Credit Writedowns

FT Alphaville » Just how big a problem is falling capacity utilisation? Nice reference to Austrian School economist Josef Steindl. "Former commodity mega-bulls Goldman Sachs are expecting markets to continue to pull back from current…

As the possibility of bankruptcy draws nearer, General Motors is moving to sell non-core assets and to broker arrangements with bondholders and unions alike which will keep it out of bankruptcy. In a 9AM press conference today, new General…

After a good run-up in the last month, the Mexican Peso is getting crushed in the currency markets today.  How much of the pullback is a result of the news regarding Swine Flu and how much is technical, due to the prior run up, is hard to…

When the United States closed the gold window in 1971, the world entered a new era in which nearly all money was supported by nothing more than the full faith and credit of the governments issuing it. If one looks back to the history of…

The Wall Street Journal is running a front-page story about John Thain today in which he  accuses Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis of lying about events surrounding the Bank of America - Merrill transaction and the ouster of Thain as a top…

On Friday, the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) leaked a bombshell - a confidential report by Bafin, the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, found that German banks were sitting on over 800 billion euros in toxic assets. Just…

We are starting to get a sense of who the winners and losers of the Great Unraveling are. Spain is definitely a loser. Just think, a few years ago Spain was the envy of Western Europe with a dynamic and booming property market and…

I don't much like Ken Lewis. It should be fairly obvious to everyone that he is a man who has only his own interests at heart. But, his revelation that BofA bought Merrill Lynch for the agreed-upon September price, despite Merrill's having…

Optimism and the world economy | A glimmer of hope? | The Economist Apparently the Economist thinks this is a Fake Recovery too. "Optimism is one thing, but hubris that the world economy is returning to normal could hinder recovery and…

Marshall Auerback here. Yesterday, Ed made a big to-do about China's increase in gold reserves. I am going to take a different view here. CLSA is saying that the increase is from purification and miscellaneous transactions since all…