Maybe Wachovia could buy them.

Last bank standing.

Citigroup, responding to report it may seek merger, repeats it has very strong capital and liquidity, and is focused on executing strategy to generate benefits over time

I had a question for anyone.

That list of borrowers for the TARP that CR posted. Was that the list that Bloomberg was suing the Gov. to get?

TIA
....

"Was that the list that Bloomberg was suing the Gov. to get?"

No. Bloomberg wanted the list of crap the Fed was taking for collateral in all of its alphabet soup programs.

Topus Secretus.

Sorry, Plant.

I must type faster.

Some pissed off trader probably sold some derivatives and repriced Citi's book to junk.

Trader Al-Dubaie and Barffett should buy more.

Prince Smokinweed increased his ownership from 4% to 5%, and the stock immediately fell 25%.

If he doubles his stake will it get cut in half?

Thread music -

YouTube - Duffy - Mercy - Official Music Video

"I'm begging you for mercy, mercy"

Did the Saudi prince say that he was buying an additional 1%? Maybe he shorted 1% for a hedge.

this is what we might call a 5.0 self countersinker

Screwfix.com - Trade Prices | Massive Range | Fast & Reliable

"comrade tinman writes:
can't wait til we can start squatting the glass citi tower in queens and start the grow rooms ;)"

Damn Fine Idea! And a short walk to the beach too!

"Updated 2008 version of "ring around the rosie" alludes to the bank plague
Anonymous | 11.20.08 - 9:01 pm | # "

Snopes says no.

snopes.com: Ring Around the Rosie

Yo Chuck Prince

You still dancing ?

What a cluster F*** !

Maybe Buffett can write another editorial to convince sheeple that all is well with american finance and industry.

Anonymous writes USA in talks with Gulf states, "this is the deal... ------- Sounds a lot more like blackmail than a request

Perhaps they can sell off Vikram's old hedge fund to raise some money... oops!

Timeline please... it's short!

April 13, 2007: Citi Buys Pandit's Hedge Fund ... There has been talk in recent days that Pandit could become a succession candidate to Prince...

May 16, 2008: Pandit's hedge fund not faring well ... The news that Citigroup will essentially wind down Old Lane, the hedge fund firm that Citigroup bought for $800 million, may stand as an omen.

June 12, 2008: Citigroup Closes Vikram Pandit's Hedge Fund ... Well, this is embarrassing. Citigroup has made the decision to shut down their Old Land hedge fund, which they bought just under a year ago for a whopping $800 million, from the guy who is now the company's CEO.

Lucky they've the TARP funds to pay bonuses to keep talent like this!

Bank, bank, Citi Citi bank bank we love you!

As to the world's smartest investor; BRK-A ia almost a half from this summer. Back to 2003 levels.

Am I the only one to notice that home prices and stock prices are basically retracing to past levels in tandem? It's almost like a coordinated effort to strip Baby Boomers of any claims to tangible assets before they could cash out.

DCRogers thanks for posting that. I didnt know the time line. Makes me sick all and all. Lets face it Jas was right and it f'in sucks....

I never new that Citibank was a real bank. Where are the branches?

"Neat storyline, was not aware of that
EvilHenryPaulson | 11.20.08 - 9:13 pm | #"

Me neither. I'm liking the AG Nom more and more.

Its AIG 2.0 I guess. How many ppl were working in AIG. I know C has 350,000.
Thaksin | 11.20.08 - 9:19 pm | #

Work program. Instead of digging and filling in holes, they are pushing paper.

More destructive than holes however.

Am I the only one to notice that home prices and stock prices are basically retracing to past levels in tandem?

That's the nature of the credit cycle. I was trying to explain that to my brother last night. He's listened my palaver before but now that he's down something like, well, into the six digits, he's got a sudden graveyard serious interest.

Unfortunately, I told him what I really expect over the next five years and his face turned kind of pasty, like the Pillsbury Doughboy.

Dough-boy.
Get it?
ha ha.

It's really, really bad if we're having to borrow $300 billion form the Arabs. Oh, man, that's really bad.

"Lorax, Onceler?

Out of my league guys
EvilHenryPaulson | 11.20.08 - 9:20 pm | #"

No kids? Or is Suess too leftist these days? Pretty popular fellow in my day.

I would not be surprised if the $300 Billion request to the arab nations is directly related to the $510 Billion in outstanding SFP short-term treasuries that will all mature between 11/20 and 1/20/09

Sweet, maybe I can buy the glass steagall pen from an office furniture liquidator for pennies!

What did they think was going to happen after they put it up on the wall? The Universe won't stand for sh*t like that.

I don't get it. I thought 300 billion was chump change these days.

Blackhalo,
I have no idea whom or what Lorax and Onceler are. Suess too for that matter

EHP - it's Dr Seuss. One of the best sociologists of the last 50 years.

Try teh googles:
Lorax
The Sneetches
Pale Green Pants
The Zax
Mrs McCave

And bo oh boy you'll get some metaphors.

Not marketed in Canada? Jeez, criminal.

CC

Metro Atlanta Business News | ajc.com
FDIC’s Atlanta office is in hiring mode
Banking crisis means regulator could boost staff by 10% next year

Bond Girl,
Paulson's speech was more or less trying to pre-empt Sarkozy who recently surprised him by announcing a conference in January

Theme was the US was ahead of the game in calling for regulation (Paulson's contention of course) and so the rest of the world should follow its lead in establishing a new international regulatory/clearinghouse regime

I bid on the Vikings for $1.

I'm not sure if others have noticed, but those blips on the "credit crisis" chart have grown progressive larger since the original warning sign of subprime mortgager implosion.

The TARP and Federal Reserver accounts act like a battery or capacitance in an electrical circuit. How well the battery is charged doesn't matter at the current moment in time.

What matters is current flow.

If we're having to borrow $300 billion from the Arabs, then I strongly suspect the "current" portion of the economy is failing.

I.E. we're on the verge of large scale revulsion, no acceptance of US dollars.

I kind of hope this isn't true.
But I expect it at some point.

"WM is busy gearing up for Bernanke's big push. Not all garbage trucks are what they seem to be these days."

That's it. There aren't enough helicopters, so they're going to toss bales of dollars out of garbage trucks.

Have we ever had to borrow money from foreign countries before?

Buy 1 bank get 1 free!

Broward, how could it possibly be true that we need to borrow 300 billion from the arabs? Like I said above, this just doesn't seem like much money at this point.

Citigroup? More like Shittygroup. Amirite?

Y.T. : Have you been paying attention to the latest Treasury offerings? No one is showing up...how else are we going to rollover our debt except getting loans directly from other countries (and eventually the IMF...)

Crime doesn't pay.

(Unless you're senior enough to get a fat severance package. Then it pays handsomely.)

Wouldn't C make for one h*ll of a bank failure Friday, though?

Nemo | Homepage | 11.20.08 - 9:30 pm

I think this is more of a Sunday night candidate.

how could it possibly be true that we need to borrow 300 billion from the arabs? Like I said above, this just doesn't seem like much money at this point

Well, I hate to second-guess it but maybe the Feds are just trying to keep the oil flowing for now.

I agree that it seems small in comparison but that's why I wrote the "voltage vs current" metaphor.

If we need that $300 billion to meet immediate bills because nobody will take dollars...

that would be really bad.

bond guy: So you're claiming the Treasury auctions over the past few weeks have been successful?

Elvis don't get me started on CalPERS.

Here's a jaw dropping Bloomberg article:

Calpers Sold Private-Equity Stakes Ahead of Crisis (Update1) - Bloomberg.com

Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) -- California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the largest U.S. public pension fund, is back in the market for stakes in private-equity funds after selling $2 billion of partnerships earlier this year.

“It’s now a better time to be a buyer of secondary than a seller,” Leon Shahinian, Calpers’ senior investment officer for alternative asset management, said in an interview. In the secondary market, investors trade interests in private-equity funds originally sold by buyout and venture capital firms.

Calpers sold stakes in 80 partnerships managed by 60 firms at the end of 2007, likely for higher prices than what they’d get now, Shahinian said.

citizen energyecon writes:
Y.T.,

Why would you think that with one day left before the contracts expire worthless?
citizen energyecon | Homepage | 11.20.08 - 9:40 pm | #

I think I wasn't clear. I'm just saying I think you need to compare call volume to put volume. If they are order of magnitude similar it isn't bullish or bearish is it?

mykilik,
They have in fact had heavy demand
Institutional - Latest Auction Data

That "U.S. seeks $300 billion from Gulf states"  thing sounds a bit like B.S. to me. Or maybe just some kind of confusion, like we asked them to do something that they think will cost billions...

Would like to see some corroboration from, you know, a news agency.

FDIC: FDIC Loan Modification Program Guide – "Mod in a Box"

TANTA BAIT ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT!

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This guide provides an overview of the FDIC's program to assist bankers, servicers, and investors in this process. It outlines FDIC program terms at IndyMac Federal Bank, offers insight into the specific portfolio characteristics that drive modification modeling at that bank, and provides a framework for developing and implementing a similar program at your institution.

Loan Modification Program Overview - PDF (PDF Help)
Includes details including the philosophy, process, and promotion of the program.

Additional Program Tools - PDF 452K (PDF Help)
Includes marketing materials, workout program guidelines, and investor reporting tools for use in the program.

Marketing Materials
Counseling Compensation Agreement (Word Help)

Investor Reporting
Sample Grid for Determining PSA Modification Parameters (Word Help)
Loan Modification Reporting (Excel Help)

So they took 25bln 3 weeks ago in exchange for preferred stock and now they are worthless? Talk about adverse selection...
Hm. I wonder what offshort did those 25bil go....

It's running on an AFP byline. Here's a Google listing for the straight AFP article:

A href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hRHG8vaKg_32jRp6NiGAy6OBWYCg">link

And you're worried about the U.S. paying it's oil bills?

The rest of the world has been laying a foundation to abandon the dollar for several years. Virtually no Americans pay attention to this, however.

I am not worried about the US paying its bills.

I haven't loaned it any money.

It's running on an AFP byline. Here's a Google listing for the straight AFP article:

(oops:)

link

EHP,

Read that book when I was a freshman in college 24 years ago. At the time, I was science and math focused and hated the literature/composition classes, but I loved that novel so much that I pretty much read every Dostoevsky novel I could find in the college library.

I would also recommend reading The Brothers Karamazov. I liked that one even better.

Yancey - IMO Brothers is much more complex and crushes all the others under its weight. Its like 800 pages and you wish it were bigger.

mykillk,
I don't know what was behind that so I can only say that failure was an outlier. Other auctions both shorter and longer have had bids for 3-4x the cover.

bond guy,
Thanks. I'm just trying to understand what common factors are now creating a rush of covering on swaps. fwiw, bond girl last night posted about the continuing debacle of Japan's power reverse dual currency notes and their involvement in the swaps

EHP: It doesn't help that trying to understand bonds is like trying to understand chinese =]

"One of every 10 American homeowners has stopped making mortgage payments
Broward Horne | Homepage | 11.20.08 - 9:53 pm | #"

What!? Well I guess I would stop too, if I was underwater and knew I was not going to be evicted. Still that number is too big to be believable to me.

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

~~~~

Fraud changes everything ...

FFDIC - did you see that they are going to halt construction on the Stoneleigh in uptown Dallas? Evidently the crane comes down next week with only 10 of 22 stories complete.
Mr. Sparkle | 11.20.08 - 9:57 pm | #

That was a bad deal to begin with Sparkles. Whassup in LH?

"Paulson is a complete idiot. When he said he wouldn't draw down the other half of the TARP, he set it up for the hedgies to short the hell out of the financials to call his bluff. That guy is the worst treasury secretary imaginable."

I can not imagine he is that thick. Perhaps it was a strategy to fund GS to acquire all competitors at bargain prices.

Who's law was it about malice and stupidity?

Yes, I know the "300 billion from Arab states" story is on AFP. They in turn are citing some local Kuwaiti newspaper.

Forgive me if I am skeptical, but the only thing I trust less than the Western media is the Arab media.

Citigroup's board of directors is scheduled to have a formal meeting Friday to discuss the options ...
~~~~

I'm guessing that's tomorrow ...

bond guy: What is the size of money raised through auctions compared to money raised over open market treasury purchases?

BofA, nope. They cant take C too, without a ginormous TARP extension, which Hankie just ruled out.

bond guy --

To justify current pricing, you have to assume that the Authorities are largely impotent in the face of deflation.

Has there ever been a case in history where this was true (with a fiat currency)?

EHP: The first link I posted was, as you said, a noncompetitive result. The 2nd two I posted (30 year and 30 day) were competitive

Regulators Take Steps to Monitor Some Thrifts - WSJ.com
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is paying closer attention to roughly 100 community banks with large exposure to weak commercial real-estate loans, one in a series of moves by federal regulators to try to head off the next phase in the credit crisis.

Despite the $700 billion rescue plan that Treasury is using to pump capital into hundreds of banks and thrifts, regulators continue to mobilize initiatives to stabilize the banking sector. Federal officials have faced criticism in recent months about not doing enough to head off the financial crisis. Steps regulators are taking come ...

mykillk, from your 9:30pm link
Tendered / Accepted
Total $94,778,823,900 / $37,938,128,900

$2.5 bid for every $1 auctioned, where is the problem?

Cracker(Unrated) writes:
yes I speak texican mandarise with a french accent.

translatable but ya gotta ask biz ruins for the text for translation.

What character set is that written in? The one that represents curses in old comic strips?

bond guy,

Are you in a position to know that the swap/30yr situation is being caused by exotics? This just seems to be the new theory to me, because last week it was pensions.

I'd really like to know what the magnitude of their exposure is, because this was quite the movement today.

craigslist(Unrated) writes:
So, does anyone here think that class warfare will ensue with what's happening in this economy?

4th grade v. 5th grade.

I thought a b2c in the 2 range was pretty low, but I was not aware that the the 'typical' b2c ratio is different between different term Treasuries as Austin Tex just pointed out

Austin Tex,
Two heads, one mind.

At first I thought mykillk had found the auction where the Treasury had reduced the amount auctioned (sometime in the last month, or am I imagining it?) until I re-read it

So, does anyone here think that class warfare will ensue with what's happening in this economy?
craigslist

According to Buffett we already are in a class war, and I'm not winning.

AlSeyassah is known for putting out planted material, I think running this with no corroboration was a lapse on the part of the AFP desk and you won't see anything further about it. But it isn't a reflection on the Arab media any more than the National Enquirer, say is a reflection on the state of Florida

13 is the magick number...
A stock trading 13x less than it was 13 weeks ago, will kiss its own asshole in 13 days.

@EHP: Re "failed" auction. I don't know that there was an auction that didn't cover, but I think as the eye of the storm passed over in the fortnight before the election till about now, there were some pretty weak auctions.

But if they were weak now, with bills at 10bps and 30 yrs at 3.50 -all historical lows- and with A&M in the running for the national championship, and negative swap spreads, that all would add up to the Second Coming being right after Thanksgiving.

Wonder why the Chinese haven't dumped a few treasuries ... the prices are right ...

Omaha Slim:
“When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated. But as long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance. We’re still dancing".

"And when it does, we'll have ducked out early with two dames and left Pandit to get his ass beat in the parking lot by the greasers."

"Or is that my outloud voice?"

So far, I've seen about four theories on the swap issue: 1) pensions hedging who knows what, 2) investors hedging illiquid corporates, 3) yen plays, and then also saw this today on ACT:

"The 30 year swap rate is 2.84. It has dropped about 80 basis points on the day and is about 60 basis points rich to the 30 year Treasury.I just spoke with an options trader about this historic move. He said that there structured product trades buried in trading books all over the world which are melting. There is a massive short in the 30 year sector (in Treasury paper and in the swap market) which resulted from sales of cheap volatility. Some of these positions have been on the books of various entities for years and it is only recently that the chickens have come home to roost. Each time the spread turns more negative, that movement forces some one to receive in swaps to hedge there position. There are short the long end trades in every permutation and combination along the curve. The receiving creates a self fulfilling prophecy which compels someone else to receive. He had no opinion on when this would end."

(And of course some QE theories about.)

Whatever it is, it does get exhausting listening to the talking heads say there was a flight to quality across the curve. This stuff is unrelated to the short term. But it might make some of the fiscal strategies more affordable if it continues....

Citigroup Inc., which fell as much as 25 percent in New York trading today, is urging the Securities and Exchange Commission to revive a prohibition on short-selling financial stocks, according to a person familiar with the matter.

~~~~

Where is the uptick rule anyway ? Cox sucking his thumb or just part of the assault on equity?