BEHIND THE MONEY: A Street Race That Just Got Faster and More Furious: Paying Back the TARP
By: John Melloy
Who's going to pay back the TARP first? The first bank to do this will likely see its stock skyrocket. We've been trying to game this on the show ever since the Goldman CFO said last week that he hopes to pay back Joe the Plumber by the end of this year. (No coincidence his comments came a day after news of Obama's 500K pay-cap broke.)
Bloomberg News highlights in a story todaythat the stakes in this race just got a bit bigger after the public flogging the CEOs took yesterday.
I mean who would want to go through this again?
Plus, whoever is last in this race may not even get the chance to pay the taxpayer back, if you know what I mean.
The traders are handicapping this race, with an eye more on the capital markets names. Pete Najarian bought Morgan Stanley on Wednesday, along with Guy Adami. Joe Terranova is playing the exacta through the SPDR KBW Capital Markets ETF , whose top holdings are Goldman and Morgan Stanley. Of the eight TARP takers today, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are down the least.
Viewers, surprisingly, are putting their money behind Bank of America . I guess the reasoning is that they won't pay back first, but they will pay it back eventually and the stock has the most upside considering it's $5 and Goldman is $92.
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