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In case you missed it, the financial system in the U.S. is near collapse. This weekend was unbelievable. Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. The world’s largest insurer AIG is looking for the Fed to help it avoid collapse and Merrill Lynch was forced to close a deal with Bank of America to save [...]

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Update: 810 PM EDT: Rush Is On to Prevent A.I.G. From Failing
Update: 1045 PM EDT: A.I.G. Seeks $40 Billion in Fed Aid to Survive
Update: 810 AM EDT: See my post on what to expect this morning in the market and my (cursory) analysis of the BofA-Merrill deal. Lots of other news on the home [...]

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Update: 800PM EDT: DealBook is now reporting that Lehman is expected to file bankruptcy as soon as tonight. (See post). Merrill, fearing for its continued existence, is now in takeover talks with BofA (see story)————————————–
The latest development on Lehman is that no buyers have emerged in around the clock dealmaking sessions involving multiple [...]

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I have been so busy following the ongoing saga in financial services that I forgot to tell you about two Washington DC-area home builders in the news.
Comstock, a privately-held developer, just defaulted on almost $100 million in debt. In addition, NVR, another builder, but a publicly traded company pulled a debt offering due [...]

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The word on the street is that Lehman will be bought by September 13th. The rumor mill swirls when a stock crashes like Lehman has. Rumors fill the vacuum left by a lack of certainty about a company’s prospects. And right now people are saying that regulators are telling Lehman Brothers to find a [...]

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Today’s punishing session on Wall Street just ended down over 280 points. The glee of yesterday is well and truly over. Lehman Brothers in particular, was punished today as news of its stalled talks with the Korean Development Bank reached the market. Lehman was down 45% today on solvency concerns. It [...]

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I was recently called out on missing the details of the FDIC’s list of 117 ‘problem’ banks. In a post on the OTS’ agreement for regulatory supervision of Washington Mutual, I incorrectly stated that NCC was on that list and inferred that WaMu was as well. This is not the case. The [...]

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The post-mortems on Fannie and Freddie are flying in. It seems like it is almost non-stop Fannie and Freddie. Let me add to those voices with a bit of a twist: the bailout of Fannie and Freddie was as much a political move as it was a move to save financial markets.While [...]

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You have probably heard by now that Washington Mutual ousted its embattled CEO Kerry Kilinger and replaced him with former Sovereign Bancorp CFO Alan Fishman. But, what you have not heard is that WaMu has signed an agreement with the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) which requires WaMu to provide business plans and forecasts [...]

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Apparently, the answer is yes.
Thirteen “major” dealers of credit-default swaps agreed “unanimously” that the rescue constitutes a credit event triggering payment or delivery of the companies’ bonds, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association said in a memo obtained by Bloomberg News today. Market makers for the privately traded contracts will discuss how to settle them [...]