$35 billion in missing writedowns

I don’t know if you caught the Bloomberg article about the $35 billion in missing writedowns, but I thought it was about time I exposed it. Bloomberg news says: Banks and securities firms, reeling from record losses resulting from the collapse of the mortgage securities market, are failing to acknowledge in their income statements at

UK Bubble

As you know, I am looking at the UK and Spain as the epicenter for the next leg down in the housing bubble. Spain suffered massive overbuilding while the UK had a huge run-up in prices. The Blogger at UK Bubble is on to something in her analyses. It’s a good site that is now

Another CRE debacle

The Commercial Real Estate (CRE) bust is coming to an office building near you. The latest story? The GM building in NY was flogged off with some other properties at the peak of the bubble for a cool $3.6 to $3.9 billion. Now, the properties have sold for $200 million below the asking price of

Look who needs money now: AIG

The list of financial institutions needing capital because they lost so much in the credit crisis grows by the day. Now, its the insurance company AIG. After their abysmal earnings report, they need an enormous $20 billion to tide them over. According to MarketWatch, the news reads: On Friday, AIG completed public offerings of new

The Automatic Earth

I stumbled across an interesting blog over the weekend called “The Automatic Earth.” I had been doing some research into writedowns at financial institutions due to loan losses and asset impairment when a great entry from The Automatic Earth popped up. It said: An important yet mostly neglected little “detail” that will come home to

Carlyle: Expect protracted credit crisis

The financial services sector has been reeling from over $300 billion in writedowns due to the credit crisis that has spread globally. I expect further losses to hit this sector in the U.S. due to commercial real estate, credit cards, auto, Alt-A mortgages and an inadequate levels of reserves for bad debt. Moreover, losses are

British banks are underestimating losses

As the epicenter of the credit crisis has clearly moved to Europe, British Banks are at the center of new developments. However, doubts still exist about how they are valuing their assets and accounting for loan losses. Yester day the Times of London reported that activist investor Knight Vinke is publicly questioning HSBC’s writedowns due to losses from Household International’s loans

Credit Crisis Timeline

The list below is the largest collection of links related to the present credit crisis on the web. I have been amending this list since May 2008. But, as the list is pretty large now, I have taken care to break it up into different sections. Please use the Index to move around this post and find just what you are looking for

Another massive write-down: Deutsche Bank

Deutsche Bank released earnings that showed a loss for the first time in five years as they wrote down $4.2 billion in equity as a result of the global credit crisis. While Deutsche Bank has got off well because of reduced exposure to sub-prime, I fully expect more writedowns as the credit crisis continues. Deutsche

Where’s HBOS?

Looking through old e-mails, I read an article from the FT in 2006 that surfaced claiming that HBOS (Halifax Bank of Scotland)were poised and ready to go offer loans for 125% of value. That’s right, HBOS thought it a good idea to cover 95% of the house price and loan another 30% over appraised value unsecured as a personal loan.

Now that the UK has joined the housing bust, one must ask where are the massive writedowns that have to be sitting on HBOS’ books? Why aren’t they looking to do another rights issue like RBS? I fully expect some pretty horrific things coming from HBOS as the housing crisis heats up in Britain

RBS takes an enormous hit

RBS, the second largest British bank behind HSBC, has finally come clean on the credit crisis. The price? An enormous $24 billion in new capital needed. This is a huge story because this does not even begin to discount the credit problems British banks are likely to suffer when the UK market starts seeing foreclosures

Finding a bottom

As the writedowns at global financial institutions near $300 billion in capital lost as a result of the sub-prime crisis, the question as to when we reach a bottom is ever more urgent. Market history tells us that the severity of the bust after an economic upswing is usually related to the size of the