WaMu customers included in measure to avoid foreclosures
Bloomberg Oct 31, 08 2:22 PM CDT
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JPMorgan Chase will help distressed homeowners by reducing interest rates or principal balances for $110 billion in mortgages, Bloomberg reports. The restructuring applies to clients of Washington Mutual, which JPMorgan agreed to buy last month. Foreclosures will be suspended on all loans for the next 90 days while the relief efforts are implemented.
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Under bailout rules, banks can honor past obligations to execs with federal cash
Wall Street Journal Oct 31, 08 8:00 CDT
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The financial titans receiving huge portions of federal bailout cash are sitting on some massive IOUs, but they aren’t to taxpayers or shareholders—the banks owe billions to their own executives for previous years' pay and pensions. Under the rules of the bailout, they can be paid with taxpayer dollars. At some firms, executives’ past pay dwarfs what the banks owe in pensions to their entire workforces, the Wall Street Journal reports.
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Denver Post Oct 20, 08 7:55 PM CDT
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Several Chase banks in Detroit and Oklahoma were evacuated today after receiving threatening letters containing white powder, the Detroit Post reports. The letters "basically indicated that the person who opened the letter was going to die" because of "an action the bank may have taken," an FBI spokesman said. Medics checked out bank workers but officials said the powder did not seem dangerous.
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Wall Street Journal Oct 15, 08 8:36 CDT
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JPMorgan Chase surprised analysts and brought some partly sunny news to a mostly gloomy Wall Street, reporting net income of $527 million, or 11 cents a share, despite mortgage-related writedowns of $3.6 billion and $640 million in losses from its takeover of Washington Mutual, reports the Wall Street Journal. Analysts had expected losses of 29 cents a share.
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Merger would create three banks with 30%
of all deposits
Wall Street Journal Sep 29, 08 5:38 CDT
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Wells Fargo appeared to be close last night to forging a deal to buy struggling Wachovia, the nations's fourth-largest bank, reports the Wall Street Journal . Federal regulators pressured Wachovia to seek a suitor after its share prices plunged 47% last week. Citigroup was also in talks, but Wells now appears to be the preferred bidder, sources said.
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Firm writes down $31 billion in bad debt, but builds nation's largest bank
Seattle Times Sep 26, 08 2:45 PM CDT
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The failure of Washington Mutual was an opportunity for JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who long held a desire to buy the bank, the Seattle Times reports, and saw its large West Coast presence as particularly attractive. Now Dimon, who incorporated Bear Stearns earlier this year, has used the credit crisis to build the largest bank in the US.
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Falling share price stokes worries of a bank run
New York Post Sep 17, 08 1:06 PM CDT
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Washington Mutual, America's largest savings and loan, may be the next big financial institution to fail, the New York Post reports. Fearing a run on the struggling bank, federal regulators placed calls yesterday gauging interest in a WaMu buyout to Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, HSBC, and others, but no further negotiations have been scheduled.
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Paulson brokers twin public-private liquidity measures
Financial Times (UK) Sep 15, 08 5:27 CDT
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Ten of the world's largest banks have formed a massive liquidity fund to mitigate the effects of the Lehman Brothers meltdown, reports the Financial Times . All the investment banks will be able to borrow up to a third of the $70 billion fund in order to reduce volatility and stay in business while Lehman is being wound down. They will also be able to borrow from the Fed under newly relaxed terms.
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Lenders swamped with foreclosures are selling them at firesale prices
Wall Street Journal Aug 13, 08 8:05 CDT
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The rising costs of carrying foreclosed homes are prompting banks to sell them off for as little as half of their original value, reports the Wall Street Journal, a strategy that’s costing financial institutions big money. The losses, and the specter of their continuing to rise, pummeled bank share prices by 10% or more in trading yesterday.
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MARKETS
Equities fall even though oil does, too
MarketWatch Aug 12, 08 3:30 PM CDT
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Stocks fell today as waves of bad news from the financial sector battered investor sentiment, MarketWatch reports. Equities lost value despite a $1.44 drop in the price of oil, reversing what has recently been a consistent inverse relationship. The Dow fell 139.88 to 11,642.47, the Nasdaq 9.34 to 2,430.61, and the S&P 500 15.73 to 1,289.59.
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List of banks buying back bonds gets longer
Wall Street Journal Aug 12, 08 9:46 CDT
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As New York AG Andrew Cuomo's office continues applying heat, banks are scrambling to react to the auction-rate securities crisis, the Wall Street Journal reports. Morgan Stanley said yesterday it will buy back about $4.5 billion of the illiquid securities—but a Cuomo spokesman called the move “too little, too late.” JPMorgan Chase and Wachovia are the latest institutions under new scrutiny.
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Prime loans made in early 2007 are going bad at triple the rate of 2006 loans
Wall Street Journal Aug 7, 08 9:29 CDT
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Mortgages procured in 2007 are souring at a rate nearly triple that of 2006, reports the Wall Street Journal, suggesting that the wallop to the financial system from forclosures could be far from over. Analysis done for the paper finds 0.91% of the prime loans issued in the first part of the year in foreclosure, or more than 90 days past due, after 12 months. Just 0.33% of loans made during early 2006 went bad after a year.
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