Wall Street traders

Many companies consider pulling a reverse stock split to avoid getting delisted. But many wind up taking that path eventually anyway. Can you imagine Citibank getting delisted from the New York Stock Exchange?

Someone is actually holding Jim Cramer responsible for some of the advice he has given, and also for the fact that CNBC has "morphed" into an entertainment channel.

Banks (and brokerage firms) that own mortgage backed securities have been required — since November 2007 — to use mark to market accounting on these securities. Coincidentally, this was just around the time these mortgage securities started dropping precipitously in value. 2007 saw many mortgage firms get wiped out, and brokerage firms and banks holding these assets started realizing the volatility of these assets.

What is left in the governments bag of tricks to get the banks back on track?  One topic that I wrote about — 5 months ago — has popped up this past week with more and more frequency.  We are finally starting to hear more and more chatter about relaxing "Mark to the market" regulations. (…)

The federal, state and local governments are co–losers with Madoff investors. (…)

Quick history lesson: Mark-to-the-Market was a practice originally begun by futures and commodity traders in the 19th century.  Essentially, mark-to-the-market means your holdings must be "priced" every night…at the price they can be sold at. (…)

Pretty sad story reported recently…but sad, as in pathetic. (…)

In one of my most recent posts I discussed the "ready to explode" product issued by brokerage firms called "auction rate preferred securities."
Well, that didn't take long. (…)

The line heard in every economic recession, and every single stock market pullback is: this time it's different. (…)

All these firms hold the same investments.
There is STILL considerable risk in the group.
Why did this happen to just Bear Stearns? (…)

UPDATE: Sunday evening, 03/16/2008: Bear Stearns to be acquired by JPMorgan Chase for $2.00 in stock swap deal.
That is NOT a typo!
The stock closed at $30 on Friday. On Thursday, it was $57.00. (…)

The news surrounding Bear Stearns on Friday morning was not good! There are several important elements to this story. (…)

I've labeled this “the yikes spiral” because typically this happens when certain markets are in free fall. (…)

The stock market has been discounting (marking down the price) of Wall Street brokers and banks since May. The charts of all of these stocks began to turn down in the spring. (…)

Friday morning, October 5, the Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board (Donald Kohn) was quoted as saying "a one half point rate cut may be enough."
That headline sent the bond market into a tailspin. (…)