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and cut dividend.
Regionals across the country are now suffering. The second leg down for financials has truly begun. I warned on Fifth Third this past Thursday in What’s happening at Fifth Third?
See new story here.
Update:
9:19 EDT
Fifth Third to raise $2 billion in capital, replaces chairman, MarketWatch, 18 Jun 2008
Fifth Third Cuts Dividend, Looks to [...]

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From Bloomberg News:
Regional Banks Tumble
Zions, the lender with operations in 10 Western U.S. states, tumbled 10 percent to $33.44 for the steepest decline in the S&P 500. “Weakness” in residential construction and land values in the Southwest will harm loans and is “expected to persist into 2009,” the lender said in a presentation attached to [...]

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Regional banks have not suffered the writedowns suffered by the major banks and investment banks due to their lack of derivatives exposure. But, loose lending standards are starting to bite. The LA Times has an excellent story out, which details how the community or regional banks will be affected by the housing slowdown. [...]

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This morning, I posted a blog entry regarding KeyCorp’s wise decision to cut its dividend and to raise capital. They paid the price in the market today, sinking to a 17-year low below $12.00 a share and down 24% on the day.
Shares of KeyCorp sank to the lowest level in almost 17 years, following [...]

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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 around the banking sector.
The stock fell 65 cents, or 4.2 percent, to close at $14.69, after [...]

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The latest move by a regional bank comes from KeyCorp, based in Cleveland. In order to preserve capital ahead of the impending troubles headed for the regionals, KeyCorp has taken the prudent step of both raising capital and cutting its dividend.
KeyCorp on Thursday said it would raise about $1.5 billion in new equity and [...]

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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 mentions 10 banks, regional and national to scrutinise in particular: Huntington [...]

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My blog title comes from the title of an article, “Bank failures to surge in coming years” by MarketWatch on 23 May 2008. I highly recommend reading the full article. It mentions that only 3 banks have actually failed so far in 2008. But that number will go much higher as distress from [...]

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I have posted a few times on the problem surrounding an imminent writedown wave for commercial real estate (CRE) and construction loans in the US. A few days back, I had intended to post more about regionals. The Wall Street Journal had a good article about this problem, singling out Wachovia and Bank of [...]

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