By Andrew Edwards
A DOW JONES NEWSWIRES COLUMN
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–An overlooked part of Wells Fargo & Co.’s (WFC) second-quarter earnings release shows how banks can clean up toxic assets clogging their balance sheets: They can double down.
Wells Fargo managed to erase a $4.3 billion loss on its assets held for sale, at least in part by piling money into the very mortgage-backed securities that had caused most of the losses to begin with. The move shows how banks have been able to benefit from the raft of stimulus programs that have been put in place since last fall and how that success is feeding the market.
That’s not to say it wasn’t without risk.
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Tags: Banking, Dow Jones Newswires Column
By Andrew Edwards
A DOW JONES NEWSWIRES COLUMN
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–Wall Street appears to have parlayed bankruptcy fears at CIT Group into a trading bonanza Friday at the expense of mom-and-pop investors.
Hundreds of millions of dollars in CIT Internotes – bonds marketed directly to small-time investors and particularly the elderly – changed hands Friday as rumors of a bankruptcy at CIT panicked small-time investors. In their haste, they left tens of millions of dollars on the table, which were scooped up by bond trading desks, brokers and sophisticated investors.
“The little guy who was selling his Internotes, he got hosed, but good,” said Marilyn Cohen, president of Envision Capital, which manages $190 million in bonds for retail clients.
Continue reading…
Tags: CIT Group, Dow Jones Newswires Column
By Andrew Edwards
A DOW JONES NEWSWIRES COLUMN
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–Wall Street appears to have parlayed bankruptcy fears at CIT Group into a trading bonanza Friday at the expense of mom-and-pop investors.
Hundreds of millions of dollars in CIT Internotes – bonds marketed directly to small-time investors and particularly the elderly – changed hands Friday as rumors of a bankruptcy at CIT panicked small-time investors. In their haste, they left tens of millions of dollars on the table, which were scooped up by bond trading desks, brokers and sophisticated investors.
“The little guy who was selling his Internotes, he got hosed, but good,” said Marilyn Cohen, president of Envision Capital, which manages $190 million in bonds for retail clients.
Continue reading…
Tags: Banking, Bonds, CIT Group, Dow Jones Newswires Column, Extra Credit
