Credit Writedowns

The news of the day is obviously the fact that the U.S. government now owns Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and thus controls over half of the U.S. mortgage market. This is a step unprecedented since the Great Depression and should remind us…

I posted yesterday that Nationwide had confirmed it was in advanced talks with both Cheshire and Derbyshire. Now, it seems the mergers are complete. However, it should be noted that these deals were done under duress (see post mentioned…

If you are looking for the fallout from the Fannie and Freddie Nightmare on Wall Street, look no further than Gateway Financial and Midwest Banc. These two regional banks have nearly one-third of their tangible net worth tied up in GSE…

The U.S. government has finally stepped in to stop the bleeding. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two giant government sponsored enterprises have been taken into conservatorship and are now government property. As I consider this move a…

Nationwide Building Society, the largest not to demutualise, is taking full advantage of the troubles in the mortgage market and looking for rivals to snap up on the cheap. Multiple news outlets are reporting that Nationwide is in talks…

A prediction I first broached here in May in my post Question: How is Fannie Mae a AAA company? is finally coming to pass: Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are getting nationalized. UPDATE: The U.S. Government takeover is now a done deal. See…

This time it is Silver State Bank of Henderson, NV to go bankrupt. Read the press release below. This one is pretty large with assets of $2 billion and it has ties to Republican Presidential nominee McCain.See my list of Bankrupt global…

It was about 4 weeks ago now that I said I thought the dollar rally was not a fundamental move, but a monster bear market rally which will end up hurting dollar shorts. Back then, the Euro was trading for 1.5164 dollars. Today, the Euro…

For every business cycle since 1929, when U.S. unemployment data was first calculated, when the unemployment rate has gone up more than 1% in one year's time, this has spelled recession. Moreover, the unemployment rate has never risen 1.0%…

The unemployment rate in the U.S. jumped 0.4% to top 6.1% for the first time in five years. This rise was much, much larger than expected and makes it almost certain that the United States is in recession. Updates to follow as I crunch the…