In a move which makes it difficult to determine if the government is emulating the Europeans or Warren Buffett (we like the Buffett angle much better) the government (we read this as “The Treasury”) is poised to slup up preferred shares in “nine top financial institutions.” Bad jokes about canceled ABC prime time programs aside, it will be interesting to see who the government thinks “The Nine” are. Is that a ringing endorsement, or a scarlet letter? What happened in there? (By which I mean, that smokey back room in the Treasury building). Will The Nine share some special, secret bond that is now totally inaccessible to other players in the market? (Oh, the pain of selling preferred, you could never understand- sorry, I want a divorce).
I suppose the alternative, as a victim of compelled preferred share issuance, is living through the horror that was giving in to the advances of Japanese bank executives. And after all that, you don’t even get a cigarette or the Good Housekeeping seal from the Treasury. I feel so dirty.
Update: “The Nine” = Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, State Street Corp., Bank of New York Mellon Corp., and Merrill Lynch & Co.
U.S. Set to Buy Preferred Stock in Nine Top Banks [The Wall Street Journal]
U.S. Said to Invest in Citigroup, Goldman, Bank of America [Bloomberg]
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Someone call monica quickie wants to borrow that blue dress.
http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/hp1204.htm
GS, MS, JPM, C, WF, BAC, Credit Suisse, UBS, Deutche
so when we get the signal that we’re turning into mussolini’s italy, it’s time to splooge all over eachother in glee about equities??
Well Italy’s Mr. B was at the WH for breakfast, wonder what they really discussed.
“The Nine” = GS, C, MER, MS, NYM, BAC, JPM
Think that’s, uh, seven.
so who are the other two? and…what if you were #10?
WFC probably in there
@6 wtf is NYM?
the other three are wfc, bk, sst
@10 new york mets
Bank of New York Mellon?
The new Nazgul ?
“Those who used the Nine Rings became mighty in their day, kings, sorcerers, and warriors of old. They obtained glory and great wealth, yet it turned to their undoing. They had, as it seemed, unending life, yet life became unendurable to them. They could walk, if they would, unseen by all eyes in this world beneath the sun, and they could see things in worlds invisible to mortal men; but too often they beheld only the phantoms and delusions of Sauron. And one by one, sooner or later, according to their native strength and to the good or evil of their wills in the beginning, they fell under the thraldom of the ring that they bore and of the domination of the One which was Sauron’s. And they became forever invisible save to him that wore the Ruling Ring, and they entered into the realm of shadows. The Nazgûl were they, the Ringwraiths, the Enemy’s most terrible servants; darkness went with them, and they cried with the voices of death” (The Silmarillion: “Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age”, 346).
Does this make Paulson the Dark Lord ?
I’d take 5% money all day….WTF?
I’d take 5% money all day….WTF?
i think NYM is just Bank of NY. What are you bulge bracket guys too cool for NYM?