c posts
Posted Jul 7th 2009 3:10PM by Connie Madon
Filed under: Bad news, Money and Finance Today, Economic data, Personal finance, Housing

From this writer's observation, it seems that we have two US economies. One economy is doing just fine. The people in this group have money. They are living well, eating out frequently and buying pretty much what they want.
Then we have a second economy made up of the unemployed and persons living on the edge of disaster. Here we see a growing number of credit card and home equity delinquencies. These people are in a downward spiral. Having lost their jobs, they are using credit cards to survive. This leads to double trouble -- no money and default on credit card debt and home mortgage.
Continue reading Consumer deliquencies are at new highs
Posted Jul 4th 2009 10:30AM by Ted Allrich
Filed under: Citigroup Inc. (C), Bank of America (BAC), Comfort Zone Investing
Bank failures are good. They get rid of banks that are mismanaged and have no business being in banking. Bad management at many banks made lots of bad loans and deserve to go under. The biggest example was Washington Mutual. And Countrywide belongs in there as well. Of course, there are a large number of smaller, community banks that also made bad loans that won't make it either.
That's OK. In fact, it makes the banking system stronger to have these marginally-managed or poorly-managed lenders gone. They artificially hike up the cost of deposits for all banks as they struggle to finance their bad loans, whether they're housing or commercial or business. Bad banks need more cash to keep them going, so they bring in more deposits. They bring in more deposits by raising rates.
Continue reading Comfort Zone Investing: Survival of the fittest -- letting some banks fail
Posted Jun 26th 2009 9:30AM by Jim Cramer
Filed under: Market matters, Citigroup Inc. (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Economic data, Wells Fargo (WFC), Housing, Cramer on BloggingStocks, Recession, Financial Crisis
TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the endless worries will prove bogus, and jobs creation could spur a real lift. Alt-A. Endless bank foreclosures. Commercial real estate. These are the big three worries that will not be killed by data, rigor or common sense, no matter what happens.
Doesn't it occur to anyone that there already should have been a big spike in commercial real estate losses by now? That the decline in the economy has lasted long enough that it should have manifested itself? Doesn't anyone think that there should have been a big commercial real estate bad-debt bump at a
Citigroup (NYSE:
C) (
Cramer's Take) or a
JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:
JPM) (
Cramer's Take) or a
Wells Fargo (NYSE:
WFC) (
Cramer's Take)?
Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: Real estate turnaround
Posted Jun 25th 2009 10:00AM by Jim Cramer
Filed under: Market matters, Citigroup Inc. (C), Bank of America (BAC), Economic data, Cramer on BloggingStocks, Recession
TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the jobless number shows the folly of thinking we can get through on what we have. Tough data point, the employment number. Lagging. But when you see it, the number doesn't feel like it's lagging. In fact, it is thesis-busting, as in, "We aren't getting better, let's stop fooling ourselves." It just feels like, "Come on, we know the truth, we need to have a second stimulus plan."
That will be the battleground for the second half of this year: further budget-busting vs. putting more people to work, because we sure aren't doing a great job of putting them to work.
Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: More stimulus, please!
Posted Jun 24th 2009 10:00AM by Jim Cramer
Filed under: Deals, Market matters, Citigroup Inc. (C), Cramer on BloggingStocks
TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer wants to out the bankers behind the Red Roof deal and other deals like it. What didn't they take private? What didn't they lever up? When I read about Extended Stay's bankruptcy and Red Roof's default Tuesday night I started thinking, did anyone besides me ever stay at places like this? Did anyone ever realize the marginality of these places? Did they simply look at some numbers on some pieces of paper and say, "Yep, that's money in the bank"?
And sure enough,
Citigroup (NYSE:
C) (
Cramer's Take) was the lender to Red Roof, a deal two years old that has already gone sour. Maybe this was one of those have-to-keep-dancing-until-the-music-stops deals by Chuck Prince, the foremost clown of all of the bankers of the era.
Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: Red Roof's shoddy deal
Posted Jun 10th 2009 10:20AM by Mark Fightmaster
Filed under: Deals, Citigroup Inc. (C)

This morning,
Citigroup (NYSE:
C)
began its $58-billion stock swap, a move that could leave the government with a 34% stake in the bank. The country's third-largest bank plans to swap common stock for (up to) $33 billion in preferred shares and convert as much as $25 billion of preferred shares held by the U.S. Treasury into common stock.
The bank believes that the swap could (emphasis on could here) make Citigroup one of the world's best-capitalized banks. The action could add up to $61 billion of tangible common equity and $64 billion of Tier-1 common equity. Citigroup had planned to take this action back in April.
Continue reading Citigroup starts its stock swap ... finally
Posted Jun 9th 2009 1:30PM by Daleela Farina
Filed under: Major movement, Interviews, Sony Corp ADR (SNE), Economic data, Recession

In
this post from late April, I asked several financial experts where they thought the stock market was headed. Here's another round of predictions with a new batch of experts.
Neal Berger, the fund manager who called the market top, founder of fund-of-funds Eagle's View Asset Management, is always seeking undiscovered fund managers who exploit a legitimate "edge" or inefficiency in the market. With decades of experience at prominent firms such as Fuji Bank, Chase Bank, and Millennium Partners, he now manages the investments of wealthy families/individuals.
Continue reading Five stock market experts share their views
Posted Jun 5th 2009 3:10PM by Connie Madon
Filed under: Earnings reports, Market matters, Financial Crisis
With a sleight of hand, the Financial Accounting Standards Board gave banks a way of hiding their losses, at least for the time being. What was this sleight of hand? With powerful lobbying by 16 industry association groups who call themselves the Fair Value Coalition, a proposal to use "mark to market" to price the value of distressed assets was killed. Congress, it seems, bowed to the lobbyists and complained that the existing "mark to market" standards worsened the financial crisis. So what is the new rule? Who knows? Its hard to figure out exactly what standard banks are using to price distressed assets.
Continue reading New accounting rule lets banks hide big losses
Posted Jun 2nd 2009 11:00AM by Elizabeth Harrow
Filed under: Citigroup Inc. (C), Options, DJIA, Financial Crisis
Downtrodden Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C), which received its walking papers from Dow Jones on Monday, has informed five of its former executives that they'll no longer be receiving severance payouts. According to a report today in The Wall Street Journal [subscription required], recently departed executives Kevin Kessinger and Michael Klein will be among those affected by the decision.
Already, Citi has doled out approximately half of the $100 million it pledged to these former execs. The U.S. Treasury hasn't demanded that the severance payments be halted, but sources close to the bailed-out bank say that Citi's top brass "[want] to avoid even the possibility of a public backlash over the money."
Even though it would seem that Citi is finally getting a handle on the concept of money management -- or public relations, at the very least -- investors are hardly cheering. The stock has given up more than 3% today, extending its year-to-date drop of 45%. In fact, the shares are currently in position to finish the session below their 10-day and 20-day moving averages, which would mark the first breach of this double-barreled support since May 1.
Continue reading Citigroup suspends severance pay, battles technical resistance
Posted Jun 2nd 2009 10:00AM by Jim Cramer
Filed under: Apple Inc (AAPL), Ford Motor (F), Market matters, Citigroup Inc. (C), Chubb Corp (CB), Amer Intl Group (AIG), DJIA, Cramer on BloggingStocks, Travelers Companies Inc. (TRV)
TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says that it's the most conservative player in an industry filled with gunslingers. The keepers of the Dow Jones Industrial Average must have felt insurance-less after the defrocking of
AIG (NYSE:
AIG) (
Cramer's Take), so it's fitting that they added
Travelers (NYSE:
TRV) (
Cramer's Take) to the list, even as I would have preferred
Ford (NYSE:
F) (
Cramer's Take) or
Apple (NASDAQ:
AAPL) (
Cramer's Take).
They needed a financial that wasn't a bank and there aren't many out there that still trade at anything but desperate levels or weren't saved by the government.
Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: Travelers is a fitting pick
Posted May 27th 2009 10:00AM by Jim Cramer
Filed under: Google (GOOG), Apple Inc (AAPL), General Motors (GM), Market matters, Citigroup Inc. (C), Research in Motion (RIMM), NIKE, Inc'B' (NKE), QUALCOMM Inc (QCOM), BHP Billiton Ltd ADR (BHP), Freep't McMoRan Copper (FCX), Wells Fargo (WFC), Cramer on BloggingStocks
TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says you may hear reasons why the rally shouldn't have occurred, but you can't deny it did happen. On Tuesday I wanted to shoot myself, as always when I woke up and went online to see what was going on. Here's a partial list of the beautiful data points that were in my purview in the first hour of looking over the market:
1. A trenchant note from a major strategist at a bank I trust who is talking about why the market must be avoided because private-equity valuations are collapsing, so what's the point of owning equities.
Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: Believe it, there's money to be made
Posted May 21st 2009 10:10AM by Jim Cramer
Filed under: General Motors (GM), China, Market matters, Citigroup Inc. (C), Bank of America (BAC), Wells Fargo (WFC), Commodities, Cramer on BloggingStocks, U.S. Bancorp (USB), Financial Crisis
TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says commodities don't tell the real story -- look at wages and prices of finished goods. Commodity inflation is not real inflation. Commodity inflation is China- and speculation-driven inflation of imperfect commodities by fearful or greedy customers and traders.
Yet "inflation" is on everyone's lips as if the plummeting prices of cars and homes and wages don't even matter. You read about the not-even-nascent recoveries in countries like those in Eastern Europe or Mexico or Germany, and you have to wonder whether we need to be as fearful of the price of copper as we are. If you own
GM (NYSE:
GM) (
Cramer's Take) bonds, you are not experiencing inflation, and believe me -- there are more GM bonds being bought than there is of the red metal.
Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: It's still not inflation
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