capital

In case you missed it, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have cost taxpayers tens of billions to date. The bill is still rising, however, as the two companies are looking for $50 billion more to avoid technical insolvency. Then there is…

Earnings season is upon us and I think it bears remembering that earnings season for banks has generally been associated with very bad news for banks over the past two years. Every earnings season is filled with surprise writedown…

Today the Irish government has unveiled a 10 billion euro plan to recapitalise its outsized banking sector. I have posted a number of times about the depth of woes in Ireland including the high debt-to-gdp level, the crashing property…

Recently, the U.S. Treasury forced government capital injections onto nine U.S. financial institutions (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, Citigroup, Wachovia, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley). While…

Warren Buffett is all over the place these days. He was busy investing at Constellation Energy and Goldman Sachs. Now, he's investing at GE -- $3 billion at that. Judging by his market timing approach, it does seem assets are cheap…

By now, you have probably heard that Warren Buffett has made his bet and invested billions of dollars in Goldman Sachs. The market reacted positively and Goldman is now trading at near $133 a share (up 6% on the day). While I do see…

Why did Lehman really fail? The equity window is effectively closed for most financial services companies. This fact was the true trigger for the meltdown in AIG and Lehman and the problems at WaMu, HBOS and Merrill Lynch. Moreover, it…

Updated 535PM EST on 16 Sep 2008 to reflect information from this press release:National City Completes $7 Billion Capital RaiseWhile all eyes were focused on Lehman Brothers this weekend, many other players were making their moves to shore…

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…

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…