accounting

Credit Writedowns has made it clear how little will there is in Washington for substantive reform in financial services.  But, let’s be more explicit in this post about what policy makers are doing.  I will use the recent…

The Washington Post is reporting that the federal government has quietly decided to exempt Citigroup from a large future tax bill in allowing it to exit the TARP program.  This is a backdoor bailout worth billions and is an outrage…

John Hussman’s latest weekly contribution contends that the market is now extremely overvalued, to the point where long-term returns will likely be low. As of last week, the S&P 500 nearly matched the richest valuations, on…

Moody’s anticipates continued losses at Danske Bank, SEB, and Swedbank due to large exposure outside of the Nordic markets.  In particular, exposure in the Baltics is likely to lead to continued writedowns for Nordic banking…

When I read Yves Smith's recent comments on Bank of America's repayment of its TARP funds, I couldn't help but think of a post I wrote six months ago called "Asymmetric information and corporate governance in bank bailouts." The…

After going bullish on bank stocks in April, two months ago I said most of the upside in bank shares was priced in. Since that time, shares have traded sideways to down.  I expect this trend to continue as headwinds like another wave…

My post title is an ode to Yves Smith, who likes to feign surprise when the blindingly obvious finally comes into plain view for all to see. The latest sign that underneath the surface weakness remains at large financial institutions comes…

Credit Suisse has a note out urging caution on Citigroup shares due to regulatory hurdles.  Their logic bears noting as it can be useful for other U.S.-based banks. On Monday the CS analysts met with Citi management, who were somewhat…

There are a lot of threads to tie together in today’s reporting of news in the auto sector. General Motors has reported a third-quarter loss of $1.15 billion. But all indications are that car sales continue to outpace expectations in the…

A friend sent me the following presentation earlier in the week when I was feeling a bit ill. So I neglected to post it.  But, I want to return to it because it is in keeping with my recovery/depression theme. These are the issues that…