Archive for the 'Economy' Category
Mystery Trader Bets Market Will Crash by a Third
August 26th, 2007Hedging or foreknowledge? Via: Financial News U.S.: An anonymous investor has placed a bet on an index of Europe’s top 50 stocks falling by a third by the end of September, as world equity markets plunged for a third day and volatility hit a three-year high. The mystery investor has bought put option contracts on […]
The Gathering Storm: Interesting Email from the Director of BullionVault
August 26th, 2007WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument. As you probably know, I use BullionVault to hold a small quantity of gold for diversification and cash hedging purposes. Several Cryptogon readers also use BullionVault for their professional gold vaulting needs. I have heard from some of them in private, […]
Military Whistleblowers on Fraud Facing Penalties: “It Was a Wal-Mart for Guns”
August 25th, 2007I post a lot of stories on Cryptogon, but read this one a bit slower than usual and let this sink in. Then check out the related stories below. Via: Forbes: One after another, the men and women who have stepped forward to report corruption in the massive effort to rebuild Iraq have been vilified, […]
Lehman Brothers Shuts Down Subprime Unit, Fires 1,200
August 23rd, 2007Via: Bloomberg: Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the biggest underwriter of U.S. bonds backed by mortgages, became the first firm on Wall Street to close its subprime-lending unit and said 1,200 employees will lose their jobs. … BNC made about $2 billion of loans in the first quarter, down 40 percent from a year earlier, according […]
Late Loans Soar on Troubled Mortgages
August 23rd, 2007Via: Yahoo / Reuters: The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said on Wednesday delinquent loans at U.S. banks jumped 36 percent to $66.9 billion in the second quarter, the biggest quarterly increase since 1990, largely fueled by unpaid real estate loans. Rising U.S. home foreclosures and problems in the subprime mortgage market have spilled into broader […]
Accredited Home Lenders Shuts Down
August 22nd, 2007Mortgage company collapse of the day… Via: AP: Accredited Home Lenders Holding Co. plans to shut down most of its business to survive the troubles in the home lending industry, the company said Wednesday. Accredited Home Lenders said it will cut its work force to 1,000 people — from 2,600 at the end of June […]
Capital One Down for the Count; to Cut 1,900 Jobs
August 21st, 2007Via: Newsday: Turmoil in the financial markets claimed another company with workers in the metropolitan area Monday as Capital One Financial Corp. closed down GreenPoint Mortgage, a mortgage banker with operations in 31 states. Capital One, which acquired GreenPoint when it bought Melville-based North Fork Bancorp last year, said about 1,900 employees nationwide will lose […]
Californians Rush to Pull Money from Countrywide Bank
August 17th, 2007Via: AJC: Anxious customers jammed the phone lines and Web site of Countrywide Bank and crowded its branch offices to pull out their savings because of concerns about the financial problems of the mortgage lender that owns the bank. Countrywide Financial Corp., the biggest home-loan company in the United States, sought Thursday to assure depositors […]
U.S. FEDERAL RESERVE EMERGENCY INTERVENTION
August 17th, 2007Just a couple of hours before this news broke, I wrote: Cheap yen have been greasing the rails for years now. With that stuff going home… The three words that came to my mind were: global liquidity crisis But maybe not. There are lots of black ops bankers out there with who-knows-what funny money mechanisms […]
TOKYO: NIKKEI 225 DROPS 5.4%
August 17th, 2007Via: CNN: Japanese shares closed sharply lower on Friday, with the benchmark Nikkei index posting its biggest single-day point decline since April 2000 as the sharp rise in the yen hit exporters, aggravating concerns about a tightening global credit market. Worries about a global credit crisis accelerated the unwinding of yen carry trades, resulting in […]
