Credit Writedowns

For those of you who actually care about anything international, there is an Emerging Markets crisis brewing right now in the Baltics. After reading posts from Alpha Sources, naked capitalism, Market Movers, and Bronte Capital on the…

Remember how the impartial accountancies lost their way during the tech bubble? The most egregious case was Arthur Andersen's wrongdoings at Enron, which eventually bankrupted both Enron and Arthur Anderson. Well in this particular crisis…

After the credit and housing bubble created by Greenspan's Fed caused people to turn away from fixed rate mortgages, a return to sanity has heralded its return to prominence. A full 70% of mortgages taken out in the first half of 2008 were…

The blog site EconomPic Data has some nice pictures of Citi's writedowns to date. Here is one. Check out the site for another nice breakdown.According to Bloomberg, Citigroup has written down over $50 billion so far. Click here for a full…

Below are the latest writedown stories from the web. For the full timeline of news, visit my credit crisis timeline.Also see my list of Bankrupt Global Financial Institutions.2008 07 21 Earnings Fall 44% at Bank of America2008 07 22…

Caroline Baum is one of the more insightful financial market pundits around. In her column she takes aim at Fannie and their private reward, public risk corporate setup. Basically, the Fannie-Freddie bailout is a simple case of "heads and…

Lloyds TSB announced first half results, a 70% fall in pre-tax profits. Yet, Lloyds' management was confident enough to raise the dividend 2p a share to 11. 4p. This strikes me as completely out of touch with market conditions. In the…

Further evidence that the housing slump has spilled over into the real economy in Ireland comes from Irish unemployment numbers today, up the most in 41 years of data. Ireland looks to be one of the hardest hit countries in Europe. In all…

Bank losses shame disgruntled Swiss - BBC NewsStarbucks cuts 1,000 jobs, COO post and retreats from Australia - National PostSantander revenues rise 16% - FTAustralia faces worse crisis than America - Ambrose Evans-Pritchard,…

The Case Shiller Index is out again and a number of areas are looking a bit better including Denver, Atlanta, Boston, Minneapolis, Portland, and Dallas. Overall, it seems the acceleration in house price falls has come to an end.…