> Though the DOW is relatively stable today the banks are imploding. They are
> blaming it on Congressional hearings but I don't think that's the whole
> story. Citi and JPMorgan down near 20% for the day.
Aside from a series of lawsuits, Citi and JPM are sitting on billions of dollars of non-performing loans through credit facilities they offered flailing and bankrupt companies over the past two years. Since most of the companies, particularly the ones in the telecom sector (4 of which - Global Crossing, Adelphia, NTL, and WorldCom make the all time top 10 bankruptcy list), are comprised of almost worthless assets due to immense over-capacity post dereg in 1996, the banks have little hope of retrieving anything, even after long drawn out bankruptcy court hearings. It doesn't help that JPMChase and Citi in particular had a nasty habit of diving in with loans for companies whose values were diving faster - on the off-chance of capturing investment banking fees.
Separately, JPMChase is the poster child of why Glass Steagal shouldn't have been repealed, and spends more time pointing figures at Citi than protecting its own retail customers.
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