Credit Writedowns

Of all the merger decisions in the banking industry of late, BofA's decision to back Countrywide Financial is the most risky. The fallout from Countrywide only gets worse day by day. I am astounded that this deal is on track. BofA…

Barclays was successful in raising the money it needed. It was able to avoid a rights issue with the attendant problems that HBOS has faced by going cap in hand to Asia and the Middle East. In the end, it was the Qatar Investment Authority…

Wachovia has hired Goldman Sachs and UBS has hired Wachovia to help each with a 'strategic review.' For those in the financial services business, strategic review always means 'merger options'.Lazard has almost no business except its…

Ross Perot is making a comeback! The Texas billionaire has come back into the political fray with his website Perot Charts. I recommend taking a stroll through it. You will definitely be a wiser person for it. Today's chart comes from…

Last month I looked at the twenty cities in the Case-Shiller composite index to see how far back in time we had to travel to see equivalent prices in all of the twenty cities covered. Some markets saw slight upticks in prices in April,…

As Ireland faces a recession after a fifteen-year property boom, it has come to light that the government have been caught out and doesn't have the enough funds to support the economy now that the boom has gone bust. The Irish Independent…

This blurb comes from the Telegraph and is a cautionary tale of spreading sensitive information without authorization.   The station decided to delay reporting the popular anchor man’s death until his family had been contacted. Other…

These are the picks of the day according to an article about what international investor Marc Faber is looking at. Despite the article's bullish call on commodities, I know that Faber is on the record as saying that oil is due for a…

From the Case-Shiller PDF release today.Steep Declines in Home Prices Continued in April 2008 According to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price IndicesNew York, June 24, 2008 - Data through April 2008, released today by Standard & Poor's…

I keep a bunch of articles on my blog's sidebar as a reminder of what was being said about the housing bubble, when and by whom. One article I omitted is from The Economist, warning of a 'global' housing bubble and illustrating…