are soaring. According to the Case-Shiller index, home prices in the top 20 markets fell 15 percent in April from the year before, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac report that mortgage delinquency rates doubled over the same period — and that’s for conventional home loans, not subprime. United Airlines accelerates the race to cut costs and capacity by laying off 950 pilots — 15 percent of its total — as a number of airlines retire planes and hint that they may delay delivery or cancel orders of new jets from Boeing and Airbus. Goldman Sachs, which has already had to withdraw its rosy forecast for stocks, now admits it was also too optimistic about junk bond defaults, and analysts warn that Citigroup and Merrill Lynch will also be forced to take additional big write-downs on their mortgage portfolios.

Read moreThis Recession, It’s Just Beginning

Dollar Diving

Dollar to fall to metals in upcoming rallies, rate hikes soon wont be able to fix economic problems, real inflation understated for years, USDX contracts plummet, why arent people fleeing from the stock market… Exchange Traded Funds are a disaster, losses from global write downs, Fed still invited to intervene in spite of failures

The dollar has once again collapsed. Get ready for the next dollar debacle and the coming rally in gold and silver which have just broken out. The elitists have lost all credibility. The would-be lords of the universe have told so many pathological lies that no one “in the know” believes anything emanating from the forked tongues of Buck-Busting, Bear-Bashing, Big-Ben Bernanke and Hanky Panky Paulson. If our Fed Head and Treasury Secretary had been characters in the Walt Disney movie entitled “Pinocchio,” their noses would have quickly grown to lengths that could have been wrapped around the earth’s equator several times. God would have had to reverse the earth’s rotation to extricate them.

Wall Street tells us the odds favor two quarter percent rate hikes to the Fed funds rate by the end of the year. We ask whether that would be before or after the economy collapses? If before, the Fed’s rate hikes will destroy what is left of our economy, and the dollar will collapse, thereby erasing any benefits from the rate hikes. If after, you will see rate cuts instead of rate hikes as the Fed attempts to save the fraudsters on Wall Street who are not even remotely close to recovering from the credit-crunch despite what the elitists might tell you to the contrary. We ask who the morons are that make up these odds, and what planet they come from. They give aliens a bad name. These index predictions are just another form of jaw-boning and disinformation.

As soon as the economy starts its final descent into Davy Jones’ Locker, which is likely to occur in the very near future, the Fed and the US Treasury will unceremoniously toss the so-called “strong dollar” policy into the nearest financial dumpster in order to save the economy and the fraudsters. Accompanying the “strong dollar” policy on its way to the dumpster will be the next round of derivative toxic waste that is on its way courtesy of the upcoming surge in fallout from tanking real estate markets in a process that will see the Fed blow what remains of its general collateral in exchange for such waste. Once the Fed’s general collateral is exhausted, we will be ushered into a new hyperinflationary era characterized by direct monetization of US treasuries to fund our deficits and to absorb more toxic waste as it continues to pour down on elitist financial institutions like Niagara Falls.

A few measly quarter percent cuts will do absolutely nothing to slow the acceleration of inflation, especially if the Fed keeps the M3 at current levels. Only a double-digit Fed funds rate and greatly reduced M3 could have any eventual and meaningful impact on the inflation that is built into the system for at minimum the next year and one half at levels in the area of 15% to 18%, and even then the impact will not be felt until the current baked-in inflation has run its course. Direct monetization of treasuries to replenish Fed collateral and to absorb our growing deficits will put inflation beyond the point of no return, as will the breaking of OPEC dollar pegs.

As you can see, there is no way that any of the proposed diminutive rate hikes will have a positive impact on the economy, on the dollar or on the balance sheets of the fraudsters. Therefore, there will not be any rate hikes. Any increase in the Fed funds rate would be accompanied by an economic catastrophe of epic proportions that would occur as a direct result of the raising of that rate. Any rate hike would take a year to a year and a half to have an impact on inflation. By the time the anticipated Fed rate hikes could have any kind of impact whatsoever, the economy will already be in a state of rampant hyperinflation, and would be well on its way to depression, far too late to save the dollar or the economy. Ergo, the new elitist motto will soon become: “Damn the inflation, full greed ahead!”

Read moreDollar Diving

Gold May Rise to $5,000 on Inflation, Schroder Says

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June 19 (Bloomberg) — Gold prices may rise to $5,000 an ounce as investors seek to protect themselves against accelerating inflation, said Schroder Investment Management Ltd., which oversees $277 billion of assets globally.

“You could easily see for the next several years that prices rise not to $1,000 an ounce, but prices rise to $5,000 an ounce or beyond as inflation psychology becomes more and more embedded and people become desperate to have a source of value,” said Christopher Wyke, London-based emerging market debt and commodities product manager at Schroder, which oversees about $10 billion of commodity assets.

Investors are turning to gold for protection as two-thirds of the world’s population cope with inflation rates that are climbing to more than 10 percent, Wyke said. Cash and inflation- linked bonds are poor substitutes as low interest rates, coupled with surging inflation, erode the real value of assets, he said.

Read moreGold May Rise to $5,000 on Inflation, Schroder Says

Lehman hedges lose $500m to $700m

Lehman Brothers lost $500m-$700m on certain hedging positions in the second quarter, contributing to what is expected to be a larger-than-anticipated loss that may lead the bank to raise more capital by selling a stake to an outside investor.

People close to the matter said Lehman had opened talks with potential investors including asset managers and Asian banks.

Read moreLehman hedges lose $500m to $700m