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Citigroup first quarter earnings preview

Michael Fowlkes — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 16:40:00 EST

Filed under: Earnings Reports, Forecasts, Management, Market Matters, Citigroup Inc. (C), Recession, Financial Crisis

Financial giant Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE: C) will get its chance to impress Wall Street tomorrow morning when it reports its first quarter results.

The stock, which has been in free fall since late 2007, has actually been doing pretty good over the past month, and now it is time to see if the company can live up to expectations. The stock hit a low of $1.02 on March 5, and since that time has climbed a very impressive 290% to its current price of $4.00 a share.

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Citigroup first quarter earnings preview originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 16 Apr 2009 16:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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$77 billion more to bail out bankrupt GM?

Peter Cohan — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: General Motors (GM)

Thanks to decades of mismanagement, General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) is on the brink of bankruptcy. It has about six weeks to accept the outlines of a Treasury plan and fill in its blanks.

And GM will not simply be liquidated -- instead, $77 billion more in taxpayer money (on top of the $13.4 billion it has already received) will be needed for GM to die a good death and be reborn as a smaller company.

How will this work? Using a section 363 bankruptcy, about which I posted here, the good part of GM -- such as Chevrolet, GM's Chinese operations, and Cadillac -- will go into a new company in the next two weeks with the help of $7 billion in U.S. debt. And the bad part -- everything else will require $70 billion more in U.S. debt to cover GM's health care obligations and the liquidation of the factories making all of GM's other products.

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$77 billion more to bail out bankrupt GM? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 13 Apr 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fed finally announces bailout to help Main Street

Lita Epstein — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 09:34:00 EST

Filed under: Good news, Personal Finance, Housing, Federal Reserve

We've been watching as banks continue to hoard the bailout funds, maybe buy up some other banks, but nothing has trickled down to Main Street. Well, the Federal Reserve announced today that it's committing up to $800 billion to make it easier for Main Street folks to borrow money for cars, tuition bills and new homes. The Treasury Department is giving up very little of its Congressional bailout funds -- just $20 billion -- to the Fed's consumer lending program.

Did Congress really intend for so little to go to Main Street? I doubt it and I hope that when Henry Paulson comes begging for the second half of the bailout he's told it's not his to spend. Congress might want to wait for the new administration because many are not happy with how Paulson is spending it.

I'm glad to see the Fed is moving in a much more appropriate direction to help get Main Street back on track. The Fed intends to provide up to $200 billion to investors who plan to put the money towards consumer loans, such as credit cards, auto loans and student loans, as well as some forms of small business loans. These will be in the form of one-year loans available only for newly-issued consumer debt. These type of loans totally dried up in October and are essential to get the economy moving again.

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Fed finally announces bailout to help Main Street originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 25 Nov 2008 09:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The economic meltdown: Main Street gets mad

Gary Sattler — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:31:00 EST

Filed under: Columns, Recession, Financial Crisis

In this post, Gary E. Sattler tries to explain Main Street to Wall Street. Gary asked his friends and neighbors, took a virtual tour and asked his eBay's message board frequenters what they thought of the crisis on Wall Street and the looming economic crisis. Read what Main Street has to say.

I've spent quite a bit of time lately canvassing friends, neighbors and coworkers, to get a feel for the grassroots reaction to our current economic turmoil. I even went so far as to solicit opinions from discussion board frequenters on eBay. It's been an interesting exercise, if a bit heart wrenching and emotionally wearing. To say the least, it's been a lot less fun than going to a ball game.

A couple weeks ago, I didn't hear much spontaneous conversation about the subject. At that time, I had to solicit individual opinions. For the last week, however, it's been quite a different story. People have begun discussing their opinions on the matter in earnest. Everywhere I go, someone is talking about how disgusted they are with the current economy.

How people are feeling is best summed up in one word -- angry. That anger runs the gamut from slightly agitated to positively fuming. Each person's level of anger seems to be dependent upon their depth of understanding about what is going on, and their interpretation of how deeply it affects them personally. Generally speaking, the more they understand it, the angrier they are. Age also seems to play a significant part in determining the individual level of angst with the situation. People over 40 seem to be the most upset, while most people under 20 almost couldn't care less. This dynamic is probably best attributed to the severe beating that retirement savings have taken, the tendency for incomes to level off as we age, and an increased understanding of what a widespread economic collapse could mean to us all.

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The economic meltdown: Main Street gets mad originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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