accounting

Given the fact that this site is called Credit Writedowns, you would expect me to take a fairly skeptical view about the growing consensus regarding a rapid recovery in 2009. I do, in large part because I understand that banks face many…

Trolling the web today as is my wont, I happened across an interesting article about the Austrian finance company Immofinanz. It seems that Immofinanz got caught up in the Eastern European property market. Unfortunately, its investments…

This is the time of year when everyone tends to look back and sum up the year in one way or another. I have been doing much of the same. In keeping with that theme, I have taken a good look through my nearly 1400 posts to get a better…

It wasn't until I read about a massive writedown by a German bank associated with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers that I started to connect the dots. But, there is a hidden flaw in our accounting system which accounts for some of the…

Morgan Stanley released a dismal earnings report one day after Goldman's. Obviously this is shaping up to a be a very bad quarter for financial institutions. Morgan's $2.2 billion loss was certainly less than Goldman's but very large…

Goldman has done exceptionally well compard to other investment banks through this credit crisis. However, many were predicting a stunning turn of fortune for the latest reporting period. And stunning it was as Goldman lost a mammoth $2.1…

It's been a month since I updated my list of writedowns and other credit crisis-related news, so I am sure that this list is filled with holes and missing information. Here it goes nonetheless. Below are the writedowns from the previous…

Jamie Dimon tells it like it is. When asked by CNBC's Erin Burnett's how business is going, Dimon replied "terrible." Here's how Reuters describes his comments: "November itself has been a terrible trading month ... (and) December so far is…

Yves Smith has a good post over at Naked Capitalism that brings attention to the fact that banks are hiding potential losses in Level Three assets. Ultimately, these losses are going to have to be recorded and that means more credit…