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Featured Articles: GEMS of the Week
Category: Banking Stocks
The news items published under this category are as follows.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Investors Should Still Avoid Banking Stocks Despite Bailout / Companies / Banking Stocks
By: Money_Morning
Martin Hutchinson writes:
The $250 billion bank bailout announced Monday is a great improvement on the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). However, for those thinking of buying bank stocks on the back of it I would point out one thing: Once the government's plan to take equity stakes in troubled financial institutions is implemented, each of the 117 million U.S. taxpayers will have an average of $2,136.76 already invested. Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Wall Street Bargains Amongst Decimated and Bankrupt Banks / Companies / Banking Stocks
By: Money_Morning
William Patalon III writes: In one of its wildest and weirdest stretches ever, Wall Street entered a weekend awaiting a government bailout of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. ( LEH ) and exited with Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. ( MER ) agreeing to sell itself to Bank of America Corp. ( BAC ) for nearly $50 billion – and Lehman announcing it will seek bankruptcy in a bid to avoid a total liquidation after it was unable to find a buyer. Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Banking Stocks Buying Opportunity of a Lifetime or Capital Destroyers? / Companies / Banking Stocks
By: Richard_Shaw
Banks are a bundles of questions these days. We wrote on July 15 , just before the second quarter reports, that the next week would be a big week, and it certainly was.
Are the banks the buying opportunity of a lifetime, or a treacherous value trap that will destroy your capital?
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
The Mother of All Short Squeezes in Financial Stocks.. / Stock-Markets / Banking Stocks
By: John_Mauldin
How do you spell short-selling rally, gentle reader? In this week's Outside the Box we look at several short items (pardon the pun) from various sources, which paint a not pretty picture. The first hit my inbox this morning from Art Cashin (of CNBC fame and also Head Floor Trader for UBS).
" Deconstructing The Rally – The sharp rally that sprang from the new short sale restrictions has been spiky and, in several ways, very powerful. The impact of the short rule change was evident. As Barron's notes, the 150 stocks with the heaviest short interest rallied a stunning 15%. The stocks with the smallest short positions rose only 2%. That may be a function of existing shorts scrambling to cover to pass the new, belated, scrutiny. That thesis got added weight from a couple of areas. The Merrill Lynch results got mostly panned by several analysts and TV pundits. Nonetheless, the stock closed 24% above its lows for the week. Also, the financial sector ETF rose nearly 25% from the lows.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, July 18, 2008
Banking Stocks Rally is a Great Selling Opportunity! / Stock-Markets / Banking Stocks
By: Money_and_Markets
Mike here with a quick update on the so-called "big rally" in bank stocks this week.
Yes, their shares have soared for the last two days.
And yes, Wall Street is cheering.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Collapsing Bradford & Bingley Forced Bailout by Major UK Banks / Companies / Banking Stocks
By: Nadeem_Walayat
As I warned on 8th and 15th of June 2008, the problems for Bradford and Bingley and its rights issue cash call were far from over and that the bank was on the brink of a
Northern rockesque style collapse with the market now extremely reluctant to entertain cash calls from banks spiraling downwards towards ZERO. The last few trading days have seen Bradford and Bingley shares collapse straight through the 55p rights issue price trading down all the way to just 30p yesterday or 45% below the rights issue price. Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Financial Stocks Meltdown: A Picture Worth 1,000 Words / Stock-Markets / Banking Stocks
By: Richard_Shaw
Who a few years ago would have thought FNM and FRE would lose 70+% and 80+% of their market value?
This chart comparing the S&P 500 (SPY), the S&P Financial Sector (XLE), the KBW Large Bank Index (KBE) with FRE and FNM is breathtaking.
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Banking Stocks Still Not a Buy, Heading for New Lows Into August / Companies / Banking Stocks
By: Donald_W_Dony
The unprecedented decline in global financials, since early 2007, has most investors wondering when the bottom will arrive. Many world financial indexes are now sitting on half of their value from 18 months ago. Attractive fundamental valuation levels, provided by many analysts, have proven to be of little consequence since stocks have continued to waterfall 20%-40% below those 'attractive levels' and show no signs of stopping. But as many financial indexes plunge to the same levels as the 2002 bear market lows, the big question remains; when will the banks stop their fall? Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Bradford & Bingley's Dream Turns Into a Mortgage Default Nightmare / Companies / Banking Stocks
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The credit crisis continues to hit Bradford & Bingley bank that has heavy exposure to the speculative buy to let mortgage market. The bank ran a string of glossy, visually appealing TV adverts shortly following the spectacular Northern Rock collapse last September, the management tried their hardest to give assurance to the public that it was a case of business as usual for B&B. Despite many signs at the time that the number 2 slot after Northern Rock for credit crisis and housing market risk woes was reserved for Bradford & Bingley. Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, June 02, 2008
Bradford and Bingley- Another Bank Cracks Under Credit Crunch Pressure / Companies / Banking Stocks
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The Bradford and Bingley, Britain's biggest buy to let mortgage lender is expected to announce another profits warning later today as its Chief Executive abandoned the sinking ship ahead of a £300 million originally heavily discounted rights issue at 82p, which given Friday's close of 86p and today's expected price slump looks increasingly vulnerable.
Way back in August 2007, well before the credit crisis broke across the mainstream media, I specifically warned of three mortgage banks that are especially vulnerable during the next housing bust Of the three the first one to go was Northern Rock in spectacular style and much earlier than one could have imagined during Sept 07, by way of the first run on a British bank in 150 years. The Government eventually did another u-turn by nationalising the bank in January 08.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, May 30, 2008
Banking Stocks Pointing to Initial stages of long-term Bottoming Process / Stock-Markets / Banking Stocks
By: Prieur_du_Plessis
Global stock markets topped out on the back of the sub-prime/credit debacle in October 2007. Prices subsequently moved lower until reaching climatic bottoms in January/March this year, triggering rallies throughout the world until a few days ago. The big question investors are grappling with at this stage is whether the rise in prices has simply been a bear market rally, or whether we are back in a primary bull market. Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, May 09, 2008
The Falling US Dollar is No Friend to the US Financials / Stock-Markets / Banking Stocks
By: Donald_W_Dony
The affects of the declining U.S. currency goes beyond simply providing inflationary pressures, stronger foreign currencies and high gold prices, it also has a direct impact on how portfolios should be weighted. Since the beginning of the waterfall drop of the world's reserve currency, funds have rotated into energy stocks and out of financials. And this action is never favourable for the S&P 500. Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Financial Stocks Break Out / Stock-Markets / Banking Stocks
By: Mike_Paulenoff
This morning the Financial Select SPDR (AMEX: XLF) broke out of a 6-week bullish coil pattern that represents the digestion period after the initial upmove from the 3/17 low at 22.1 to the 3/24 high at 27.37 (+23%). With today's surge out of the coil, the XLF has started a new upleg that should propel the financial index towards a test of resistance at 27.80-28.00 next, on the way to an optimal target zone of 29.50. Only a break below 26.40 will wreck the developing upside follow-through from the March low. Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Bottom for the Banking and Financial Stocks? / Stock-Markets / Banking Stocks
By: Hans_Wagner
Investors who regularly beat the market are always careful not to jump into a sector to early. In the last few weeks there has been unprecedented action in the financial markets as several banks have received infusions of capital to help them cover their significant credit losses. Last month the Fed lowered the Fed Funds and Discount rate, increasing the slope of the yield curve which should help banks. They also opened its lending window to investment banks giving them a new, stable source of funding. Then the regulators allowed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to boost their investments in U.S. mortgages by $200 billion, trying to give the mortgage market a boost. Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Will Citibank Survive? / Companies / Banking Stocks
By: James_Turk
The center of focus this past week on Wall Street – and indeed, much of the financial world – was whether or not Bear Stearns will go belly-up. As questions arose about the quality of its $395 billion of assets that were carried on only $12 billion of equity, its customers and other brokers became unwilling to accept the counterparty risk that arises from transacting with Bear, while its lenders began worrying about repayment. Being leveraged to that extent, even a small decline in the value of its assets can significantly erode the firm's equity base. But given that Bear is no more than the fifth largest broker in the US , it is a relatively small fish in the financial world. Read full article... Read full article...
