banks

In one of my latest posts I said “greed is not good.” Quite frankly, I looked at this statement as self-evident in the wake of an economic catastrophe where greed was a defining element. Yet, a remarkable number of people commented in…

Below is a YouTube clip featuring Elizabeth Warren, the chair of Congress’ oversight panel of TARP (the Troubled Asset relief Program), the bailout started by Hank Paulson and passed by Congress.  In it she talks about her fears…

In the 1987 movie classic Wall Street, the sinister protagonist Gordon Gekko played by Michael Douglas gives this famous quote: In the last seven deals that I’ve been involved with, there were 2.5 million stockholders who have made a…

Roger Bootle sat down with the Telegraph and ran through a few themesregarding the stock market, the financial crisis, government debt, currencies and compensation in the financial sector.  He has a lot to say, in particular on banks,…

Meredith Whitney downgraded Goldman Sachs from ‘buy’ to ‘neutral’ today.  Previously, Goldman had been her only buy recommended stock, all of the others rated neutral or ‘sell.’  Why did she do it? FT Alphaville has the answer:…

A friend sent me the following article from USA Today: The U.S. taxpayers' investments in smaller banks are increasingly at risk. In a sign that more banks are under great pressure from the recession, 34 financial institutions did…

Starwood Capital Group gets the assets in a consortium with TPG capital, Perry Capital and WLR LeFrak (another Wilbur Ross company – this guy is cleaning up in the FDIC private equity bonanza). Here’s the press release: The Federal…

Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke told us when the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) was launched that they were not concerned about the health of our banking system.  In fact, this was not the case. They were concerned about specific…

Marshall Auerback sent me a link to a recent Simon Johnson missive about Goldman Sachs. I had already seen and liked this article, but his e-mail prompted me to write this post. My question is: Why is Goldman a bank holding company?…

I think it should be abundantly clear that I am bearish on financials given my sell equities call two weeks ago.  After all, it was the banking sector which I was most bullish on in April – August. They are also the stocks that have…