Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Citi C, Merrill MER, UBS UBS Face Monoline losses, more Hot potatoes on SALE

Bernanke is trying hard to talk the market into bull on USD, so far he has succeeded only with killing investment banks. Pour guys: they were hoping to make it without too much attention to the junk they are holding. Now they are facing the music and forced to "deleverage" or fire sell of of their assets. We will be all surprised with the real prices they are getting for all those AAA scam.
June 9 (Bloomberg) -- Citigroup Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. and UBS AG may post losses of $10 billion on bond insurance after MBIA Inc. and Ambac Financial Group Inc. lost their top credit ratings, Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Meredith Whitney said.
MBIA and Ambac, the world's largest bond insurers, had their AAA ratings cut two levels by Standard & Poor's June 5, which trimmed ratings on more than $1 trillion of securities they guaranteed. The downgrades may limit the so-called monoline insurers' ability to write new policies, putting further pressure on earnings, she wrote today in a note to investors.
``The limited earnings potential of monolines poses a risk to the value of the insurance and hedges on the subprime-related securities provided to the banks and brokers,'' Whitney wrote. ``The collateral damage could be in excess of an additional $10 billion.''

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