Now that we have the Fed and JP morgan (JPM) taking up Bear Sterns' (BSC) liabilities onto its balance sheet... Moral Hazard is fast becoming a benign term... Superficially, there is no societal reason whatsoever why BSC should be bailed out at all, as the loss are investment/speculation money only... but the details is not as simple as that... BSC is tightly knitted into the whole financial system, and it *had* to be saved, because BSC is a big counterparty in the 45+ trillions credit derivatives universe... If BSC were to default, it would result in a cascading collapse like a house of cards in the derivatives markets, the situation would be pure horror... so JPM had to take the bullet for BSC, just like Bank of America had to take the bullet for CountryWide, both with unconditional backings from the Fed behind (the Fed is providing non-recourse, back-to-back financing for the JPM case).. and JPM is carrying the biggest derivatives books around...

Lehman Brothers will probably be the next to blow... stay tune...

[ 本帖最後由 hardcat 於 2008-3-15 16:53 編輯 ]

引用:

原帖由 hktigerwoods 於 2008-3-18 15:22 發表


i would prefer to buy citi corp or goldman

If it were me, I would not touch them with a ten-foot pole, highly radioactive waste... especially in light of the the unravelling financial meltdown/collapse...
And Citigroup is worse than GS... Citigroup is still so capital impaired despite the bailout, they are still trying to stay solvent...