Categories: Credit Crisis

Women with Kids Cut Spending Most During Recession

Posted by: Lauren Young on October 14

Women with children are feeling the impact of the economic downturn most profoundly, according to a new survey. “Women with children are tightening their purse strings and protecting their lairs,”...

After Lehman: What Lessons Have Investors Learned?

Posted by: Lauren Young on August 31

We are closing in on the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers. I’m looking for individual investors to talk the impact of the market meltdown. Since last fall,...

Banks Still Threatened by Toxic Assets

Posted by: Ben Levisohn on June 29

Investors appear to have put the banking crisis behind them, but they might want to reconsider. The Bank of International Settlement, an international organization of central banks, today announced today...

A Contrarian View on Credit-Related Investments?

Posted by: Lauren Young on May 29

There are two stories in the new issue of BusinessWeek about credit. I wrote a piece about fund managers eschewing credit-related stocks for credit-related debt. And our Inside Wall Street...

Will E*Trade Take the TARP Tack?

Posted by: Ben Steverman on April 29

A full-scale crisis hit the world's financial system last fall, but for E*Trade Financial (ETFC) by that point it was old hat. A crisis of confidence began for E*Trade a...

Predicting Bank Stress Test Results

Posted by: Ben Steverman on April 24

The U.S. Treasury today releases the methodology for its "stress test" of major U.S. banks, but the full results may not be known until May 4. The results matter to...

How to Market "Toxic" Funds to Investors

Posted by: Lauren Young on March 27

My editor asks this question: If individual investors are going to be offered "toxic" asset funds, what euphemism will be used to market them? "Junk" is taken. "Trash"? "Other-Side-of-the-Tracks? Today's...

What Would You Ask Bank CEOs?

Posted by: Ben Steverman on March 26

President Barack Obama meets on Friday with the heads of the country's largest banks. Chief executives of about a dozen banks, including Bank of America (BAC), JP Morgan Chase (JPM),...

Is Citigroup’s Reverse Stock Split a Smart Move?

Posted by: Lauren Young on March 19

Last week I wrote a story about a pending boom of reverse stock splits. In that piece, Anton Schutz, manager of the Burnham Financial Services Fund (BURKX), predicted that Citigroup...

GE’s Ratings Rally: Where Does The Stock Go Now?

Posted by: Lauren Young on March 12

You would think a ratings downgrade would send General Electric (GE) reeling. Think again. In midday trading, General Electric was up 11.54% to $9.47. Since 1956, General Electric has carried...

A New Sign That The Government Bailout Isn't Working

Posted by: Emily Thornton on February 17

Here's an interesting new way to measure how much the government's bailout is, or perhaps in this case isn't, working: The Ethisphere Institute, a non-partisan research think tank, has just...

RGE Estimates $3.6 Trillion in U.S. Loan and Securities Losses

Posted by: Lauren Young on January 22

I just got this alert from economic doomsayer Nouriel Roubini's shop RGE Monitor, and it isn't pretty. Nouriel Roubini and Elisa Parisi-Capone of RGE Monitor release new estimates for expected...

Lack of SEC oversight and enforcement at the center of too many messes

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on December 17

Once again, the Securities and Exchange Commission is apologizing for failing to do its job. This time it's the agency admitting that it had credible allegations of wrongdoing at Bernie...

How to fix the real estate mess: Wharton professor's view

Posted by: Lauren Young on December 12

In the current issue of BusinessWeek, I co-authored a story featuring four experts on how to fix the housing mess. For space reasons, I couldn't include my interview with Joseph...

What If Lehman Brothers Was Saved?

Posted by: Lauren Young on December 09

Over the past week, I’ve been interviewing investors, economists, and other financial experts for BusinessWeek’s upcoming Investment Outlook issue. Again and again, many of these informed folks bring up the...

For M&A, It’s the New Ice Age

Posted by: Ben Steverman on December 01

The mergers-and-acquisitions market has slowed down so much it's almost in reverse. According to Thomson Reuters, the size of M&A deals cancelled in the fourth quarter now almost matches the...

More Perspective on the Crisis

Posted by: Ben Steverman on November 26

Here are several interesting notes that came across my desk in the last 24 hours. (Sorry no links -- the full notes aren't available online.) They concern topic number one...

Bid Day in Bailout Land

Posted by: Ben Levisohn on November 25

Despite spending over $300 billion of the $700 billion allotted by Congress, the Treasury department's TARP program has done little to get banks lending. But fear not -- the FDIC...

The Alaska Permanent Fund Loses $10 billion

Posted by: Ben Levisohn on November 04

On Sunday, the Anchorage Daily News reported that the Alaska Permanent Fund, formerly home to $40.4 billion in investments, fell to $33 billion in the 3rd quarter, before losing another...

Credit Card, College Deals for the Creditworthy

Posted by: Lauren Young on October 24

I wrote a story for this week’s issue about tightening credit standards and how borrowers with great credit rule the roost. The financial elite can certainly find deals on credit...

Do we need to regulate lending with a Financial Products Safety Commission?

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on October 24

There's an interesting proposal for fixing part of what went wrong in the credit crisis over at Harper's magazine written by Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren and her daughter...

Where's my rate cut?

Posted by: Ben Levisohn on October 15

The ongoing financial crisis -- and even bulls would have to admit after today's 9% drop in the S&P 500 that it's not likely to end soon -- began in...

On the second day, the market shrugged

Posted by: Ben Levisohn on October 14

Following yesterday’s breathtaking moves, the Dow finished today down 76.62. While investors certainly would have liked to see another big up day -- remember the market opened up around 300...

Nice bounce but will the bond market follow?

Posted by: Ben Levisohn on October 13

At 10:30 today, it was still unclear whether the markets would hold onto their gains or if Bears would take view it as a selling opportunity. The VIX, commonly known...

The Joke's On Us

Posted by: Ben Levisohn on October 07

In his October 1 testimony before the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services, Henry Hu, Allan Shivers Chair in the Law of Banking and Finance at the University of...

Community Reinvestment Act had nothing to do with subprime crisis

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on September 29

Fresh off the false and politicized attack on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, today we're hearing the know-nothings blame the subprime crisis on the Community Reinvestment Act -- a 30-year-old...

Oakmark Boots WaMu: Too Late?

Posted by: Lauren Young on September 26

This item was written by Lewis Braham, who recently authored a piece on focused funds for BusinessWeek In a surprisingly anti-climactic turn of events Oakmark Funds' manager Bill Nygren issued...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were victims, not culprits

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on September 26

There's a dangerous -- and misleading -- argument making the rounds about the causes of our current credit crisis. It's emanating from Washington where politicians are engaging in the usual...

Warren Buffett v. Uncle Sam: Who got the better deal?

Posted by: Ben Levisohn on September 25

Sure, AIG's an overextended insurance company on the brink, while Goldman is a profitable investment bank forced to raise cash and reduce leverage. Of course, the Oracle of Omaha made...

Credit Crunch: What the Pros Are Telling Nervous Investors

Posted by: Lauren Young on September 15

Here's a round up of questions posed to top money managers, financial advisers, and economists about the market meltdown on Monday: Mohamed El-Erian, co-CEO, Pimco, and author of When Markets...

Dear Citigroup: Vikram Pandit Assures Employees

Posted by: Lauren Young on September 15

Here's an item from associate editor Mara Derhovanesian In a move to bolster morale and head off negative sentiment in the markets, Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit shot off an email...

Lehman's Swaps Reach Bear's Levels

Posted by: Lauren Young on September 11

This was written by Ben Levisohn, a staff editor at BusinessWeek Yesterday, Lehman Brothers tried to defuse massive talk of its imminent demise as an independent firm by disclosing plans...

Bill Gross Wants a Housing Bailout

Posted by: Ben Steverman on September 04

PIMCO 'Bond King' Bill Gross' monthly investment outlooks are entertaining and widely read, and today's September note might even have contributed to today's 3% drop in the stock market. Gross'...

Credit Crisis 2009?

Posted by: Ben Steverman on August 11

What will the credit crisis look like on its second anniversary? BW colleague Will Andrews offers his tongue-in-cheek predictions: After another orgy of writedowns and a Niagara of red ink...