September 2008

Lehman Brothers has filed for the largest corporate bankruptcy in American history.   Let's put it into persective.   Enron listed $63 billion in assets when it filed for Chapter 11 in 2001.   WorldCom, which until now was the biggest bankruptcy, listed $103 billion in assets.   On its latest filing, Lehman listed $639 billion.   Lehman looks to be the biggest corporate bankruptcy ... read more

In 12 years in business journalism, I have never seen such a troublesome or confusing time.   While Lehman teeters on the brink and there are reports that Merrill Lynch may be bought by Bank of America, the question becomes: what does this mean for Main Street? The answer isn't fully known yet and may not be for some time, but we know it's not good. If Lehman Brothers fails and is ... read more

We will be live on Fox Business Network at 8pm ET Sunday night to discuss what is certain to be a busy weekend on Wall Street and in Texas. In addition to the continued questions surrounding Lehman Brothers (LEH), Washington Mutual (WM) and now American International Group (AIG), keep an eye on Hurricane Ike.  The storm is big, powerful and moving into Texas.   The read more

Just did the update on Hurricane Ike with Accuweather.  Mentioned the storm's path toward Houston and parts of Texas.    Today Valero announced its closing its Texas City refinery.   Watch others do the same. Here is list of 20 biggest U.S. refineries: 1 EXXONMOBIL REFINING & SUPPLY CO Texas BAYTOWN 567,000   2 EXXONMOBIL REFINING & SUPPLY CO Louisiana BATON ... read more

Lehman Brothers (LEH), Washington Mutual (WM) and other banks like Merrill Lynch (MER) are tumbling again. The credit default swaps (basically a measure of risk on the bonds of a company) are soaring on Lehman, which in plain english means that the bond market is also pricing in much risk on the company.   We know the stock market has already done this by selling the stock to where it is ... read more

A quick entry on the breaking Lehman news: LEHMAN CFO SAYS ITS ALT-A MORTGAGE ASSETS MARKED DOWN TO $0.39 PER $1 PAR LEHMAN CFO SAYS SUBPRIME MORTGAGE ASSETS MARKED DOWN TO $0.34 PER $1 PAR VS $0.55 IN Q2 LEHMAN CFO SAYS ASSET BACKED CDOS MARKED DOWN TO $0.29 PER $1 PAR VS $0.35 IN Q2 What this means is that Lehman (LEH) has put a new, lower value on the assets everyone is worried about ... read more

The Treasury hasn't - and won't - use the term "nationalization" to describe its plan for housing, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  It doesn't have to.  It's clear enough. In a remarkable turn of events, the Treasury announced today it will take over Fannie (FNM) and Freddie (FRE).   The plan includes billions in purchases by the government of preferred shares of these two companies.   It ... read more

We know that oil producers around the globe are making big profits with crude trading above $100 per barrel.   What we didn't know - until now - was exactly how much.   The numbers are staggering. Friday we interviewed Lukoil's (LUKOY) Head of Business Strategy, Andrei Gaidamaka.   I asked him what Lukoil's cost-per-barrel is, not expecting an answer.   But we got one.   And that ... read more

Music is a big part of my life and for a while now I've been creating regular music mixes for friends.   I figure that there is so much negative news in these markets it might be fun to have a little ... well ...  fun.    So I'm going to try to post a monthly music playlist of new songs I'm listening to on this blog (and also because its easier than sending out the mass emails) to ... read more

I understand inflation fighting mandates, but I do not understand why the European Central Bank is so dogmatic about sticking to its mandate in the face of major Eurozone economic slowdowns. This morning the ECB kept interest rates unchanged at 4.25%.    It's an effort to cool inflation, which is running at a hot 4.4%.   But while inflation remains a problem, the ... read more