In the biggest German banking merger in history, Commerzbank, the third largest in Germany, has reached an agreement with Allianz to buy its banking subsidiary Dresdner Bank, Germany’s second largest, beating out an alleged better bid from state-owned China Development Bank (CDB). This is an historic merger with wide-reaching implications for the German and [...]

Originally, I thought I might say something here about Joe Biden or Sarah Palin. But, I’ll give the politics a rest and wait for more information, especially on Palin, before I take a stab. He goes….
Alice Cook at UK Bubble does a good job of rebutting Alistair Darling’s claims that the present crisis [...]

Another Friday afternoon massacre claims another failed U.S. bank. This time the bank was in Georgia. Integrity Bank of Alpharetta, GA had $1.1 billion in assets. As is FDIC custom, the announcement wasn’t made until after markets had closed on Friday.
Integrity is the tenth U.S. bank to be taken over by the [...]

John McCain made a surprise choice in choosing Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska, for his running mate. While this is a risky choice, it definitely balances the ticket.
Below is a snippet of the story at the Wall Street Journal. This will be an interesting election.

Sen. John McCain picked first-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin [...]

“Prime looks terrible.” Those were the words of Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase when he had his earnings call for Q2. And, indeed, prime is terrible.

New data out from Hope Now shows that there are now more prime mortgage delinquencies in the United States than there are subprime delinquencies. This is almost certain to mean some major losses on mortgage-related securities like CDOs and RMBSs.

So, this week comes to an end soon. It was a short week for holiday makers in the UK because of Monday’s bank holiday. Next week will be a short one because of Labor Day over here in the States. So, to all you vacationers, I wish you well and I hope you [...]

Last month, Hank Paulson, the U.S. Treasury Secretary, was waxing prosaically about covered bonds and their benefits to mortgage markets. From his comments, one gets the impression he sees this a potential solution to preventing a future crisis in residential property in the US.
But covered bonds are not the silver bullet they have been [...]

I have written a few posts about China recently. None have taken a look at the big picture for Chinese growth and at its affects on big Chinese companies that are receiving large overseas investment in their shares. Overall, China will not decouple. At a minimum, growth will slow — by how much [...]

Apparently, a new market of peer-to-peer lending has popped up , where banks are no longer a part of the lending proposition. Loans are made directly peer-to-peer. Whether this is a reaction to tight credit or some weird new innovation due to the Internet, I don’t know. Call me conservative, but it doesn’t sound like an attractive proposition for individual lenders.

I always feel a bit sceptical when I read a report about unending growth and prosperity. Rio Tinto thinks that the metals and mining boom will continue unabated for years. That certainly puts him in the same camp as Jim Rogers. Rio CEO Tom Albanese was quoted as saying,
“There is no question that [...]