12 replies to this topic

[dice]

given the recent failure of indymac, is there a good website to find out about the financial health of a bank?

[killerparties]

Banks try to keep that stuff under lock and key. But there might be a rumor-mill site.

[tweed]

i need a construction loan for an addition. My regular mortgage lender just told me he can't find anyone making construction loans anymore (!?!!). I called Chase and they're still doing them (with a really stringent approval process of course) but I'm flying blind just calling banks at random to compare rates. Anyone have a better suggestion how to find the best lender for that sorta thing?

[boobs]

everyones belt-tightening but word is chase is a safe bet right now although they are also total assholes

[helmet52]

given the recent failure of indymac, is there a good website to find out about the financial health of a bank?

Actually, the trend in a company's share price should be a fairly good indication. For the record, I think the majority of the crisis is over for the larger and middle-tier banks. The Treasury and Fed appear to have done an adequate job over the past week in restoring confidence.

[held]

Washington Mutual has $3.33 billion Q2 loss Tue Jul 22, 2008 4:27pm EDT Related News Wachovia loses $8.86 billion, slashes jobs 8:23am EST Merrill posts $4.9 billion loss, sells Bloomberg stake 18 Jul 2008 FDIC halts foreclosure on IndyMac mortgages: Bair 14 Jul 2008 The net loss equaled $6.58 per share, reflecting a one-time adjustment related to the Seattle-based thrift's capital issuance in April. Excluding that change, Washington Mutual said it lost $3.34 per share, compared with a profit of $830 million, or 92 cents per share, a year earlier. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Gary Hill) Pickens sees $300 oil unless U.S. cuts crude imports Tue Jul 22, 2008 2:27pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Oil prices will hit $300 a barrel in 10 years if the United States fails to reduce its dependence on foreign imports, billionaire oil investor T. Boone Pickens told U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday. The United States imports nearly 70 percent of its oil and Pickens said the world's top petroleum-consuming nation would import 80 percent in a decade if it does not aggressively tap its own natural gas and renewable resources. "If we continue to drift, oil will hit $300 a barrel in 10 years," Pickens testified at a hearing of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. He testified as the Senate planned to debate energy legislation amid calls for more oil drilling to help lower oil prices which hit a record this month of over $147 a barrel. Pickens has been touring the country pushing a plan under which domestic natural gas supplies would be used to power cars instead of electrical power plants. The federal government and private investors would build a massive wind farm system in the middle of the country from Mexico to Canada to provide electricity. Pickens, who heads the hedge fund BP Capital, stands to benefit from such a program. He's building a 4,000 megawatt, $10 billion wind farm in northern Texas that should start generating power in 2011. Industry group the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) has said the Pickens plan could work if the government renews the production tax credit for renewable energy, preferably for longer than a year or two. Growth in U.S. wind power has been dramatic. Preliminary figures show the United States in July may have surpassed Germany as the world's largest generator of wind power, AWEA said. "We're on track to doing that, if it hasn't happened already," said an AWEA spokeswoman. Wind could generate 20 percent of U.S. electricity by 2030, only slightly less than natural gas currently fires, the Department of Energy said in a report. EMINENT DOMAIN Building transmission lines and securing corridors to bring wind power from the heartland to the coasts would be a major effort. "I think we're talking eminent domain," Pickens told reporters after the hearing, referring to the practice in which the government sometimes seizes private property with monetary compensation. He said bringing the power to the coasts would take an effort similar to former president Dwight Eisenhower's building of the national highway system during the Cold War. It could cost hundreds of billions of dollars to develop wind power. Pickens said reduced crude oil imports could pay. Natural gas analysts were less certain the country can convert quickly from its gasoline- and diesel-based vehicle transport and fueling systems. Chris Kostas, analyst at Energy Security Analysis Inc in Boston, said growing oil demand from developing countries like China and India could keep crude prices rising even if the United States succeeded in cutting oil imports. Some 8 million vehicles in the world run on natural gas, with only about 140,000 in the United States, said Pickens, who owns a Honda car that runs on natural gas. House Democrats were to hold a closed door caucus meeting with Pickens on Tuesday evening to discuss his plan. (Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by David Gregorio)

[helmet52]

In light of the bad headline news for the sector, the stocks of this sector have increased massively over the past 5 days.

Wachovia +85%
B. of America +75%
WAMU +62%
Citigroup +45%
Merrill +39%
Lehmann +53%

Investors seem very confident that the worst is over. Today's headlines are actually really old news.

[dice]

Texas Ratio

well done. i found a fantastic reference right after creating this thread:

http://dealbreaker.c...rywhoisnext.pdf

dude who wrote this report actually got sued by bankatlantic. anyway, the second table (pages 5 and 6) gives a ratio essentially of debts to assets that i'll call the FUCKED ratio. the average FUCKED ratio of the thousands of federally insured banks nationwide in Q1 2008 was 17.4%

FUCKED ratios (and respective stock prices) for some major banks:

indymac 146.2% ($0)
wamu 40.6% ($6)
FHN 27.7% ($9)
nat. city 25.7% ($5)
suntrust 15.7% ($40)
key 14.1% ($12)
wachovia 12.0% ($17)
comerica 10.9% ($31)
wells fargo 10.3% ($30)
citi 10.3% ($21)
BB&T 8.9% ($29)
BOA 8.0% ($32)
regions 7.8% ($11)
usbancorp 6.8% ($30)
chase 5.2% ($41)
PNC 4.8% ($70)
state street 0% ($74)

it appears that stock price tends to work pretty well too for the most part

of course, if you've got your money in a FDIC insured bank, you're safe up to $100,000. and i heard the other day that only 4% of banks are in danger of failing over the next couple of years. don't wanna unduly concern anybody!

[crease]

helmet is basically right, imho. the market has done a pretty good job of calibrating the risk of failure. for instance, wamu has essentially cratered, with the market discounting a very significant chance of bankruptcy into the stock price. bear in mind that these are confidence businesses. they rely on the public/institutions trust, lever-up/rent-out their balance sheets under that predicate, and then collect fees or spread income. if trust evaporates, really bad things can happen, like depositors running the bank (see also: countrywide, etrade, indymac) or lenders/counterparties pulling back (example writ large: bear stearns). when a bank is starved of capital and, moreover, when the market is reluctant to infuse the bank with additional capital, this can cause a very serious problem. which is to say that while i personally don't think we're going to see a large-scale bank failure, you usually don't see them coming. i think what's beginning to happen is the market regaining the ability to size some of the risks that the banks are facing from their marks. part of the rally in wachovia today probably stemmed from the idea that the bank is starting to take its medicine and make its marks (even if the biggest piece was a goodwill writeoff). it's still a black box to a large extent given that no one really knows how much deeper the housing sell-off will cut. the silver lining in all of this is that people have gotten a chance to see just how smart/savvy jamie dimon is. if it wasn't clear before, it ought to be now, as he'll probably be able to pick up other valuable assets (super-regionals with big footprints in the south/southeast/california) on the cheap by sheer virtue of the fact that the word 'no' was part of his vocabulary. contrast that with john mack, who did a fantastic job of calling the top by urging his people to regain their 'swagger' just as the LBO/private equity/housing bubble was set to pop (file him under 'totally overrated/deserves to be canned').

[musicgurl]

Will you guys let me know when I need to start putting my money under the mattress or in the freezer? Hey Helmet, how are things job wise with you? Did everything turn out OK?

[helmet52]

Will you guys let me know when I need to start putting my money under the mattress or in the freezer?

Hey Helmet, how are things job wise with you? Did everything turn out OK?

Thanks for asking musicgurl!!!

Everything turned out great - I was one of the lucky souls to be retained by JP Morgan after Bear Stearns collapsed. They gave me a great deal and a crazy signing bonus. The whole Bear ordeal was so surreal to me that I don't think it ever truly registered. It was like "holy shit. I just lost everything - my career and 10 years of savings". Fortunately, JPM got in front of me immediately and I had a strong suspicion that I'd be saved. I came out of the whole disaster without a scratch. I feel incredibly fortunate.

[Mitchell]

Bank City State “Texas-ratio” Colorado Federal Savings Bank Greenwood Village CO 244.8 Eastern Savings Bank, FSB Hunt Valley MD 222.7 Integrity Bank Alpharetta GA 191.6 Ameribank, Inc. Welch WV 153.7 First Priority Bank Bradenton FL 122.6 First Security National Bank Norcross GA 112.1 Magnet Bank Salt Lake City UT 110.4 Security Pacific Bank Los Angeles CA 102.8 First National Bank of Brookfield Brookfield IL 102.1 The State Bank of Lebo Lebo KS 100.6 Source: Research Associates of America