Citigroup & Merrill Lynch At Risk Of Bankruptcy?
Major Wall St. Banks LOSSES Exceed ASSETS
Merrill Lynch Under SEC Investigation
Citigroup and Merrill Lynch take drastic steps over subprime fallout
Examining the nature of the assets being written down suggests that we are not close to the end of Wall Street's bad news. Subprime mortgages and the asset-backed derivatives thereof form a large part of the write-offs, but even in this area we do not appear to be approaching the bottom of the cycle. If, as seems likely, my own August 2006 forecast of a 15-20% decline in house prices and a $1 trillion write-off from the $11 trillion in mortgage debt is close to accurate, Wall Street should still have several hundred billion to go, even in that area - total write-offs so far, including the new Citigroup and Merrill Lynch announcements, only just top $100 billion.
