My 16-yr old, who is preparing for the SAT tests, was (coincidentally?) reading an article the other day titled, “Six-Figure Jobs You Don’t Need A College Degree For.” After ending their title sentence in a preposition, the article goes on to talk about air traffic controllers, construction workers, plumbers, ultrasound technicians, “locomotive engineer”, and of [...]

After failing and being seized by the FDIC earlier this year, Indymac is now on the block to be bought within 90 days. The FDIC has taken on the role of investment bank as the bank failures mount. After the Indymac failure depleted the FDIC fund, FDIC head Sheila Bair took on a new approach, [...]

Thanks Mary B. for this example of recent correspondence: Dear Sirs, In view of current developments in the banking market, if one of my checks is returned marked “insufficient funds”, does that refer to me? Or to you? Yours Faithfully, Signed – Bank Customer

Downey Financial, a Newport CA based savings and loan, was seized by the FDIC Friday and sold to US Bank in a deal the FDIC brokered. As of October 22, Downey’s loans no longer collecting interest were 15.7 percent of bank assets. Most of these bad loans were from their portfolio of about $7 billion [...]

American Express is now trying to find access to the $700 billion bailout fund. It’s not clear what Amex would do with the money, but it may pay off its huge Visa and Mastercard bills.

Remember when the mortgage business was fun? People enjoyed their work, and the industry stayed out of the news? When your parents didn’t quite know what you did for a living? When rates mattered more than underwriting guidelines? When we thought that the worst was over – people would liken this to a baseball game [...]

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have had a few good trading days this week, but they’re still ripe for a near-term Treasury bailout if capital problems persist. As NY Times writer Gretchen Morgenson pointed out Sunday, this bailout is complicated by credit default insurance (or swaps). She’s covered this otherwise under-reported area of the credit [...]

Last Thursday rates worsened, when perhaps they shouldn’t have. Why? Securities firms and investors often “hunker down” early ahead of holiday weekends, and often markets close early. The news that came out didn’t warrant the sell-off. The ISM nonmanufacturing index dropped to 48.2, with orders, business activity, and employment all falling. Apparently, the stimulus has [...]

Yesterday, we started to explore what’s next for BofA after the Countrywide deal closes. That was more in the context of loan products and distribution channels, and we’ll continue to report on that going forward. For today, it was announced that BofA would cut 7500 jobs after the deal closes, with most cuts coming in [...]

A majority 69% of Countrywide shareholders voted today to approve takeover of the company by Bank of America. Countrywide will drop the name in short order and is likely also to drop many product lines. According to Bloomberg: