Lehman & Merrill: Wiped Out!

[Sylph]

Shock waves hit Wall St. as 2 big firms fall

2 storied Wall Street firms fall as US financial markets roiled by further shock waves


NEW YORK (AP) -- In a stunning reshaping of America's financial landscape, two venerable Wall Street firms fell from the shock waves of a credit crisis that has plunged the financial system into turmoil, as stocks tumbled across the globe Monday in response.

Lehman Brothers, a 158-year-old bank burdened by $60 billion in soured real-estate holdings, filed for federal bankruptcy protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court after attempts to rescue firm failed. Bank of America Corp. said it is snapping up Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. in a $50 billion all-stock transaction.

Stock markets fell precipitously and Treasury bond prices soared as investors reacted to some of the most dramatic economic news in modern U.S. history. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 300 points, though the market's initial losses were not as steep as some investors had feared.

The developments took place as U.S. voters, who rank the economy as their top concern, prepare to elect a new president in seven weeks. Presidential candidates John McCain, a Republican, and Democrat Barack Obama, immediately called for stricter financial regulation.

Obama called the news "the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression" of the 1930s.

President George W. Bush meanwhile signaled that the government would not continued to bail out Wall Street, saying only that "we are working to reduce disruptions and minimize the impact of these financial market developments on the broader economy."

"The policymakers will focus on the health of the financial system as a whole," Bush said during the White House appearance with visiting Ghanian President John Kufuor.

The demise of the independent Wall Street institutions comes six months after the collapse of Bear Stearns and 14 months after the beginning of the credit crisis, sparked by bad mortgage finance and real estate investments.

Ominously, American International Group Inc., the world's largest insurance company, was asking the Federal Reserve for emergency funding and planned to announce a major restructuring Monday

A global consortium of banks, working with government officials in New York, announced a $70 billion pool of funds to lend to troubled financial companies. The aim of the bank consortium, according to participants who spoke to The Associated Press, was to prevent a worldwide panic on stock and other financial exchanges.

Ten banks -- Bank of America, Barclays, Citibank, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and UBS -- each agreed to provide $7 billion "to help enhance liquidity and mitigate the unprecedented volatility and other challenges affecting global equity and debt markets."

The Federal Reserve also chipped in with more largesse in its emergency lending program for investment banks. The central bank announced late Sunday that it was broadening the types of collateral that financial institutions can use to obtain loans from the Fed.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the discussions had been aimed at identifying "potential market vulnerabilities in the wake of an unwinding of a major financial institution and to consider appropriate official sector and private sector responses."

Europe's major central banks also moved quickly to calm markets, pumping billions of euros and pounds into the financial system to shore up confidence.

The European Central Bank said it received 51 bids for 90.3 billion euros ($127 billion) on its one-day tender of 30 billion euros ($42.6 billion) with a bid rate of 4.25 percent, a clear sign that demand for cash is over the top.

Similarly, the Bank of England in London offered 5 billion pounds (nearly $9 billion) in a three-day auction that drew bids for 24.1 billion ($43 billion), or nearly five times the amount that was offered.

The Zurich-based Swiss National Bank said it was also providing liquidity in "a generous and flexible manner" at an overnight rate of 1.9 percent, but wouldn't say how much was on offer.

Still, the FTSE-100 share index was down 4.07 percent in London, the Paris CAC-40 was off 4.5 percent and Germany's DAX 30 index of blue chips sagged 3.23 percent.

Asia's biggest stock exchanges in Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea were closed for holidays, but India's Sensex tumbled 3.4 percent, Taiwan's benchmark index plummeted 4.1 percent and Singapore dropped 3.2 percent.

Samuel Hayes, finance professor emeritus at Harvard Business School, said the Bush administration may get a lot of blame for the situation, which could benefit Obama.

"Just the psychological impact of this kind of failure is going to be significant," he said. "It will color people's feelings about their well-being and the integrity of the financial system."

Lehman Brothers' announcement that it is filing for bankruptcy came after all potential buyers walked away. They were spooked by the U.S. Treasury's refusal to provide any takeover aid, as it had done six months ago when Bear Stearns faltered and earlier this month when it seized mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

In an effort to calm the markets, Lehman pre-announced third-quarter results on Wednesday. In an affidavit filed with the bankruptcy court, Lehman Chief Financial Officer Ian Lowitt said that action "did little to quell the rumors in the markets and the concerns about the viability of the company." He said the uncertainty made it impossible for Lehman to continue.

Employees emerging from Lehman's headquarters near the heart of Times Square Sunday night carried boxes, tote bags and duffel bags, rolling suitcases, framed artwork and spare umbrellas.

Its businesses in Britain were placed in administration Monday, said the administrator, accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, and employees carrying boxes and bags were walking out of Lehman's London offices.

Merrill Lynch, another investment bank laid low by the crisis that was triggered by rising mortgage defaults and plunging home values in the U.S., agreed to be acquired by Bank of America for 0.8595 shares of Bank of America common stock for each Merrill Lynch common share.

That values Merrill at $29 a share, a 70 percent premium over the brokerage's Friday closing price of $17.05, but well below what Merrill was worth at its peak in early 2007, when its shares traded above $98.

Bank of America has the most deposits of any U.S. bank, while Merrill Lynch is the world's largest brokerage. A combination of the two would create a global financial giant to rival Citigroup Inc., the biggest U.S. bank in terms of assets.

If the deal goes according to plan, Bank of America will be able to offer Merrill's retail brokerage services to its huge customer base. Where there is duplication, however, the combination of the two companies could result in more layoffs. Both Merrill and Bank of America have already cut thousands of investment banking jobs over the past year.

The deal would not come without risks, however. Merrill Lynch, like many of its Wall Street peers, has been struggling with tight credit markets and billions of dollars in assets tied to mortgages that have plunged in value. Merrill has reported four straight quarterly losses.

Bank of America's own finances are far from robust. As consumer credit deteriorates, the bank has seen its profits decline, and the company is still in the midst of absorbing the embattled mortgage lender Countrywide Financial, which it acquired in January.

Insurer AIG, hit hard by deterioration in the credit markets, said it is reviewing its operations and discussing possible options with outside parties to improve its business after a week when its stock dropped 45 percent amid concerns about the company's financial underpinnings.

The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times both reported early Monday on their Web sites that the American International Group is seeking an additional $40 billion in emergency funds -- possibly from the Federal Reserve -- to help it avoid a credit rating downgrade, which would make it more expensive for AIG to raise money. The insurer has already raised $20 billion in fresh capital this year.

AIG was working with New York Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo and a representative of the governor's office through the weekend to craft a solution that protects policyholders, according to Dinallo's spokesman David Neustadt.

"It's clear we're one step away from a financial meltdown," said Nouriel Roubini, chairman of the consulting firm RGE Monitor.

The end of Lehman may not stop the financial crisis that has gripped Wall Street for months, analysts said. More investment banks could disappear soon.

The independent broker-dealers "are going the way of the dodo bird," said Bert Ely, an Alexandria, Virginia-based banking consultant.

That's partly because some of the firms, particularly Merrill, made bad bets on real estate. But several analysts said that investment companies will need the deep pockets of commercial banks to survive the next few years.

Roubini said it's difficult to accurately gauge the health of companies like Merrill because their financial health depends on how they value complex securities. As a result, their finances aren't very transparent, he said.

That can lead to a loss of confidence in the financial markets, he said, which can overwhelm an investment bank even if it is financially healthy by some measures.

"Once you lose confidence, the fundamentals matter less," he said.

The common denominator of the financial crisis, analysts said, is the bursting of the housing bubble. Home prices have dropped on average 25 percent so far. Roubini predicted they could drop another 15 percent.

The crisis has begun to slow the broader economy as banks make fewer loans and consumers have begun cutting spending. Many economists are now forecasting that the economy could slip into recession by the end of this year and early next year.

That, in turn, could cause additional losses for commercial banks on credit cards, auto loans and student loans.

The wreckage could prompt the Federal Reserve to do an about face and once again cut a key interest rate this week or possibly later this year. Just a few days ago, a rate cut appeared largely off the table, but now it has emerged as a possibility as the Fed prepares to meet Tuesday.

The International Monetary Fund predicted earlier this year that total losses from the credit crisis could reach almost $1 trillion. So far, banks have only taken about $350 billion in losses.

AP Business Writers Joe Del Bruno, Christopher S. Rugaber, Martin Crutsinger, Madlen Read, Tim Paradis, Stephen Bernard, Ieva Augstums, Michael Liedtke, Jeannine Aversa, George Frey and Matt Moore contributed to this story.

From Yahoo! Finance

[Sylph]

Stocks retreat amid new Wall Street landscape

Stocks fall but pare steepest losses after Lehman bankruptcy, Merrill sale; AIG remains worry

By Tim Paradis, AP Business Writer


NEW YORK (AP) -- Stocks retreated sharply and Treasury bond prices jumped Monday as investors reacted to a stunning reshaping of the landscape of Wall Street that took out two storied names: Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 180 points, well off the drop of nearly 350 points seen in the early going.

Stocks posted big losses in markets across much of the globe as investors absorbed bankruptcy plans at Lehman and Merrill Lynch's forced sale to Bank of America for $50 billion in stock. And perhaps most ominously, American International Group Inc. is asking the Federal Reserve for emergency funding. The world's largest insurance company plans to announce a major restructuring Monday.

The swift developments are the biggest yet in the 14-month-old credit crises that stems from now toxic subprime mortgage debt.

Investors are worried that trouble at AIG and the bankruptcy filing by Lehman, felled by $60 billion in bad debt and a dearth of investor confidence, will touch off another series of troubles for banks and financial institutions that may be forced to further write down the value of their own debt assets. Wall Street had been hopeful six months ago that the collapse of Bear Stearns would mark the darkest day of the credit crisis.

But AIG's troubles a week after its stock dropped 45 percent are worrisome for some investors because of the company's enormous balance sheet and the risks that troubles with that companies finances could spill over to the companies with which it does business. AIG, one of the 30 stocks that make up the Dow industrials, fell $5.37, or 44 percent, to $6.76 Monday as investors worried that it would be the subject of downgrades from credit ratings agencies.

Jeffrey Mortimer, chief investment officer at Charles Schwab Investment Management in San Francisco, said stocks' losses aren't steeper because the market expected Lehman would find a buyer or declare bankruptcy.

"This is showing that this was not completely unexpected," he said, of Lehman. He added that the Merrill deal removes one possible source of concern for investors. "This may have taken a player who might have been next out of the target zone."

In late morning trading, the Dow fell 184.99, or 1.62 percent, to 11,237.00.

Broader stock indicators also fell. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 31.54, or 2.52 percent, to 1,220.77, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 40.50, or 1.79 percent, to 2,220.77.

A sharp drop in oil below $100 also weighed on energy names, including several Dow components. Exxon Mobil Corp. fell $1.36, or 1.8 percent, to $76.14, while Chevron Corp. fell $2.30, or 2.7 percent, to $81.94. But consumer names like Procter & Gamble Co. rose 22 cents to $73.37 and McDonald's Corp. added 50 cents, or 0.78 percent, to $64.56.

Light, sweet crude dropped $4.53 to $96.65 on the New York Mercantile Exchange after damage to Gulf of Mexico oil infrastructure from Hurricane Ike was less than investors feared. Worries about a slower economy have also weighed on oil prices in recent weeks. Oil is down sharply from its mid-July highs when it hit a record over $147 a barrel.

Despite the pullback in oil, prices at the gas pump rose above $5 per gallon in some parts of the country Sunday after Ike left some the nation's refining capacity inoperable.

Investors will be watching to see whether the Dow moves below the 11,000 mark, a level it hasn't traded and closed under since mid-July. The S&P 500 last tested the 1,200 level in mid-July.

Bond prices surged as investors fled to the security of government debt. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, plunged to 3.56 percent from 3.72 percent late Friday. The dollar was lower against other major currencies, while gold prices rose.

Investors did have some more solid footing than they might have predicted at the end of last week, when Lehman's troubles and those of AIG weighed on the markets. A global consortium of banks, working alongside government officials in New York, announced a $70 billion pool of funds to lend to troubled financial companies.

And the deal for Merrill Lynch pays a 70 percent premium to the brokerage's closing price Friday. The stock has been squeezed in recent weeks, leading many Wall Street veterans to point to the company as the next behind Lehman as likely to run into trouble with bearish investors and get hit by intensified selling. The deal to pair the company with Bank of America, a huge bank with a big asset base, removes some of the worries about Merrill would be the next to fall.

Merrill rose $4.51, or 26 percent, to $21.56, while Bank of America fell $4.66, or 14 percent, to $29.08.

Although Monday's selling wasn't as steep as expected, many market observers have said for months that a cathartic sell-off is necessary for Wall Street to purge its worries over bad debt and the tight credit conditions that have hobbled the economy. They reason that a scare and subsequent sell-off in the markets could establish conditions for a market bottom to form.

"This is sort of groundbreaking type stuff," said Scott Fullman, director of derivatives investment strategy for WJB Capital Group in New York.

Fullman, who has worked on Wall Street for 29 years, noted that the Dow industrials contain companies, such as retailers like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. that could help cushion some of the selling in the financial sector. Wal-Mart fell 40 cents to $62.01, while Coca-Cola Co. rose 31 cents to $54.81.

"While they might get hit hard they won't get hit as hard," he said.

But even good news like a drop in oil and some resolution to fears about Merrill couldn't prevent widespread selling. Markets in Tokyo and several other Asian money centers were closed for holidays. Britain's FTSE 100 fell 3.95 percent, Germany's DAX index lost 3.17 percent, and France's CAC-40 fell 3.64 percent. The European Central Bank, the Bank of England, and the Swiss central bank stepped in an attempt to calm markets by making more short-term credit available to banks.

The reduced headcount of Wall Street firms Monday left Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley as the remaining big, independent firms. The two are slated to report quarterly results Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.

The shake up comes only a week after the government bailed out mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and ahead of sizable economic developments this week. The Fed is expected to make a decision on interest rates on Tuesday.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by about 5 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 434.1 million shares.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 8.88, or 1.23 percent, to 711.38.

New York Stock Exchange: http://www.nyse.com

Nasdaq Stock Market: " target="_blank">http://www.nasdaq.com

From Yahoo! Finance

[Sylph]

WSJ on its website has some breaking news:

Lehman Brothers is still trying to sell its U.S. broker/dealer and investment management businesses, according to people familiar with the matter.

[Sylph]

Greenspan to Stephanopoulos: This is 'By Far' the Worst Economic Crisis He's Seen in His Career


ABC News' George Stephanopoulos Reports: Former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan said this morning that this is "by far" the worst economic crisis he has ever seen. "There's no question that this is in the process of outstripping anything I've seen, and it still is not resolved and it still has a way to go," he said in an exclusive "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" interview.

Greenspan also noted, "let's recognize that this is a once-in-a-half-century, probably once-in-a-century type of event."

Looking ahead, Greenspan changed a previous prediction on whether the economy is headed towards a recession. When asked if the chances of escaping a recession were greater than 50 percent, Greenspan responded "no, I think it is less than 50 percent." But in a "This Week" interview last December, Greenspan predicted "that the probabilities of a recession have moved up close to 50 percent, whether it's above or below is really extraordinarily difficult to tell. I think it's correct.

On the fate of investment bank Lehman Brothers, Greenspan said he did not know enough of the details to comment on whether the government should step in and help. However, when asked if we will see the failure of more financial institutions, Greenspan affirmed "I suspect we will."

"But in and of itself that does not need to be a problem," he explained. "It depends on how it is handled and how the liquidations take place. And indeed we shouldn't try to protect every single institution. The ordinary course of financial change has winners and losers."

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/09/greenspan-to-st.html

[Adam]

Maybe this will perhaps wake some people up that still believe the current way of handling the economy is working

[Sylph]

And I think there a lot more (bad news) to come...

[Cat]

You can't binge for 15 years and not get digestion. Still, it has me worried about my own savings and job (I work in a sector closely linked to the financial industry).

Time to check out some books on the Great Depression. I think I could use a lesson from history.

[Sylph]

HA! I knew you worked for some super-glossy mega-firm.  

[Cat]

Hardly! I work for a small firm publishing economic forecasts.

All what's been happening the last few days... it's really got my brain churning because so many variables factor into this and the US is, for want of a better phrase, at a crossroads.

For myself and many people I work with, it's not just the fear of losing our jobs and watching the financial sector which powered the wealth in our city crumple and fade (although that undoubtedly is the biggest worry weighing on us). It's the fact that we grew up in economic "good times" and were taught that this was due to the free market's amazing infallibility. That the market made the US the economic powerhouse it is (or was).

However, Rule #1 about a capitalist economy is: complete transparency. When that disappears, the markets cannot function properly.

The one thing I recognize from this whole financial mess is the level of opacity going on. People were hiding terrible indebtedness. They were denying there was even a problem! They were leveraged up to their necks -- and not just on Wall Street. On Main Street, too, with the houses and cars and maxed-out credit cards. The Federal government, also, has spent billions in order to bail out AIG and Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac. Billions it doesn't have.

How can you make a good decision if you don't know the size of the shortfall lurking behind the sparkly facade of wealth and power? If you don't understand the complicated financial instruments (like derivatives) used to disguise bad debt and sold to you as a happy package of dividend-earning "funds"? No transparency.

For the first time ever, I'm hearing hard-core free-market peeps use words like "government" and "regulation." I can't speak for everybody here on this board, but in my industry, I'm guessing that many have crossed the rubicon, philosophically-speaking. That's why I mentioned taking out books on the Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression -- the last time America looked to the government to step in and take over.

This also makes me wonder where November's election is going. Obama's been hit by the Palin Effect. Is this his moment to seize the initiative? Summon his best FDR quotes and propose an economic plan with the help of a non-partisan expert like a Paul Volker, for example? Will he align himself with NY's Andrew Cuomo (who will no doubt be prosecuting some of the Titans of Wall Street from Bear Stearns and Lehman, on behalf of the authorities and the shareholders)? It might give him some lustre to show that Justice Will Be Done.

Or will McCain get an additional bump from all this? Even though the GOP is closely linked with free market economics, Americans might want the reassuring (if curmudgeonly) (grand)father figure who has seen it all before (in the 1970s).

Sorry if this all sounds like gibberish, I'm just trying to work things out in my brain.

[Sylph]

What a shocking diagram:

[Cat]

^^ Yes, it is shocking...

but stocks have been overvalued for more than a decade.

Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are casting about, desperately looking for buyers. MS and GS! I cannot believe it. They were the cream of the crop. The sure thing.

One of my best friends works in the HR dept at Morgan Stanley, I hope she's doing ok.

[Tishy]

If I had the money I would buy, buy and buy some more. This is the perfect time to buy and the worst time to sell.

Market closed almost 450 points up yesterday. Market does flucuate, it will come back

[Sylph]

The crisis made simple: how dodgy home loans in America led to collapsing banks, falling markets and the end of HBOS

What caused these problems? It began in America where lenders offered mortgages to people who struggled to meet the repayments, the so-called “sub-prime” loans. The mortgages were pooled and trading in these bundles of loans became an industry in itself. When the US housing market bubble burst last year they fell in value and the losses spread throughout the financial sector.

If the problem started a year ago, why is it taking so long to work itself out? Only in the past few months has the magnitude of the losses become apparent. It is not simply the banks who lent the money to sub-prime borrowers that have run into trouble. It has also proved incredibly difficult to work out the losses of those who found themselves holding the bundles of loans. And others still have been hit by trading in derivatives based on the value of these loans.

Hang on, what are derivatives? At their simplest, they are contracts that allow someone to agree a price today at which they can buy or sell something in the future. But the financial markets now trade in some derivatives that are fiendishly complicated - so complicated that it is hard to pin down their true value. The sums involved are huge. For example, the global market in credit default swaps - an insurance-based derivative - is estimated to be worth $45 trillion, or more than twice the value of the US stock market.

What was the trigger for last week's mayhem? Lehman Brothers, America’s fourth-largest investment bank, went bust last weekend. It had lost almost $14 billion on sub-prime property loans and the fear that it was facing further unquantified losses meant that fellow banks would not lend it any money.

Investment banks do not hold substantial cash deposits from customers, so without such a flow of money they are doomed.

Similar fears saw Merrill Lynch, another investment bank, ushered into the arms of Bank of America on Monday morning. And the US government was then forced to bail out AIG, the insurance giant, effectively nationalising it in return for an $85 billion loan.

How did this affect HBOS? The fact that Lehman had been allowed to collapse showed that the authorities were prepared to let a bank go under. In Britain, HBOS was seen as being vulnerable because it needs to borrow about £200 billion from other banks in order to cover the gap between what its depositors have put in and the amount it has lent out to borrowers. After the Lehman collapse, banks became extremely reluctant to lend to one another. HBOS’s share price collapsed. Lloyds TSB spotted an opportunity and bought its rival at a knockdown price.

Could a big bank be allowed to fail? No. The collapse of a big bank - on either side of the Atlantic - would have a huge knock-on effect throughout the financial system and the wider economy. No government would allow it to happen.

There has been a lot of talk about short-selling. What is it? It is a way of trying to profit from a fall in a share price. Short-sellers borrow shares from someone who owns them in exchange for a small fee. The shares are then sold. The short-seller later buys back the shares to return to the original owner. If the price has fallen in the meantime, the short-seller can pocket the difference between the price at which the shares were sold and the price at which they were bought back. So if he borrows and sells the shares when their price is £10 per share and buys them to return them to their owner when it is £5, he makes a £5 profit per share.

What effect does that have? If there are lots of people selling short at the same time, then the price of the shares will go down because they are being dumped on the market. It can hasten a share price fall.

Who is to blame for the demise of HBOS? The focus has been on short-sellers who targeted the bank’s shares, helping to create a mood of panic and threatening to provoke a run on HBOS as happened with Northern Rock last year. The evidence, however, suggests that the problem was more that investors had lost confidence in the future of the bank and were selling its shares in great numbers. As far as the bigger picture goes, do not forget that no government tried to rein in the explosion of cheap credit when times were good. Banks were happy to take advantage. But they were also prepared to invest customers’ money in instruments that even their bosses did not understand.

What is the US government doing now? It seems determined to stop the contagion spreading. Taking over AIG signalled that. Then on Friday it unveiled a scheme that would allow banks to offload their dodgiest loans onto the government in a “bad bank”. The administration hopes that will restore confidence and allow trading in other, more solid debt. Taxpayers could, however, end up having to pay for it all. A similar scheme in the late 1980s saw them hit with a bill for nearly $300 billion at today’s prices.

What happens now? No doubt other banks will run into trouble when they realise the size of their potential liabilities. However, none of significance will go bust. And given that governments around the globe seem determined to prop up the financial system, the prospect of a complete meltdown is receding. But that does not mean that economic growth will not be dented as lending is reined in. The full effects have yet to be felt beyond the City and Wall Street.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4795063.ece

[Tishy]

I work for a very large broker dealer similair to Merrill Lynch but I don't want to name it. I work in retirements specifically in pensions. We are getting questions about whether or not pensions are safe. If anyone has any worries about that, check this website [http://www.pbgc.gov/]PBGC. Thankfully I do not work in trades because at one point on Friday they had over 2000 people in the queue and the normal hold time was well over 2 hours.

My company has already had layoffs this year and has completely gotten rid of some departments. Thursday we got word that they are closing one of our smaller sites and they will relocate some people to other sites or they will have a severance package. Merrill Lynch had already reduced it's work force by 5% earlier this year. This is huge. This is as bad if not worse than the Great Depression. It is going to get worse before it gets better. My advice for anyone and it is free, really check your portfolios and talk with a tax advisor or professional to ensure that you are where you want to be. It doesn't matter if you are 25 or 55, you want to make sure your money is safe.

[Cat]

Thanks, Tishy, for the advice and the website.

I'm getting major Great Depression vibes where I am, too.

I just heard that Morgan Stanley and Goldman have changed their status from investment to commercial banks in order to move away from highly-leveraged assets. The face of the financial sector is changing completely before our very eyes.