accounting

This sounds a lot like Bradford and Bingley in the UK. Lehman is really on the edge of collapsing. They need the money....NOW! One must believe the second leg down in bank credit write-offs and the credit crunch has started.By Steve…

I have posted a few times on the problem surrounding an imminent writedown wave for commercial real estate (CRE) and construction loans in the US. A few days back, I had intended to post more about regionals. The Wall Street Journal had a…

The Sunday Telegraph is reporting yet another major Western bank is going cap in hand to sovereign wealth funds in order to stave off the inevitable crisis. This time its Barclays, Britain's third largest bank. At a time when RBS is…

Latest Additions2008 05 26 UBS Falls After Saying More Mortgage Losses Possible2008 05 27 Banks, Brokers Cut 83,000 Jobs as Subprime Losses Mount: Table2008 05 28 Ambac shares hit record low after new disclosure2008 05 28 KeyCorp Slide…

From Bloomberg News in it's entirety. This is a HUGE story. This means that Ambac and MBIA will go bust, no doubt. And there will be significant writedowns in Q2 and Q3. Expect to see a major financial institution fail (one that's…

Mish over at the Global Economic Trend Analysis caught a story in the FT about the possibility of banks being forced to put $5 trillion back on their balance sheets.The FT article says:Accounting changes could force U.S. banks to take…

Yesterday, in a post entitled "De-leveraging," I argued that credit writedowns and the resulting deleveraging are highly deflationary. This is the core of the problem with the global financial system. I want to expand a bit on that…

The Globe & Mail is reporting that Lehman Brothers might have to go back to the capital raising trough again in order to shore up a leveraged and risky balance sheet. In the face of yesterday's credit downgrade by S&P, this sounds…

The term deleveraging is one bandied about a lot in the press recently. But, what does it actually mean? De-leveraging is the process by which financial institutions and investors reduce the relative size of their assets to equity ratio.…

The Times reports today that Bradford and Bingley was rescued from the verge of collapse by private equity investors. This follows their report at the weekend on the dismissal of the Chief Executive and the profit warning they have issued.…