Word: banke
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Several prominent bank analysts came out with statements yesterday saying that the largest U.S. financial firms would post more heavy losses and that their accounting methods would obscure the worst of it. George Soros, the grand old man of the hedge fund business, repeated his belief that the banks are insolvent. If he is right, earnings are irrelevant...
...these comments cast the Treasury as a collection of desperate people, cornered by the faltering financial system, who are willing to pull any rabbit that they can find out of their hats. This makes the new Geithner plan for public /private partnerships to buy toxic bank assets look like a carnival show. It was not heartening to see that the Treasury admitted that it did not have many takers for this new program, so it extended the deadline for applications by two weeks until April 24. Unfortunately, world class financiers keep track of things like dates. Those who have passed...
...Treasury also said it would allow smaller investment managers to have a chance to participate in the program, probably in the hope that a wider net will catch more fish. But, when the local community bank in Akron, Ohio is allowed to get federal money to buy toxic assets from Bank of America (BAC), it does not look good...
...Left out of the conversation about bank values are the actual prices of the stocks. It has been the standard proxy of value for decades and there is little reason to change this now. Experts will say that bank stocks were too high two years ago when they traded at their all-time highs. The financial results at the companies were pretty good then. When investors caught on that the party was over, they cut the market values of many of the companies by more than 95%. And, they did it quickly. A perfectionist would argue that investors should have...
...Citigroup trades at $2.72 now. All the harsh talk from bank analysts pushed the stock down by less than 5% yesterday. That means a lot of investors gave the alarmists little credence. Maybe they want to see Citi's first quarter earnings before they decide what the bank is worth. Since the stock is down from over $55 less than two years ago, no one is assuming that the bank is going to earn billions of dollars for the quarter. The question is probably how few billion it will lose...