prescient11

The Trouble with Rescues and Stimulus

I echo "I should know"'s comments completely. WFC didn't want the money. Should their shareholders suffer? The author should perhaps do her research.

Bigger is Not Better in Banking

Chris, this analysis does fail to appreciate the $300B housing bailout that was passed. What is the consideration of that? Always liked your work.

The Weakness of the Treasury's New Bailout Plan

Felix, the resident genius with "concerns". Really, man, why don't you just own up to it. No plan would be perfect. And they're taking preferred shares so they do not dilute the common. While it's not as much oversight as one would like, what do you expect them to do, FORCE healthy banks to accept this capitalization and then FORCE them to accept new board members, someone probably as dense and bureaucratic as yourself.

Listen, despite your constant cabal-like effort to communicate "concerns" about everything, this is the government giving you a big middle finger, saying, listen skippy, we, the Euros, everyone is backing our banks and that's it. So move along Felix, just move along man. You've been out of your league for some time.

The financial system will not fall, it appears, based on these broad guarantees, and I think the governments of the first-world nations should be applauded for their efforts in this regard. Let's just hope the lesson has been learned and once the bleeding is stopped they fix the disease.

Worrying About Large-Deposit Bank Runs

Well well well Felix, I see that these SOBs are being investigated for aggressive short selling and CDS manipulation. Care to apologize to Dear John Thain now, or will you never own up to your own ignorance and mistakes.

Which Banks Will Survive?

IThinkBig, there we go, some actual discussion.

The $300B, obviously comes from the taxpayer, but it will be in the form of repackaged loans with an FHA guarantee.

Lender cuts the loan principal to 90%, issues a new FHA backed mortgage, and then can sell it in the market. Should be as liquid as a T-bill. Thus, the cash gets directly to where we desperately need it, these lenders' balance sheets. I think it will have a tremendous effect, especially with some of the biggies.

Which Banks Will Survive?

Jonathan swift, again, what a great comeback. How about writing titles like "Which Banks Will Survive?"

Can you not answer the question/point that I raised? If not, then why bother to respond. $300B is on its way. Now, do you have a point?

Which Banks Will Survive?

user 138602 and nyka,

where's the lack of analysis, damnit. sorry user if that offends you.

I made a point regarding the housing bill. Where's your counterpoint?

Thanks so much.

Which Banks Will Survive?

saltaway, respond to my point first. then we can talk.

Which Banks Will Survive?

Does this loser sit up at night thinking of what clever titles he can put out there that will grab attention? You got me, I clicked the link only to see your smug stupid face come up first thing.

Listen up skippy and listen up good, you may think you know what you're talking about, but in reality you fail to realize what's happened. Think for once damnit. Think beyond your limited capacity and the numbers you cherish. Are you stupid enough to really believe that the government is going to want to foot the bill for all the likely failures if what you profess is to take place. Of course they won't. That's why the government just injected $300B of liquidity into the banking system a la the housing bill.

Game, set and match. Go look for the sky to fall, as we're not there yet. But the smugness is really too much.

Is the U.S. Banking System Safe?

Bearfund, I agree, I'm at a loss on WFC as well. Stock may even be overvalued, who knows there.

What I do know, however, is that they are not falling off a cliff and the rumors of their death had been very exaggerated.

This leads to my hypothesis that negative home values are not a direct correlation, or even a strong correlation, between the very large loss estimates the author cites and current forecasts.

we'll see how the construction loans go.

Is the U.S. Banking System Safe?

There will be more losses, but the end is not at hand. If you had bothered to review WFC's quarterly release, even accounting for their 180 day change on the chargeoff for the HELOCs, they are making money.

Imho, where uber-bears make the greatest mistake is that they believe people have a stop-loss on their house. This is not the case. Negative equity only becomes a factor when one cannot or chooses not to make the payment on the house. Thank God moving is such a pain.

More losses are likely, and many investment banks holding leveraged instruments are likely holding their losses. Whether it's a trillion, or a few more hundred billion, I don't know.

The housing rescue bill is more important than many, many, realize. GS estimated that US banks will have to raise $65B of capital. The housing bill just injected $300B onto banks balance sheets, and this should affect some downstream CDOs and other instruments as well.

Of the much-maligned baseball analogy, in my view we are likely in the bottom of the seventh inning.

The world is not ending, financials will still be around. Take a hard look at WFC's earnings release, and then you will know why it went up 22% in one day and much higher in the days that followed.

Guess what, with all the dire predictions they were still making money. Even if you put all their home equity losses on the books, that is still the case. Enjoy the summer, take the kids to the lake.

Earnings Preview: Wells Fargo

Squashnut, you are right, I just wonder if they're going to be able to delay the pain for one or two more Qs due to that "accounting trick."

Earnings Preview: Wells Fargo

WFC will trade in the teens before it's all over. You can bank on that.

Wells Fargo Doo-Doo Bank Drill Down, Part 2

Your graph on housing prices is not very good. Otherwise information is pretty good and nice breakdown. I think you are incorrect about the amount of correction needed in housing prices though. We have a bit to go, but nowhere near where you suggest, I remember seeing a graph with the proper x and y coordinates that showed that we were nearing the proper correction back to the mean and should be there by 2009 at the latest.

More on HELOCs, Second Liens and Rose Colored Glasses

Reggie, I would be interested in your analysis of Etrade's home equity/HELOC portfolio.

Just for your information, it's about a $11.5B portfolio, $1.5B are first liens and Etrade has prepared itself for chargeoffs totaling $1-1.5B, or roughly 10-15% of all the second lien loans.

Best regards and thanks for all the great information. If I take one thing away from your analyses, short the hell out of WaMu.