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The Financial Crisis: This Day—One Year Ago, Sept. 13, 2008
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Double trouble on Wall Street.
Saturday begins with meteorology briefly overshadowing financial news: Hurricane Ike tears two oil rigs loose from their moorings in the Gulf of Mexico. Some drillers and refiners evacuate their workers.
But the weather quickly takes a backseat to the the banking storm. Charlie Gasparino reports that Bank of America [BAC
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Merrill faces a possible crisis of psychology, Gasparino says: short-sellers regard the brokerage as the next weakest investment bank after Lehman and the fallen Bear Stearns, which was sold at low-ball price in March.
"People are saying, 'Who's next on the list?"' says Matt McCormick, portfolio manager and banking analyst at Bahl & Gaynor in Cincinnati.
Short and non-short players alike have been watching Merrill Lynch shares lose about a third of their value this week — while peers Citigroup and Morgan Stanley shed just 2 percent and 4 percent, respectively. The decline is all the more remarkable because Merrill has a more diverse portfolio than Lehman, boats the largest brokerage sales force of any Wall Street firm and owns a piece of money manager BlackRock [BLK
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What You Were Reading:
- Fed, Street Draft Deal To Buy Lehman's Bad Assets
- U.S. Holds The Whip Hand in Modifying Mortgages: NYT
- Slideshow: Costliest Hurricanes in U.S. History
By late Saturday night, CNBC learns that a deal has been drafted to acquire Lehman Brothers' bad assets and ostensibly pave the way for an eventual sale of the firm.
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The proposal is being drafted Saturday night and will be discussed Sunday morning, according to sources. If the firms involved agree on the terms, which would amount to some $3 billion per firm, it will create conditions necessary for the sale of Lehman to one of several suitors, including Bank of America, Barclays [BCS
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The Present Day — 2009:
- Another Financial Crisis Inevitable: Greenspan
- Recovery is Faster than Forecast: ECB
- Congress Failed to Save Fannie, Freddie: Lockhart
- Critical elections are scheduled for Greece in June. Here are some of the players and their roles.
- Our financial system is still not designed to meet the needs of poor families, says this author.
- Statistics show there aren’t many women billionaires compared to their male counterparts. Why?
- Click to see various forms of funding and what entrepreneurs have used to build successful companies.
- Here are some of the most expensive hotels in the world to book. And we mean expen$$ive.
- Always drink responsibly and when you do, try one of these more unusual and tasty drinks. Cheers!
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes
