credit

European banks are still in need of time or money to recapitalise their weak balance sheets. This has to be especially worrying for UK banks as they have raised a significant amount of capital and their housing market has yet to see the…

This post is part of my chart of the day series.

Fifth Third, the Cincinnati-based regional lender, has been tanking of late. Today, it was down another 4% to close at a 12-year low. "Shares of Fifth Third Bancorp touched a 12-year low Thursday as capital concerns continued to swirl…

In April, I wondered aloud where HBOS was in this crisis in a post called "Where's HBOS?". Now, we know they are not immune to the problems infecting global finance.The Guardian has reported on the difficulty HBOS is having raising money…

McClatchy has an article out today showing that the credit crunch is hitting all sorts of consumer credit now. The crisis that began as one 'contained' to subprime, now has branched out into auto loans, credit card debt, student loans,…

Michael Panzner has a good post on his site about regional banks being the next front in the Credit Crisis. He mentions home equity lines (HELOCs) as a crucial piece there, referring to an article in the Financial Times. His blog entry…

Citigroup, Merrill, UBS Face Further Writedowns, Whitney SaysBy Jeff KearnsJune 9 (Bloomberg) -- Citigroup Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. and UBS AG may post further writedowns of $10 billion on their debt holdings after the two biggest bond…

The bad news in the financial sector keeps coming. Today, the news is about National City, a Cleveland-based regional bank in the US. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has put Nat…

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 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.…