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Posted
Oct 21 2009, 12:24 PM
by
Jim Van Meerten
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
I was going through the stack of newspapers that accumulated while I was on vacation and on the front page of The Charlotte Observer was the headline "Cameron Harris sues Wachovia". Since his family sold their insurance company to First Union, Wachovia's predecessor that's big news here in Charlotte. Friends just don't sue friends in Charlotte, bless his heart.
His suit claims that while on a hunting trip with Ken Thompson, Wachovia's then CEO he pumped Mr. Thompson for information about what was really going on in Wachovia. He asserts Ken Thompson's failure to give him what would have been unpublished insider information caused him to keep his stock and incur a large financial loss.. He might have gotten out at $55 instead of riding it down to what ever he owns now. He and his family owned around a million shares so the pony ride down cost him some real dough.
I'm no legal genius but if Ken Thompson had told him about what was really going on and he sold his stock before the swan dive wouldn't he be guilty of insider trading? Wouldn't both he and Ken Thompson be eligible of a free trip to Club Fed down at Ft. Walton Beach, Florida? Hasn't he heard of Martha Stewart.
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Posted
Oct 10 2008, 11:37 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Slowest job in the world right now? Being AIG's event planner. The insurance company is canceling its functions after receiving harsh criticism for spending half a million dollars on a spa resort getaway for employees recently. The insurance company got an $85 billion bailout from the Treasury, which apparently wasn't enough because it's getting an additional $38 billion to keep it solvent. In the middle of all this, employees went on a week-long retreat at a California resort and ran up at least a $440,000 tab on drinks, rooms, pedicures and who knows what else. The public reaction was intensely negative, no surprise. And the pressure is enough that AIG is pulling out of an event next week at the Ritz-Carlton in Northern California's Half Moon Bay. The Ritz-Carlton? Oh yeah, that's how AIG rolls.
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Posted
Oct 02 2009, 07:41 AM
by
Jim Van Meerten
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 I moved to Charlotte right in the middle of its Golden Age. Hugh McColl and Ed Crutchfield, two local good old boys, had built not one but two international banking empires in the same town and it looked like there was no stopping them from becoming even bigger.
Charlotte was calling itself the second largest financial center in the U.S., second only to New York City. Most of the locals were reaping the benefits of the large dividends from Nations Bank and First Union. If you didn't work for one of the two banks, you owned a good chunk of the stock.
They both endorsed a new, young and charismatic mayor named Pat McCory, and the three together got funding for everything Charlotte needed to be a great city. We were getting mass transit, the downtown was bringing back people after dark to a football stadium, new arena, dining and entertainment venues. The Arts & Science Council and United Way were receiving full funding from everyone. The local joke was that the official bird of Charlotte was the building crane. They were sighted all over town, in flocks.
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Posted
Mar 16 2009, 03:01 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
American International Group (AIG) named names on Sunday, revealing at long last a lengthy list of payouts it made to its creditors for its catastrophically bad bets -- all with Uncle Sam's bailout cash. Tens of billions were paid out to banks, some that are no longer standing on their own, according to the New York Times. The list includes names like Merrill Lynch ($6.8 billion), Goldman Sachs ($12.9 billion), and Wachovia ($1.5 billion). Overseas banks -- including Deutsche Bank, Societe Generale, Barclays, and UBS -- were also paid off. They claimed a combined $25.5 billion. It doesn't end there. "In total, A.I.G. named nearly 80 companies and municipalities that benefited most from the Fed rescue, though many more that received smaller payments were left out," the newspaper writes. The Wall Street Journal calculates "that roughly two-thirds of the $173.3 billion in federal aid it received has been paid out to trading partners such as banks and municipalities in the U.S. and abroad."
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Posted
Oct 07 2008, 11:09 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Last week, by its own account, Wachovia was a breath away from failing. Today, two of the four biggest banks in the country are literally suing each other for the right to buy the troubled Charlotte-based lender.
As I write this morning, Wachovia's fate is unknown. Whether that will be the case by lunchtime is anyone's guess.
By all accounts, Wells Fargo's bid makes more sense, it being the far stronger firm and eschewing the FDIC's involvement in the transaction. Citigroup, however, has yet to capitalize on the bank firesale its competitors are taking advantage of, and it doesn't want to miss the party.
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Posted
Sep 19 2008, 10:30 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
A week ago, the United States had the most efficient capital allocation system in the world.
Our free-market economy enabled money, credit and resources to be sent to the economic players who needed it. Entrepreneurs could raise money to start new, innovative businesses; researchers could seek out cures for diseases that touch millions of lives, as well as those that afflict just thousands; firms that made enough bad decisions went bankrupt.
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Posted
Sep 05 2008, 07:05 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
If the markets are to take bond guru Bill Gross at his word, the world's financial markets could go through a cataclysmic failure. The head of fixed income fund operation Pimco says that a rapid sale of assets by banks, brokers, and hedge funds will cause the credit system to collapse. Almost all of these companies need cash and none of them wants to be left holding the bag if housing and commercial markets go to pieces.
The unusually eloquent Gross recently wrote "This rarely observed systematic debt liquidation is what confronts the U.S. and perhaps even the global financial system at the current time. Unchecked, it can turn a campfire into a forest fire, a mild asset bear market into a destructive financial tsunami."
Gross wants the US Treasury to move into the market and buy distressed assets to stop the knife from falling.
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Posted
Apr 14 2008, 02:33 PM
by
Matt Koppenheffer
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The details of Wachovia's first-quarter report were unfortunately familiar enough to border on dull. The quarterly loss was $350 million, brought on by some $5 billion in asset impairment and loan related charges. It's also quickly moving to make sure it has enough liquidity by cutting its dividend and raising $7 billion of new capital.
What's more interesting to consider is the fact that Wachovia, like many of its competitors, steered its financial ship directly toward the oncoming storm in the twilight hours of the housing boom. In May of 2006, Wachovia agreed to purchase Golden West Financial, a huge California savings and loan. Though the S&L was very well respected, the deal was fantastically ill-timed as it gave Wachovia tremendous exposure to the bubblicious California real estate market.
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Posted
Nov 06 2008, 09:02 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
There was a morning-after feel to the market yesterday. It wasn't buyers' remorse, exactly, but there was a pause: We found ourselves in the middle of a vast ocean of problems for as far as the eye could see.
The last minute sell-off also re-emerged yesterday; though there wasn't a sense of unbridled fear, there was a sigh of disgust. Very few things worked, and cheap stocks got cheaper.
I'm worried about the market today - and not just because the economic reports are poised to provide further shock and awe. The financials are looking ugly again. The news from Ambac and MBIA was disastrous, and there's a sense of urgency there that means either government intervention - or a 21-gun salute. But so many different industries are asking for help that it's conceivable that none will receive it in time.
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Posted
Sep 07 2008, 09:40 PM
by
Charley Blaine
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Now that the Federal Government has taken control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, what happens next?
Futures trading in U.S. stock indexes suggests the stock market will start the day with a huge rally, with the Dow Jones industrials up at least 250 points, a gain of at least 2%. Asian markets were higher today, and bank stocks in Asia and Australia were higher.
This seems to fly in the fact of such market bears as MSN Money columnist Bill Fleckenstein, who sees more stress ahead for the markets because the economy is so dicey.
Assuming the market moves higher on the day, the big question remains: How much higher can stocks move and for how long?
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