- GM details plans to wipe out current shareholders | Reuters
General Motors Corp on Tuesday detailed plans to all but wipe out the holdings of remaining shareholders by issuing up to 60 billion new shares in a bid to pay off debt to the U.S. government, bondholders and the United Auto Workers union.
- South Carolina’s Highest Court Halts Thousands Of Home Foreclosure Sales
“temporarily stopped thousands of pending foreclosure sales in the state to give homeowners more time to take advantage of a new federal program to help them refinance mortgages.”
- International Real Estate – For Sale in … Nova Scotia – NYTimes.com
Here’s what you get for $1.6 million Canadian. Pretty nice
- naked capitalism: “Zombie Bank”
Hilarious diddy via some wise guys on You Tube.
- Lack of mortgages widening divide between rich and poor, study warns – guardian.co.uk
“Housing body says evidence suggests a continuing affordability problem can make the children of affluent owners still richer and the poorest even more disadvantaged”
- TweetMeme – Hottest Stories on Twitter
TweetMeme finds the hottest stories from twitter. Videos, Images, Blogs and lots more.
- The Retweeting Movement Adds Some Powerful New Tools – Mashable
“Twitter (Twitter reviews) has become a powerful platform for link-sharing, and retweeting is evolving as one of the best methods for tracking what’s popular or noteworthy. Today, Twitter link-tracking service Tweetmeme has made some important upgrades to make retweeting easier than ever.”
- Disqus Adds Mini-Profiles and Tweetable Blog Comments – mashable
“We’re big fans of Disqus (Disqus reviews), the third-party comment platform, and we especially love what Disqus built with their social media comments feature that premiered on Mashable in early March. Today, however, Disqus just launched new features to make comments even more socially relevant with mini-user profiles, as well as a new way to share your comments with your Twitter (Twitter reviews) followers.”
- Tweetmeme becomes Twitter’s answer to StumbleUpon and makes retweeting easier than ever. – The Next Web
“Tweetmeme is a Digg-like site for popular links on Twitter. Rather than Digg’s however, it ranks tweets based on the number of retweets. The site has risen up the twitter app ranks fast, showing impressive growth and popularity since its relaunch just over two months ago.”
- China Stocks ‘Bubble’ Ready to Burst, Galaxy Says – Bloomberg.com
“China is at risk of a stock market “bubble” that may burst as investor confidence in the nation’s economic recovery weakens and bank lending slows, according to China Galaxy Securities Co., the nation’s largest brokerage. The Shanghai Composite Index has surged 50 percent since last year’s low on Nov. 4 amid signs the government’s stimulus measures are reviving the world’s third-largest economy”
- Research Recap » US Credit Card Losses Will Be Meaningfully Higher in 2Q
Fitch Ratings believes end-of-quarter delinquency levels, combined with low recovery prospects, signal material deterioration in US credit card losses in the second quarter.
- Wall Street Firms Will Revert to Pre-Crisis Model, Cohen Says – Bloomberg.com
Rodgin Cohen of Sullinav and Cromwell. The system will look more like what preceded the current environment than many people seem to believe,” Cohen said yesterday at a panel discussion on the future of Wall Street sponsored by Bloomberg News in New York. “I am far from convinced there was something inherently wrong with the system.”
- UBS Sale of Brazil Unit Boosts Capital After Loss – Bloomberg.com
“UBS AG, the European bank with the biggest writedowns from the financial crisis, posted a first- quarter loss and said capital grew more rapidly than the company estimated, boosting its shares. “
- General Growth Overreached in Bankruptcy Case, Lenders Say – Bloomberg.com
A group of lenders said General Growth Properties Inc., which filed the biggest real-estate bankruptcy in U.S. history, included in its reorganization shopping malls that don’t face any imminent financial problems. “The cases were not filed for a legitimate organizational purpose,” ING Clarion Capital Loan Services LLC, which services the loans on behalf of the lenders, said in a filing yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York. ING Clarion asked the court to dismiss the Chapter 11 filings of nine special-purpose entity borrowers.
- South Africa’s Unemployment Rate Increases to 23.5% – Bloomberg.com
“South Africa’s unemployment rate, the highest of 62 countries tracked by Bloomberg, rose in the first quarter as the economy probably entered a recession for the first time in 17 years.”
- BBC NEWS – GMAC reports $675m quarterly loss
Losses at finance group GMAC, which is part-owned by General Motors and provides loans to GM car buyers, have risen 15% after bad debts increased.
- Felix Salmon » Blog Archive » The risks of consolidation | Blogs |
Felix talked with Nassim Nicholas Taleb who makes a very interesting thought regarding size and how it creates instability. He uses the size and trading positions of Jerome Kerviel of Societe Generale to illustrate the point.
- Felix Salmon » Overconfidence and the financial crisis
Our goal is not to enhance the expertise on Wall Street. Expertise they have in spades. Our goal is to rein in the expertise on Wall Street. Wall Street needs to be slower, less competitive, and a lot more boring.
- egghat’s blog: Bund gehören 41% an der HRE
The German government only got 41% of HRE. They need a lot more to take effective control. Meanwhile Christipher Flowers is staying in for the long haul.
- Brad Setser: Follow the Money » Too much of a good thing? Shoud global capital flows be pumped back up to their boom levels?
Brad Setser suggests that much of the problem during the credit crisis has to do with regulatory arbitrage and off-balance sheet activity. It was not globalization at fault here. What is a t fault is a lack of transparency in the financial services industry.
- ‘Green Shoots’ Won’t Lead Economies Out of Woods: Matthew Lynn – Bloomberg.com
Matthew Lynn is not a believer. Here’s his best line: “no one knows where the global economy is going at the moment. We are living through the worst recession since World War II”
- GM’s China Sales Hit Monthly Record in April – WSJ.com
General Motors Corp. said its sales in China hit a monthly record in April, rising 50% from a year earlier on strength in its Buick and Wuling brands. The strong performance in China by the U.S. auto maker, until recently the world’s biggest by output, contrasts with its struggles in its home market.