Posted on 03/17/2008 6:41:36 AM PDT by Lazamataz
To everyone who called me or emailed me over the weekend saying, "How could this happen? How could Bear Stearns go from $57 to $2 in two days?" I would offer the comment of one astute trader, who said, "When you are levered 30 times and have no access to finance it doesn't take a huge move on $400 billion in assets and $260 billion of debt to wipe out the equity."
Two questions dominate the Street this morning:
1) What will Bear Stearns' shareholders--specifically Bear employees--do? The $2 per share deal is subject to shareholder approval, and Bear employees--many of whom have significant parts of their life savings in Bear stock--are certainly stunned enough to create at least a minor protest over the price. Sandler O'Neill noted that "we do not believe it is incomprehensible that this deal may have bought Bear Stearns additional time to assess its situation which may lead shareholders to reject the offer."
2) What will happen to the other major brokers and banks, and what will the reaction of the credit markets be? With a book value at nearly $80 per share for Bear, the $2 price makes it tough on other brokers. A flight to firms with the strongest balance sheets seems obvious. Analysts were out this morning with various comments on who does have the strongest balance Goldman Sachs , for example, opined that Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan had the strongest balance sheet. Street seems to be treating it that way: Lehman down 28 percent pre-open, Merrill down 16 percent, Goldman and Morgan Stanley down down 8 percent, JP Morgan up.
Meredith Whitney, who has become an ax in this space through her coverage at Oppenheimer, put out a note this morning titled, "BSC Fire Sale to Cause Valuation Adjustment for All Financials: Banks at Risk," in which she argues that financial stocks have further downside of as much as 50% based upon 1990/1991 multiples of tangible book values. She says most banks are trading well above their price to book lows of the 1990-1991 cycle.
So, what will finally end all this turmoil? The Street is screaming that the government should directly or indirectly begin buying mortgage backed securities, and, to a lesser extent that a wider bailout program needs to be devised to stem home price depreciation.
What does your question have to do with the substance of Positive's post? If you want to make this thread about "derivatives," as you seem to wont to do on most ALL threads, why don't you make a thread ALL ABOUT derivatives, toad? I've asked you that before.
The market/economy is in deep doo doo; the fed is putting off the inevitable, making the consequences inevitably worse. In the meantime, we hear lies by the feds, corporate greedholders, and certain posters who have obviously gotten their 30 pieces of silver, that all is well. Yet more evidence just last week with Bear Sterns' claiming that there's "no substance to the rumors" that it was facing liquidity/financial problems.
To the contrary: otherwise facing bankruptcy or a buy-out by the feds of $2/share (bankruptcy by any other name) is more than enough to prove that these people lie through their teeth....in the hopes that the suckers and the serfs will keep "buying" so they can get their monies out before the collapse.
The following, previously posted by ex-Texan on another, is yet more proof:
Bear Stearns Stock Fell Dramatically Over the Weekend Stock Sold for $ 2 Billion Profit at on February 14thWhat did they know and when did they know it ?
Bernanke and Paulson have a lot of questions to answer.
bttt
My son has been accepted to Hillsdale College and we will be visiting there next week for a 2nd time. Von Mises donated his entire collection to them and they have an endowed Von Mises Economics Professor. Have been reading his stuff as of late and wish the smart guys at the Fed and Wall St had been required to read it before they screwed the pooch.
Yea you can lose waaaayyy more money in the futures market.
That would be the Democrats work with the CRA (Community Redevelopment Act....Countrywide was big with that ...I believe)
Info link....might be better ones:
Am afraid the same thing is going to happen across the board in the stock market. Money is coming out of Commodities with no where else to go but into Equities, if anyone is going to play the next bear (sucker) rally they'd better be ready to get out in a month.
Oh I know I know...
A derivative is a term used for financial transactions that are used by free traitors to cheat the downtrodden proletariet/union workers out of their rightful jobs (which pay 40 dollars and hour) making buggy whips for the government to buy.
< /protectionist mode >
BEFORE they demanded that ALL people should own their own homes whether they could afford it or not.
Get real! Congress DEMANDED that banks lend to evryone!!!!
Paulson and Bernanke are raping the USD . . While their Wall Street cronies make billions.
Bear Stearns Insiders Unloaded 27,316,339 Shares in February !
Bear Stearns Stock Fell Dramatically Over the Weekend
Insiders unloaded 27,316,339 Shares for about $ 70 + per share on February 14, 2008 . . . For a profit of about $ 2 Billion ! ! ! !
What did they know and when did they know it ?
Bernanke and Paulson have a lot of questions to answer.
That’s why they want the suckers to keep buying.
It’s the Enron effect, you know....except across the board.
Wonder how many lost a major portion of their retirement over the weekend? But the insider traders got their monies out on Valentine’s Day. Sweetheart deals for the insider greedy traders.
You can bet the SEC will be looking for a scapegoat on that one.
You got that right!
We’ll see if they even investigate that.
I bet not.
Any opinions about how UBS looks in all of this? I’m about to transfer my $ out of Fidelity into UBS and have one of their advisors manage my investments. I’m very hesitant to pull the trigger on this due to Bear Sterns and others.
If there is one more rally there will be money to be made, stay too long and be suckered.
lol...well, the loss of vital body fluids is a “concern”
From everything I’ve been reading, some rallies are to be expected....but the overall outlook is it will not be anything but that: a rally prior to a severe drop. Some suggest a severe recession, others a total crash....with rallies up in the interim (as was the case before the big “D”).
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