Three Financial Groups In Trouble The impact of the credit crunch saw two banks and a financial and industrial group fail on Friday in three different countries in the most damaging day so far since the crisis started last August.US banking regulators on Friday swooped in to take over mortgage lender IndyMac Bancorp Inc, the second-largest bank failure in US history and the fifth bank to close this year. In Denmark the country’s central bank bailed out the Roskilde Bank after it had encountered severe liquidity strains following asset write-downs. And in London, media reports said the $A4 billion Dawnay Day financial and industrial group had become a victim of the credit crunch after talks over the weekend agreed to the appointment of administrators to some of its companies and businesses later today, and a string of asset sales. The three separate problems show that the credit crunch hasn’t gone away: ...

Avid readers will know that I rather like General Electric at these prices.

Here I point out just how good the weak USD is to them.

And here I point out just how fantastic GE’s asset sales have been. [Just imagine if GE still owned FGIC and Genworth. The former is in deep trouble. The latter is merely problematic.]

Regular readers will also know that I subscribe to the GE press-release blog which you will find here.

But when I am long a stock I always look at what is wrong with the story. Indeed the central investment trap I fall into is to ignore the positives in my shorts and ignore the negatives in my long. This post is a conscious effort to correct that.

The negatives

With GE I point to a few negatives:

The ...

The current financial services melt-down has had differing effects on different companies. Dealing with the realities of the situation has become the only way that most can move forward. Some are assessing their situation while others are moving to right the issues. If there is one thing that most can agree upon; it would be that admitting to losses, making the needed moves now and working to move forward are the only ways to get back toward solid results.

E*Trade Financial Corp., an online trading concern, works to facilitate the online trading of certain financial products. In a general sense, the company is a retail company that offers the “average” person an opportunity to trade stocks and buy mutual funds. As with many financial institutions and companies, E*Trade Financial has been going through a period of adjustment. It has, however, readjusted in a significant manner and appears to be moving forward

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