cool graphic – When Blood Is on the Street – Neil Weinberg, Bernard Condon and Emily Stewart  – JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon joins a line of investors who have tried to turn panic into profits.  -  Forbes
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Another 75 – How much ammo is left in that fed funds gun? – Interesting reaction yesterday at the Chicago Board of Trade to the Fed’s decision to reduce its target for the fed funds rate by 75 basis points to a new objective of 2.25%. … To put these numbers in perspective, prior to January of this year, the Fed had not made a cut as large as 75 basis points in a single move in the available 25-year history of the series. And yet now we’ve reached a point where we’re surprised when the cut is “only” 75 basis points….  James Hamilton – Econbrowser 

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Great News! Housing Starts and Permits Plummet! – … Given that the enormous overhang in inventory is a huge part of the problem, this is, perversely good news.  … – The Big Picture

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Lehman: Looking Strong on the Repo Front – .   As Heidi explains, the proximate cause of Bear’s collapse was the fact that its repo lines were withdrawn, so the ratio of liquidity to repo lines is important: the higher the better. And this is where Lehman looks much stronger than Bear. Bear’s ratio here was 33%: it had three times as many repos as it had cash. Lehman’s ratio, by contrast, is 107%: it could lose all its repos and still have cash left over. Yet more reason to believe the worst of the crisis is over. … – Felix Salmon – portfolio.com 

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California AG Joins the Mortgage Sting; Shuts Down Four Lenders – mortgagewire

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This is sad – The $2 bill taped to Bear’s main entrance on Monday morning:
The Worst Trade Of All Time – Billionaire (um, Millionaire?) Joseph Lewis disclosed in a 13D filing Wednesday that he paid $1,260,913,899 for his 12,136,724 share stake in Bear Stearns (NYSE: BSC). If the currently proposed deal goes through, this investment is now worth only $28,157,200 – a dramatic loss of $1,232,756,699. – Lon Juric -  seeking alpha 
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JP Morgan’s Bear Stearns deal reveals poison clauses -  James Quinn  -  Telegraph UK

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comments on 2005-2007 Alt-A   -  Ultrashort Financial Not as Cool as it Used to Be -  Fund My Mutual Fund

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Shorts Take Aim At Merrill  -  Bespoke Investment Group 

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Darkness Visible: CFOs See Recession Through 2009 -  The outlook isn’t brilliant among U.S. finance chiefs studied by CFO magazine and Duke University: 75 percent see a recession starting sometime this year. The mood among finance chiefs in Europe, Asia, and China is also growing gloomier. -  CFO.com

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has details – Thornburg Mortgage sells its soul to stay afloat – Tim Phelan – Investing Ideas 

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Finance’s “New Day” – The Federal Reserve’s unprecedented bailout of Bear Stearns was crafted not at the White House or Treasury, but in secret by a New York central banker whose name is unknown to Washington power brokers and was a Clinton administration presidential appointee. -  Robert D. Novak -  townhall.com

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another opinion – The Fed’s risky precedent – San Francisco Chronicle

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Federal Reserve Still Behind The Curve – Trader’s Narrative 

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Impact of Financial Crisis Different For Five Largest European Countries and the US – riskcenter.com free reg.

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7 (mostly small) More Shut Down Operations; Thousands More Out of Work -  Originator Times

posted by Bill Coppedge