Yes Peter I agree with you that Wachovia is the next likely failure. Suitors would be Citi, and possibly Wells Fargo, if the price is right.
Since you are in a guessing mood - who is your pick for the next in line failure?
My guess is that it will be in the "too big to fail" bracket - UBS. Of course, that would be primarily the EU's problem, but we will feel it here too.

Ah yes, take two troubled banks that have each lost tremendous value for the shareholder and combine them into an even larger problem. Einstein must have thought this one out.
Is the hope that the new government program will take all of the crap off of the books? If so, wouldn't Wachovia be just as viable post the government bailout as a standalone?
One last point. If Wachovia's management is the envy of retail banking, how did they wind up in this mess. Wells, JP Chase, and BoA as well as many regionals seem to have avoided the catastophie and are now picking off their competitors one by one !!!!

Maybe they are not that smart or that good.

why are they buying wachovia bank will be the same for bankers

Am I correct in thinking the seven hundred billion that is currently being toss around shores up the industry, at the very least from an immediate meltdown? If my assumption is correct. What then are all the stop-gap measures for future safe guards, preventing an instant replay 2009-10 and beyond?

Not ONLY will WB not be bought out, it will be the biggest % gainer on monday after the bail-out passes this week-end.

32 MILLION Shares bought with-in the last 10 mins of close.

AH was just a scare tactic used for large investors to get in early Monday morning.

WB has WAYYY to many positives to fail and do you really think Mr. Bob Steel would invest over 16 MILLION dollars of his own money in public stock if this bank was going to fail?

Cramer like WB, do you?

I sure do.

the bill for 700000000 dollars is about 78000 lbs of gold. That is 18000 lbs over weight. only Karl Malone could pay the fines.

Bob Steel buying stock is not going to save the bank. If you noticed, AIG directors were buying relatively large blocks of AIG just days before in imploded.

hi we have stock in wb,wife has pension also and medical.is wbgoing the way of wm.thanks
bromeo54@aol.com

Peter, your last two sentences are interesting. Seems one could safely buy bad debt and then it will be conveniently removed by the fed....

if WB is bought by any buyer, would it wipeout all the common share holder money.... as it happened to WM shareholders.

Have accounts w/wb, including IRA on bank side. Does IRA fall under the FDIC insurance of $100,000 with the rest of the monies in the accounts or would IRA be sepearate? If I am holding a Cashier's ck. how will that be treated, will it still be good? Also have a 401K on the investment side, all in MMkt, will that be safe up to $250,000?

Naive question. Unfortunately, I have a business checking account w/over $100,000 in WB. Were Wachovia to be purchased, would I lose the amount that is not FDIC insured? Have been meaning for some time to open a new account, and now I'm pushed to the line on this. Thanks.

Wachovia was well run???? Maybe the old Wachovia was well run but today's Wachovia is the old First Union crowd under a new name. As one banker told me several weeks ago, that the question after the merger of the two was how long would it take the First Union people to screw up the merged banks. It took barely three years and many in the banking field could see it coming a mile away. For instance in my local market First Union opened up here about 20 years ago. They attracted maybe 2% of the market and then merged with another local bank and got it up to 5% where it remained until the merger with Wachovia when it jumped to about 1/4 of the local market. Instead of leaving the old Wachovia people in charge of the local office they instead put the old First Union people in charge --- people who were known for running a poor operation that they could not make it grow. Last year they had 27% of the market which they could not run. So bottom line, First Union screwed up Wachovia.
As an aside it is amazing that the acquistion of Countrywide by Bank of America did not do the same thing to it that Golden West helped do to Wachovia, but BofA must be a better run bank to handle that merger. The amazing thing is that they consummated the deal anyway and gave Mozillio his undeserved millions.

should I take my money out of my checking and savings accounts since they are not protected by the FDIC?

I sent a comment and now it is not here.
My comment is: Since my checking and savings account is not protected by the FDIC should I take my money and put it into as safer place.

For questions regarding FDIC, see FDIC website. Briefly regarding the posts I saw, IRA insured up to 250k as of April 2006, checking and savings up to 100k. Lastly, what happened to WM was no purchase. FDIC did not have sufficient funds to insure depositors and therefore "arranged" a buyout by JP Morgan. Essentially, the Govt. moved in, seized the bank, valued the assets (at a tremendously low level that smells of inside deals), and sold those assets to JPM. Hence common stock tank and creditors being left on the street. At this point, WB is not in the same position. Should there be another silent run on the bank by COMPANIES, not individuals, who bank with WB then their fate could be the same as WM. For now, WM and WB are not synonymous...for now

My company's 401k's are with Wachovia, is there a risk of losing the money in them? I know if the investments go south, there is that risk, but otherwise I mean.

I still have a large (21,000 shares), uncovered short position in this stock at $24. Wish there were not a ban on shorting this stock; it's been a big winner for me. At least the government didn't force us to close our short positions. :)

Thanks, Peter for helping drive this horrible stock down some more. I plan to cover at $3.00. Djb (above) has been cheerleading this dog for months. He thought the short selling ban was going to make the stock go up long term.

This dog needs to be euthanised.

FIRST of ALL, It' just a MERGER.. Now for the good part. ALL accounts are FULLY covered. 100,000.00 for SINGLE account holders. 200,000.00 for ALL JOINT account holders. 250,000.00 FOR IRA's. 100,000.00 FOR EACH BENEFICIARY account holder, including the account holder. So settle down. Nothing bad will happen. CITI and WACHOVIA are good banks..

This is all a charade. Take note of the following: when the reporters say banks...they really mean "investment banks" and NOT insured depository institutions...but they intentionally don't make the distinction so that they can prey upon the uninformed public; next: why in the world would you all Paulson and Bernake to ram through this failed plan just so that their friends can be taken care of? Paulson came from Wall Street and now he's taking care of his friends who are still there; next: the only reason these banks are failing is because you have investment folks saying "this bank or that bank is going to fail next." Remember, these insured depository banks had record profits for the last few years. What do you think they did with that money? They have it. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy about banks failing; next: the guy on mainstreet will NOT benefit from this. Most on mainstreet don't have a pot to urinate in nor a window to throw it out of. Wall Street is going to benefit from this and the average Joe is going to be holding the bag. More taxes and nothing more; next: CRA loans caused this problem is INSANE. There are not enough loans to low- and moderate-income people made since the beginning of CRA to cause this "market crisis." Get real people. If CRA loans were so plentiful, how could banks have made record profits all those years? Also, banks make a lot more loans besides mortgages. Most couldn't compete with the uninsured nondepository institutions which are supposedly regulated by HUD and the FRB. That's a joke. Take a look at the data and you will see that the "high cost loans" are made to whites and NOT blacks or hispanics. Also, note from the raw HMDA data that blacks and hispanics are still being denied at record levels when compared to whites. So, who are the ones not repaying their loans? You need to look at the facts and stop believing what you are fed in the media. I say NO to the bailout. $700 billion is not the bottom....it's going to cost a lot more. There has been rampant fraud in the mortgage industry for years and there will always be. People are greedy and no one wants to really enforce the rules. Who is going to bail me out? Not that I need it, but if they are going to bailout millionaires, why not bail me out. Oh that's right, I'm not a friend of Paulson or Bernake. One last note, it's time for these lifelong elected officials to be replaced. Frank, Pelosi, Dodd and Shumer need to leave NOW. They have screwed this country up with their false promises. Check their records, they promise to take care of the poor and downtrodden...and it's not happening. I personally don't think they will, but others keep falling for the same old game. How pathetic.