some financial news posts

[lagilman]

The story people are watching today: The crisis at American International Group deepened as the insurer was hit with downgrades by four rating companies late on Monday, giving the New York insurance giant precious little time to sell assets and receive loans to preserve its existence.

And for those of us looking at our own investments: It's too late to panic," said Zachary Karabell, president of independent consulting firm River Twice Research. "And if it's too late to panic, it's probably time to calmly look at what's going on in light of opportunities."
"Selling doesn't recoup your losses," he added. "It just realizes them." Some useful reading here, if not all of it stuff I agree with.

And for those of you wondering about recent deals: Bank of America’s $50bn (€35bn, £28bn) acquisition of Merrill Lynch, announced on Monday at a hastily arranged press conference, will go down as a signature moment in the history of Wall Street.

Fascinating, in a sphincter-clenching, queasy-making sort of way. The best explanation I've seen so far is of Wall Street et al having a sick gut, and not being able to digest all the bad credit it's been gorging on. A simplification but not, I think, an inaccurate one. Problem is, we're all sitting underneath the monster as it has a bad case of the shits....

Comments

[kriz1818.livejournal.com]

Good morning! The link to the DON'T PANIC article goes to 'page not found'. I don't have any investments to speak of, but I *might* have some someday ...

[lagilman]

Link's fixed (they moved it off the lead story spot, I think, and changed the link. It should stay put, now).

EtA: also, if you have an IRA or a 401(k) or variant thereof, you have investments! You may not be able to do anything with them for a decade or more (that's my situation) but it is your money....

[kriz1818.livejournal.com]

Heh. I do have one of those 401(k) things - representing about 2 years of work at one company. On a good day, it might be worth enough for a down payment on a used car.

I do not spend a lot of time worrying about it. ;-)

[handworn.livejournal.com]

The problem at the financial companies was that some of them forgot their First Commandment-- liquidity is king. They simply assumed they would continue to be able to pull back if need be by selling some of their assets, and they didn't anticipate the collapse of the credibility of the ratings agencies which made that often impossible.

[lagilman]

they bought into the fairy tale of Magic Numbers and Ever-expanding Debt, and I think every CEO and CFO who greenlighted one of these disasters should have the past three years' salary and bonuses stripped from them and put toward the bailout before anything else is done. Alas, that's not going to happen.

[handworn.livejournal.com]

Well, that Richard Fuld character that runs (ran?) Lehman Brothers was its biggest shareholder. I suspect he just got a massive haircut. Not that he'll feel it, materially.

I've come to the conclusion that one of our biggest problems is that two-thirds of all investing is done by institutions, not individuals, which makes the shareholder activism and revolts that we need so desperately almost impossible.

[quarkwiz.livejournal.com]

Am just not even going to look at my IRA and 401(k) balances for a little while. They're for the long term, and I know what happened in 2001 when I peeked every day... so yeah, not looking. Not looking. NOT.

My bus this morning was filled with chatter. No one ever talks on the bus that early (6:16), usually... it's mostly contruction workers and, well, financial people. Lots of talking. Even my seat partner and I chatted about AIG--I've seen her many times over the past three years, but never more than a "good morning."

In other news, the pretty wraparound lightboards on the Lehman building were dark this morning. Pity, I'll miss those. They always had nice displays.

[quarkwiz.livejournal.com]

Followup: Lehman's lightboards were lit again when I went out for lunch. So who's gonna pay the ConEd bill? :P

[lagilman]

Barclays, apparently.

Meanwhile, part of me is really disgusted by the government bailout of AIG, and the other part of me knows that somebody had to do something and not for political reasons, either (it's not a Repugnican plan to save their buddies, at least not entirely, despite what some bloggers are screaming). *sighs*

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

One of my friends who works at AIG said yesterday, "Just let me get paid on Thursday. That's really all I'm asking for."

[nycdeb.livejournal.com]

You'd think that if I cna do the math - 20 billion does not equal 40 billion which in its turn does not equal 70 billion - that AIG could do the math.

Oh, Hank Greenberg. What hath thou wrought?

[smoemeth.livejournal.com]

One of my best friends has everything tied up in Merrill Lynch. Needless to say, she's kinda freaking out today...

These are the times when I'm actually glad I don't have any money. :}

[arouraleona.livejournal.com]

Amen. This is the only thing I'm happy about being unemployed about. No benefits to lose baby! ::sigh:: I take it back, I'm not happy. At least I have Bank of America. Since they're buying instead of freaking out, I feel marginally safer... unless their buying is their freaking out... like me and candy.