Wachovia is the next big bank to fall and it’s banking assets have been acquired by Citi. Under the terms of the agreement, Citi will pay Wachovia approximately $2.16 billion in stock and assume Wachovia’s senior and subordinated debt, totaling approximately $53 billion. This will create a U.S. retail bank with 9.8% U.S. market deposit [...]

The fed is working on, what amounts to the biggest bail out for banks in over a decade. With AIG, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Washington Mutual all falling prey to their own practices and a panic stricken economy, the fed and treasury have come together with separate measures to help struggling banks.
The Treasury [...]

Update: The Dow Jones is down 500 points and closed below 11,000 erasing about $700 billion in shareholder wealth.
In a shocking turn of events over the weekend, financial firm Lehman brothers has filed for federal bankruptcy protection. The news comes within days of Lehman assuring Wall Street and investors of its survival, and putting itself [...]

FDIC today released data on commercial banks insured by them. Net Earnings for these commercial entities fell to $5 billion, a decline of $31.8 billion (86.5 percent) from the $36.8 billion that the industry earned in the second quarter of 2007. The latest earnings were the lowest for the industry since the fourth quarter of [...]

The National Association of Realtors has release Existing-home sales numbers for July. The NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® Existing-Home Sales Series is the premier measurement of the residential real estate market. On or about the 25th of each month, NAR releases statistics on sales and prices of existing single-family homes for the nation and the four [...]

President Bush has signed the Housing and Economic Recovery Act after the US House of Representatives had passed the plan on 07/23. It provides aid to homeowners facing foreclosure and protects the country’s two largest mortgage finance companies from collapse.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guarantee almost half the country’s $12 trillion in home [...]

The US economy has had it’s share of challenges this year and the problems remain as we step into the second half of 2008. Rising food prices, gas prices at record highs, lack of credit availability in the economy, a housing market slump and continuing mounting expenses in the war on Iraq ( approx. $540 [...]

A modest near-term movement is expected in existing-home sales, with an expected during the second half of the year, according to the latest forecast by the National Association of Realtors®.
The Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI),a forward-looking indicator based on contracts signed in May, fell 4.7 percent to 84.7 and remains 14.0 percent below May 2007 [...]

A friend of mine, Ashish Das, forwarded this to me. A very nice comical primer on what the subprime mess is about. There has been a lot of noise on this issue and for good reason so here goes. Let me know what you folks out there think. BTW, we are now officialy [...]

According to the S&P Case-Schiller home price index, home prices continued their decline from 2007 into Q1 2008. The index is published monthly with a two month lag and on the last Tuesday of every month.
The decline in the Index – which covers all nine U.S. census divisions – reached well into double digits, recording [...]

The Standard and Poor’s “World by Numbers” showed a strong jump for April after sharp declines in the first Quarter of the Year. The Emerging and Developed equity markets dropped 10.56% and 8.95% respectively during the first three months of the year. Rising commodity prices, falling dollar and the percieved impact of a US recession [...]

Data released by S&P for February saw a significant decline in home prices for 17 out of the 20 MSA’s ( Metro politan Statistical Areas ) which are in it’s S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, a leading indicator of the U.S. housing market. Both the 10 city and 20 city index have shown declines in [...]