Foreclosure Nation

Why are people still interested in what Jamie Dimon has to say? As CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Mr. Dimon presides over a serial corporate criminal whose long list of confessed crimes got longer only last week. As an investment and economics "expert" he failed to anticipate the worst financial crisis in m...

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NEW YORK - New regulations announced over the weekend will likely benefit PNC Financial Services Group Inc, US Bancorp and smaller U.S. banks at the expense of bigger competitors including Bank of America Corp and JPMorgan Chase & Co. International regulators said they will require the biggest bank...

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NEW YORK—Bank of America Corp. this week said it had finally fenced off its losses from the now-toxic, mortgage-bond deals. However, it is not the first time the bank has claimed to have the losses penned in. The nation's biggest bank by assets confirmed Wednesday it was paying a high-profile gr...

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When Bank of America bought Countrywide Financial for $2.5 billion in stock in 2008, it must have seemed like a good deal. The troubles with Countrywide, then the nation’s biggest mortgage lender, were known at that point -- defaults and foreclosures were piling up, and there were rumors that bankr...

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Six banks declined and seven improved in BauerFinancial's quarterly rating of South Florida lenders. Coral Gables-based Bauer rates banks on a scale of zero (lowest rated) to five stars (highest rated). Six banks declined and seven improved in BauerFinancial’s quarterly rating of South Florida lend...

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"With all the FHA MIP changes recently, the MI companies are excited. But just like investor overlays on Fannie & Freddie programs, MI factors look good, and are true, but may not be 'real world.' These 'aggressive factors' from private MI have been known for months. There are so many restriction...

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US Bancorp plans to launch a new unit for the ultrawealthy in the fourth quarter from offices in Denver and its headquarters city of Minneapolis. The unit, to be known as Ascent Private Capital Management, will focus on clients with at least $25 million in investable assets. Ascent will compete in ...

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Amid a flurry of acquisitions that pushed it past $3 billion in assets, Premier American Bank flipped to a profit in the first quarter. The Miami-based bank has acquired six failed Florida banks since it was formed in January 2010. The bank plans to be rebranded as Florida Community Bank, the name ...

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The epidemic of foreclosures that began in 2008 has been devastating America's families, communities and economy. Nowhere is this more true than in California, where one in five U.S. foreclosures has taken place. Since 2008, more than 1.2 million Californians have lost their homes, and the number ...

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Bank of America has assembled what you might call a “Dream Team” of default servicing executivese to head up critical areas within its Legacy Asset Servicing division. Collectively, this new team has more than 70 years experience working with distressed borrowers. John Berens joins the bank as ret...

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The recovery in delinquency rates that began in the second quarter of 2010 appears to have stalled, according to the research firm Trepp LLC, with delinquency rates for the major real estate loan types declining only slightly in some categories and increasing in others during the first three months ...

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The banks may have weathered the financial crisis, but the rest of the country hasn’t. Taxpayers are still on the hook for federally guaranteed bank debt. Homeowners’ equity continues to erode. Small businesses still have trouble getting loans, and savers are still getting hammered by near zero inte...

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What I described as "Malpractice at the Bernanke Federal Reserve" has now turned into billion dollar annuities to the stock holders of the large banks. The Bernanke Fed began paying interest on reserves held by the banks in October 2008 when the financial crisis heightened after large financial firm...

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NEW YORK -- The nation's five largest mortgage firms have saved more than $20 billion since the housing crisis began in 2007 by taking shortcuts in processing troubled borrowers' home loans, according to a confidential presentation prepared for state attorneys general by the nascent consumer bureau ...

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NOSTALGIA is running high on Wall Street for the days when junk mortgage underwriting and opaque derivatives trading juiced bank profits. As regulators continue to devise the machinery of the Dodd-Frank regulatory reform law, major financial institutions are working overtime in Washington to bring t...

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Gensler Discusses Staggered Approach to Implementing “Mosaic” of Dodd-Frank Rules Citing improved profitability, loan quality and borrower demand, as well as a flattening out or slowdown in the rate of bank failures, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) Chairman Sheila Bair on March 22 said the c...

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New York City Comptroller John Liu announced this week a victory for the members of the New York City Pension Funds who have long been calling for banks to conduct an independent audit of their mortgage foreclosure practices. The NYC Pension Funds called for an audit of the banks’ practices in Nov...

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The Federal Reserve stress test results come out Thursday. Early reports indicate that as many of the 19 large financial institutions surveyed may need to raise more capital to satisfy regulators that they can deal with the current economic challenges. How should individuals view the stress test re...

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Big banks may be too big to save, writes Simon Johnson: "People sometimes talk about “systemic risk” as if it were intrinsic to the financial system. But modern financial history, including in emerging markets, strongly indicates otherwise. When banks and other financial institutions get into troubl...

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NEW YORK — Bank shareholders got a long-awaited gift from the U.S. Federal Reserve on Friday when the central bank cleared the way for major lenders to increase their dividends. It was the last hurdle left on the path to recovery for banks and signified a return to health for the industry. Banks we...

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WASHINGTON -- On Tuesday, a group of nine senators led by Montana Democrat Jon Tester put their names behind legislation to delay the Federal Reserve's upcoming crackdown on the "swipe fees" that banks charge merchants for processing debit card transactions -- a huge moneymaker for the banking indus...

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Bank customers could face $5 ATM fees. In Illinois, JPMorgan Chase is testing $5 fees for non-customers, in Texas, it's $4. If the trial runs make enough money, the fees could be rolled out nationwide, the Wall Street Journal reports. HSBC has already hiked rates, charging all non-customers $3 for...

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Dozens of Florida banks entered 2011 on perilous financial footing, according to Bauer Financial. The Coral Gables-based bank ratings agency rated 44 Florida-based banks zero stars in the fourth quarter. While that’s down from 45 in the third quarter, three of the previous zero-rated banks failed. ...

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Bank of America said Tuesday that it is stepping up efforts to help distressed homeowners before they fall into foreclosure, but company officials warned shareholders that same morning that BofA’s $1 trillion portfolio of problem assets — loans that are already delinquent and those risky home lendin...

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There were 157 U.S. bank failures last year, which sounds like another bad year for American banks until you realize that more than half of those failures -- 89 of them -- occurred in just five states. In contrast, twenty states had no bank failures at all. Clearly, banking is much more dangerous in...

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Even though the banking sector is getting healthier, there were still 157 bank failures in 2010. When a bank fails, FDIC insurance should protect your checking and savings accounts (as long as you don't exceed the $250,000 deposit limit), but accessing money from a failed institution can be inconve...

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Banks are setting aside billions of dollars to do something that until now was rarely heard of: making big loans to cities, states, schools and other public borrowers that otherwise might have turned to the bond market. When Riverside, Calif., was ironing out a bond offering recently to expand it...

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Miami-based Ocean Bank would pay between $10 million and $15 million in the next month under a pending agreement with the U.S. government for Bank Secrecy Act violations, an online financial newsletter reported late Tuesday citing sources familiar with the matter. Moneylaundering.com, which als...

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The federal bank regulator overseeing the nation's largest lenders is pushing for a quick and modest settlement to the months-long federal and state probes into abusive mortgage practices, frustrating other federal agencies and state regulators and raising questions over President Barack Obama's d...

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There is a battle going on -- a big one -- and big battles have a lot of fronts. The big banks are doing whatever they can to fight back against consumers and homeowners who are desperately trying to curb the bankers' abuses. The number of different fronts that have been opened up keeps growing. Her...

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Big banks are not holding back when it comes to acquiring or leasing branch locations in South Florida. Several major banks, including TD Bank, PNC Bank, Chase and BankUnited, have made expanding in the region their mission for 2011. They are willing to pay premium to lease or buy prime locations, ...

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Despite healthy earnings reports, banks still hold the many of the same so-called "toxic" assets that sparked worry during the financial crisis. The hard-to value assets, including mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations and other risky instruments are a growing concern, accor...

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WASHINGTON - U.S. regulators are gearing up for a landmark decision that could be pivotal in the recovery of the housing market -- how much risk can mortgage lenders sell to investors without having to hold on to some of it themselves? The new standard will determine what loans are deemed safe enou...

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Big financial institutions will pick up a greater portion of the cost to protect deposits when banks fail, under a plan adopted Monday by federal regulators. The new fee structure, which takes effect in April, will result in about 110 large banks covering about 80 percent of the premiums paid in...

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Natalie Smith, the manager of a U.S. Bancorp branch in an Albertsons supermarket in Milwaukie, Ore., is going to unusual lengths to make small-business loans. Last year, she cornered an eye doctor near the entrance, following him around until she learned he needed a commercial real-estate loan and...

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NEW YORK — Bank of America Corp. on Thursday said it is splitting its mortgage business into two units, with a new division created specifically to handle foreclosures and discontinued loan products. The bank said the new Legacy Asset Servicing unit will be responsible for resolving issues involv...

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Bank of America announced Friday that it has set up a new operational division to deal with problem loans and resolve investors’ mortgage repurchase claims. The newly formed unit, which the company has labeled Legacy Asset Servicing, will service all defaulted loans and discontinued residential mo...

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WASHINGTON — Regulators on Friday closed banks in Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Wisconsin, lifting to 11 the number of bank failures in 2011 following last year's toll of 157 taken down by the weak economy and piles of soured loans. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over the banks: Fi...

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Winston Churchill said, "The Americans will always do the right thing...after they > have exhausted all the alternatives." An article recently by Kate Berry in American > Banker points out that most banks are expected to switch to a flat compensation > model for loan officers and will have to pu...

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DAVOS, Switzerland - JP Morgan Chase's boss Jamie Dimon lashed out at persistent bank bashing nearly three years after the global credit crisis began, in particular the tendency to put all financial institutions in the same basket. Dimon, credited with being one of the few U.S. bankers who ably ste...

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Finding buyers for condos at the Ibis Villas at Doral has been almost impossible for developer Pablo Valdes. So, when investor Michael Lawrence agreed to pay cash for five units in the mostly unsold project, Valdes began counting the days to closing. Now, almost a month after the deal was to be c...

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Greetings from the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) annual enforcement conference in Charleston, S.C. I'm giving the keynote address Monday. I'll discuss the NASAA members' exceptionally important and often effective role against securities fraud in future columns. This c...

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A recent report by Institutional Risk Analytics (IRA) says Bank of America, and Wells Fargo are two of the most sued financial service firms in the United States. IRA says that mortgage exposure is what is causing these two banks and others in similar situations to be embroiled in so many federal l...

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It should come as no surprise that Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America Corp., wants to put 2010 behind him. "Last year was a necessary repair and rebuilding year," Moynihan said Friday. His comments came as the nation's largest bank reported a fourth-quarter loss of $1.6 billion and a full-year ...

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The banking industry, racked by the financial crisis and facing slower revenue growth, is starting to cut costs—increasingly at the expense of jobs. Wells Fargo & Co. and American Express Co. said Wednesday that they would take action to reduce expenses and lay off employees to become leaner. PNC F...

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Regulators on Friday closed banks in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Colorado, bringing to seven the number of closures in 2011. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation took over the banks, the largest by far being United Western Bank, based in Denver, with $2.05 bi...

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As the government struggles to revamp Fannie and Freddie, big banks are trying to capitalize on changes to the government sponsored enterprises. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is expected to release a report on changes to Fannie and Freddie later this month, and banks want in, the New York Times r...

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As the Obama administration prepares a report on the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, some of the nation’s largest banks are offering a few suggestions. Wells Fargo and some other large banks would like private companies, perhaps even themselves, to become the new housing finance giants helpi...

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In an effort to restore a crucial segment of the economy that was wounded in the financial crisis, a former government official is starting a company aimed at helping small banks. Lee Sachs, a former advisor in the Treasury department, is teaming with John Delaney, former chief executive of the ban...

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WASHINGTON -- The nation's four biggest banks can grow even bigger, with the potential to add at least another trillion dollars onto their balance sheets before they even reach the limits imposed by the Obama administration, according to an administration study released Tuesday. Dodd-Frank, the 201...

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The task force assembled by federal banking regulators to investigate the industry’s servicing and foreclosure practices is expected to release the results of its findings as early as February. The Federal Reserve, FDIC, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the Office of Thrift Sup...

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Banks already facing many legal issues have yet another group on their hands that is closely examining servicing practices and demanding greater transparency. The Association of Mortgage Investors has released a white paper featuring remedies to restore and stabilize the U.S. mortgage and housing m...

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A recent decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is expected to have sweeping implications for the nation’s banking industry when it comes to how they’ve approved foreclosures and may even invalidate thousands of foreclosures across the country. The court, in affirming a lower court’...

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When New Jersey tightened its rules for foreclosures in response to the crisis over false loan documents, it took the unprecedented step of ordering the six largest servicers -- Ally Bank/GMAC, Bank of America (BAC), Citibank (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC) and OneWest -- to explain why...

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Citigroup, the nation's third-largest bank by assets, was on the verge of being closed by regulators the week of Nov. 24, 2008 as depositors rapidly withdrew money and the bank's counterparties declined to provide it credit, according to a government report released Thursday. The new findings shed ...

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To great fanfare, this week Goldman Sachs introduced the report of its business standards committee, which makes recommendations regarding changes to the internal structure of what is currently the fifth-largest bank-holding company in the United States. Some recommended changes are long overdue – p...

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So now we know what the big banks’ New Year’s resolution was: Keep the profits flowing from basic checking accounts. Earlier this month, Bank of America announced its intent to test a number of different monthly fees for customers in some states, depending on the balance in their accounts or other...

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LONDON — A public debate about bankers’ bonuses is heating up in Britain as lawmakers ask for restraint on pay while some bankers ask to stop being blamed for the weak economy. The chief executive of Barclays, Robert E. Diamond Jr., said Tuesday that it was time to move on from criticizing and to l...

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WASHINGTON - During the fight over Wall Street reform, community banks were most often pitted against their behemoth rivals. Small banks, which hold great sway on Capitol Hill, backed reforms to regulate derivatives, break up big banks and prevent them from trading for their own benefit with taxpaye...

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Representatives from six major banks that skipped a hearing in a Miami condo association receivership case could face the wrath of Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jennifer Bailey today if they fail to show up a second time. The judge already has declared lenders that own or are foreclosing on units at Bir...

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The fight between big banks and investors who lost a fortune on mortgage-backed securities is shifting from private litigation to the public arena. The change in strategy comes as the number of foreclosures continues to skyrocket. Banks repossessed 1 million homes in 2010, and the number is expect...

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BANK investors cheered the announcement last week that Bank of America would pay $2.6 billion to buy back mortgages it had improperly sold during the housing bubble to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the beleaguered mortgage finance giants. It seemed a sweet deal for the bank, whose Countrywide Home Loa...

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PHOENIX — An array of federal and state investigations into the way banks foreclose on delinquent homeowners has contributed to a sharp slowdown in foreclosures across the country, especially in hard-hit cities like this one. Over the last several months, some banks have been reluctant to seize ho...

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NEW YORK - In a ruling that may affect foreclosures nationwide, Massachusetts' highest court voided the seizure of two homes by Wells Fargo & Co and US Bancorp after the banks failed to show they held the mortgages at the time they foreclosed. Bank shares fell, dragging down the broader U.S. stoc...

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The Massachusetts high court ruled on Friday that two foreclosures are invalid because the banks could not prove they had the proper paperwork to foreclose. The banks "failed to make the required showing that they were the holders of the mortgages at the time of foreclosur...

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With judges looking ever more critically at home foreclosures, they are reaching beyond the bankers to heap some of their most scorching criticism on the lawyers. In numerous opinions, judges have accused lawyers of processing shoddy or even fabricated paperwork in foreclosure actions when represe...

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Just one week into the new year and regulators have moved to shut the doors on two community-based lenders in Florida and Arizona. Officials at the FDIC say they expect bank failures to begin tapering off from last year, when a total of 157 financial institutions were shuttered and the lingering e...

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Santiago Carbo-Valverde could be describing South Florida’s housing woes and their impact on the region’s economy and banking, not the damage the industry inflicted on his native Spain. “The exposure of our banks has been too high. We got carried away,” Carbo-Valverde said. “We observed from 2000...

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Reports have surfaced that the FDIC is contemplating stricter requirements for banks that service loans and own second lien loans. New requirements would force banks to disclose what potential ramifications a loan modification on the first loan would have on the second lien loan. A December speec...

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In November after the robo-signing scandal broke, New York City Comptroller John C. Liu, on behalf of the New York City Pension Funds, called on the directors at four banks to conduct an independent audit of their mortgage and foreclosure practices. The four banks – Bank of America, Citigroup, JP ...

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WASHINGTON: U.S. banking regulators have authorized lawsuits against 109 bank officials so far as they seek to recover at least $2.5 billion in losses connected to recent bank failures. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said on Tuesday the suits target bank directors and officers for "either gross...

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Everyone knows that the Fed's money printing spigots are on. The underlying question is why? The party line has been a concern about inflation being at lower than desired levels. However, many people, myself included, are seeing signs in other markets that would suggest otherwise. Gold, agricultural...

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By the time the conference call ended, it was nearly midnight at Bank of America’s headquarters in Charlotte, N.C., but the bank’s counterespionage work was only just beginning. A day earlier, on Nov. 29, the director of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, said in an interview that he intended to “take d...

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With a $4.7 trillion bailout under their belts and no harm done to their billion-dollar bonuses, don't expect Wall Street bankers to be chastened by the 2008 financial crisis. Below we list eight things to watch out for in 2011 that threaten to rock the financial system and undermine any recovery....

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Nearly 100 banks previously rescued by the federal government are again poised to fail, despite billions of dollars of support from the American Treasury. The number of banks on the brink of collapse rose from 86 to 98 during the summer months, according to analysis of federal data from the Wal...

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Tuesday, December 28, 2010; 11:33 PM More banks failed in the United States this year than in any year since 1992, during the savings-and-loan crisis, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Amid high unemployment, a struggling economy and a still-devastated real estate market, the na...

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The “too big to fail” problem among banks will be partly fixed in 2011. Global regulators are expected to reach an agreement that would make a select group of megabanks hold higher levels of capital. That requirement will make them safer, while removing some of the benefit they get from being ...

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More than 500 representatives from 27 nations, including top regulators and central bankers, met dozens of times this year to hammer out 440 pages of new rules to govern the world’s banks. What’s not in the documents published by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, and the escape hatches t...

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WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve Board, chastised for regulatory inaction that contributed to the subprime mortgage meltdown, also missed a chance to prevent much of the financial chaos ravaging hundreds of small- and mid-sized banks. In early 2005, at a time when the housing market was overheate...

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WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve Board, chastised for regulatory inaction that contributed to the subprime mortgage meltdown, also missed a chance to prevent much of the financial chaos ravaging hundreds of small- and mid-sized banks. In early 2005, at a time when the housing market was overheate...

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WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve Board, chastised for regulatory inaction that contributed to the subprime mortgage meltdown, also missed a chance to prevent much of the financial chaos ravaging hundreds of small- and mid-sized banks. In early 2005, at a time when the housing market was overheate...

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WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve Board, chastised for regulatory inaction that contributed to the subprime mortgage meltdown, also missed a chance to prevent much of the financial chaos ravaging hundreds of small- and mid-sized banks. In early 2005, at a time when the housing market was overheate...

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WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve Board, chastised for regulatory inaction that contributed to the subprime mortgage meltdown, also missed a chance to prevent much of the financial chaos ravaging hundreds of small- and mid-sized banks. In early 2005, at a time when the housing market was overheate...

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• Comments

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve Board, chastised for regulatory inaction that contributed to the subprime mortgage meltdown, also missed a chance to prevent much of the financial chaos ravaging hundreds of small- and mid-sized banks. In early 2005, at a time when the housing market was overheate...

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Van Helsing: "The strength of the vampire is that nobody will believe in him." America's debt to Wall Street has soared since 1945 -- and although the banks were rescued at the public's expense, the public's been left holding the bag for the recent drop in housing prices: Hmm... How many t...

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As many as a dozen well-capitalized banks and investment groups are swimming around South Florida's financial waters, looking for banks they can acquire to expand their footprints in the region. At least as many banks are looking for buyers, or at least investors. Talks and due diligence are w...

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As many as a dozen well-capitalized banks and investment groups are swimming around South Florida's financial waters, looking for banks they can acquire to expand their footprints in the region. At least as many banks are looking for buyers, or at least investors. Talks and due diligence are well ...

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A second state has filed a lawsuit against Bank of America (BofA) for alleged deceptive loan modification and foreclosure practices. Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto announced Friday that her office had also opened a lawsuit against the company and its affiliates regarding its residen...

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One of the most discouraging things about the last two years was seeing swing voters in focus groups, when asked what President Obama's economic strategy was, repeat different versions of "Well, I know he said we needed to save the banks. Beyond that, I'm not sure." When Obama in his first State of ...

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I was initially going to title this blog "F*ck The Banks" because of all the havoc they've wrought in peoples' lives, and how, even after the bailouts and the recession, the foreclosures and congressional hearings, they still don't get the American middle class. Then I reflected on the fact that the...

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Imagine your foreclosure problems began the month after you paid off your mortgage. That despite multiple calls and visits to branches of JP Morgan Chase, you couldn't get the bank to acknowledge they had already received all the money you owed them. You called the bank month after month, multiple...

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There's a new blockbuster out just in time for the holidays: Harry Potter and the Bailed-Out Banks. Here's a synopsis: While students in London spend hours in the cold protesting tuition fees that may soon triple, RBS, a bank that took a huge government bailout, throws a party commemorating on...

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It seems like the words "good news" and "banking" haven't gone in the same sentence since the start of the financial crisis in 2008. Although there's no doubt that bank customers got a raw deal in the recession, there were many positive developments in banking during 2010. Here were the eight bes...

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WASHINGTON (By Dave Clarke) - U.S. banking regulators meet on Tuesday to take the first steps toward implementing higher capital requirements set out in the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp board will consider a proposal on how to set minimum capital require...

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When it acquired two failed Miami community banks on July 16, North American Financial Holdings didn't arrive on the South Florida banking scene with the splash of the private equity group that acquired BankUnited last year. But it showed up with just as much capital — $900 million — as well a...

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BANGALORE (Reuters): Bank of America Corp has put up for sale at least $1 billion worth of toxic mortgage assets, the New York Post said on Monday, citing sources. Bids are due by the end of December for the assets, which includes already written-off loans and mortgage-servicing rights, the paper s...

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Charlotte, N.C. BRIAN MOYNIHAN isn’t one to look back. And as the chief executive of Bank of America, he has plenty of reasons not to. His company is staggering under the weight of his predecessors’ decisions, and each day seems to bring more bad news. More than 1.3 million of the bank’s custome...

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Regulators on Friday shut down small banks in Michigan and Pennsylvania, raising the number of banks that have failed this year to 151. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation took over the Paramount Bank, based in Farmington Hills, Mich., with $252.7 million in assets and $213.6 million in depo...

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In order to deal with the influx of loan modifications that many banks are dealing with, Bank of America Home Loans (BofA) has made the decision to move some of its mortgage loan originators and other staff to the loan modification department. The company plans on moving around 2,500 employees to...

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When Florida retiree Gladys Walker fell behind in paying taxes on her modest Pompano Beach home, she had no idea one of America's biggest banks and a major Wall Street hedge fund engaged in frenzied bidding for the right to collect her debt--all $768.25 of it. "I just couldn't come up with the m...

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One of Wall Street’s most influential securities analysts is telling investors to brace themselves: some of the nation’s biggest banks could be on the cusp of a credit rating downgrade. In a new report, Glenn Schorr, who covers brokerage firms and banks at Nomura, says that while “it’s not a done ...

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The Securities and Exchange Commission showed leniency toward Bank of America in penalizing the firm for securities law violations last year because the financially weakened bank was on taxpayer-backed life support, according to a new watchdog report. The agency agreed to a settlement that was "fa...

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UPDATE: Bank of America's stock rebounded in early trading Wednesday, rising .50 percent. ORIGINAL POST: Bank of America's stock took a hit on Tuesday, as rumors circulated that WikiLeaks could release a trove of the bank's secret -- and potentially "unethical" -- documents next year. As WikiLea...

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The more we learn about the mortgage industry’s documentation snafus, the more troubling hints we get that the financial statements of some of our biggest banks may be less reliable than anyone imagined. Here’s the latest: Thanks to a Nov. 16 court ruling in Camden, New Jersey, we now know that a B...

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Federal regulators hit Palm Beach Gardens-based SouthBank, its parent company and its sister institution with cease and desist orders. Issued on Nov. 19 and made public on Wednesday by the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), the orders require the Florida bank and its larger Huntsville, Ala.-based ...

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The FDIC said Tuesday that it added 31 banks to its so-called “Problem List,” bringing the total number of institutions under the agency’s watchful eye to 860. The total assets of banks on the FDIC’s watch list declined, however, from $403 billion to $379 billion. The number of “problem” institut...

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Testimony in a New Jersey foreclosure case decided last week may spell big trouble for Bank of America (BAC). If what one bank employee said on the stand proves to be accurate, paperwork problems it acquired when it purchased the failing mortgage provider Countrywide in 2008 could leave BofA on the ...

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Even as the nation’s biggest banks have rapidly recovered, hundreds of small lenders remain at risk, according to the government’s latest report card on the financial industry. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said on Tuesday that its list of “problem banks” — those with the highest risk ...

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The recovery enjoyed by most banks around the county in the third quarter, by and large, skipped Florida. Much like Florida’s unemployment and foreclosure rates, which have been stubbornly slow to improve, many local banks have been unable to shake out of the recession. It appears that their strugg...

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Wells Fargo says it has agreed to pay Citigroup $100 million to settle claims related to a dispute over Wells’ 2008 acquisition of Wachovia Corp. Wells Fargo and Citi found themselves in a bitter tug-of-war over the troubled North Carolina lender when regulators stepped in to engineer a take-over o...

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LONDON: The new Basel III banking rules will leave the biggest U.S. banks short of between $100 billion and $150 billion in equity capital, with 90 per cent of the shortfall concentrated in the top six banks, the Financial Times said, citing research from Barclays Capital. The newspaper said th...

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KUDOS to the Congressional Oversight Panel for publishing a thoughtful and thorough report last week on the mortgage documentation mess. It argued that, yes, in fact, these paperwork problems may have significant implications for banks, investors and the stability of the financial system. Since mo...

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Banks will appear before the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday to explain sloppy mortgage paperwork, but observers aren’t expecting much Congressional harmony on the topic. Senators are likely to press lenders on the question of whether “robosigners” are evidence that modifying loans is bet...

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If you're in the market for a detailed, if byzantine, explanation of how banks ended up repackaging and buying their own own securities during the housing boom, we've got you covered. This infographic, courtesy of MortgageRates lays out some of the details unearthed in a sweeping ProPublica inv...

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A study released Thursday by J.D. Power and Associates shows that the time from submission of a mortgage application to approval time has increased by more than a week from the time for approval last year. In 2009 the average time for approval was 20 days. This year the average is 27.5 days. In ...

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Banks will appear before the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday to explain sloppy mortgage paperwork, but observers aren’t expecting much Congressional harmony on the topic. Senators are likely to press lenders on the question of whether “robosigners” are evidence that modifying loans is better tha...

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Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase told the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday that they were making changes in their foreclosure processes after reviews found areas that needed improvement. Barbara DeSoer, president of Bank of America's home loan business, said the company has set up a n...

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If you're in the market for a detailed, if byzantine, explanation of how banks ended up repackaging and buying their own own securities during the housing boom, we've got you covered. This infographic, courtesy of MortgageRates lays out some of the details unearthed in a sweeping ProPublica investi...

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KUDOS to the Congressional Oversight Panel for publishing a thoughtful and thorough report last week on the mortgage documentation mess. It argued that, yes, in fact, these paperwork problems may have significant implications for banks, investors and the stability of the financial system. Since mo...

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A report released Tuesday by the Congressional Oversight Panel suggests allegations that banks may have bypassed legally required steps to foreclose on homes pose a grim outlook for financial institutions. Under a best-case scenario, the 127-page report suggests concerns about mortgage documentat...

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Only two weeks away from a regulatory deadline to raise capital, Great Florida Bank disclosed that its third quarter loss was worse than it originally reported. The Miami Lakes-based bank (Pink Sheets: GFLB) reported an $8.6 million loss to federal regulators on Nov. 1. Its Securities and Exchang...

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NEW YORK — The trustees of New York City's government pension funds asked the directors of four major banks Tuesday to play a bigger role in policing company foreclosure practices. City Comptroller John Liu said the retirement system owns about $1.77 billion worth of stock in Citigroup Inc., Well...

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Even as concerns over the legitimacy of mortgage documents plague homeowners and investors nationwide, the office of a Bank of America mortgage modification call center tries to remain positive, the New York Times reports. Posters with words such as "Empathy," "Winning" and "Leadership" can be seen...

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I remember it like yesterday, it was the Autumn of 2006. I was on the Lehman Brothers trading floor where I traded distressed debt, bonds of companies in trouble. One of the brightest analysts in the firm came up to me with an interesting piece of data. He showed me a chart of "shadow banks" going o...

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"The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that it will use a 'conservative' approach, applied equally across the 19 largest and most complex U.S. banks, to determine whether they should be allowed to pay their shareholders dividends, repurchase shares or take other actions that would reduce their buffe...

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Gibraltar Private Bank & Trust’s losses more than tripled in the third quarter as it paid the price for reducing its amount of problem loans. Federal regulators issued a cease and desist order against the Coral Gables-based bank in October for having an excessive level of problem assets and inade...

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Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Bank of America did not comment for the record. The bank's comment is now included. When banks buy insurance on the homes of borrowers whose policies have lapsed, they get a great deal. Just not for the homeowners and investors ...

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WASHINGTON -- You could do a lot worse things with your time than read every word of what William K. Black and L. Randall Wray have written for the Huffington Post in the last two weeks -- even though it would take a while. Black and Wray both teach economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas Ci...

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A few weeks ago we asked a simple question: Why are the same Wall Street banks that lobbied so hard to dilute the passages in the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul bill banning proprietary trading now jettisoning their proprietary trading groups, without so much as a whimper? The law directs regulator...

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IN Congressional hearings last week, Obama administration officials acknowledged that uncertainty over foreclosures could delay the recovery of the housing market. The implications for the economy are serious. For instance, the International Monetary Fund found that the persistently high unemploym...

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[Speech given at The Economic Recovery: Washington's Big Lie, the Supporters Summit for the Ludwig von Mises Institute, October 8, 2010 ( Sheila Bair, the Chairman of the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), has said many times that the peak in bank failures would not occur until the ...

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[Speech given at The Economic Recovery: Washington's Big Lie, the Supporters Summit for the Ludwig von Mises Institute, October 8, 2010.] Every Friday evening a few more banks are closed - seized by the various state banking regulators and handed over to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (F...

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By Jacques de Larosière Published: October 25 2010 22:38 | Last updated: October 26 2010 15:32 Financial Times Politicians are determined to strengthen the financial system in order to avoid a repeat of the current crisis, which has resulted in such enormous costs in terms of growth, employment a...

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At the center of the foreclosure fraud crisis lies something called "MERS," which is usually described in news reports as a computer system and database. But a thorough review of the company's publicly available documents show it's much more than that. We reviewed hundreds of pages of bulletins, new...

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EW YORK (AP) -- Bank of America Corp. said Tuesday it lost $7.65 billion during the third quarter due to a charge related to credit and debit card reform legislation passed over the summer. In a dramatic shift, the bank also said it will change its consumer banking strategy to focus on providing cu...

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Jamie Dimon and the other mega-bankers who derailed the economy have a new PR campaign to sell you. They're saying that families who can't pay their mortgages must bear the blame -- all the blame -- for the foreclosure crisis. That means the public should just ignore banks' widespread lawbreaking in...

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Homeowners can only be foreclosed and evicted from their homes by the person or institution who actually has the loan paper—only the note-holder has legal standing to ask a court to foreclose and evict. Not the mortgage—the note, which is the actual IOU that people sign, promising to pay back the mo...

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Ally Financial legal issue with foreclosures may affect other mortgage companies Ariana Eunjung Cha Washington Post Staff Writer Some of the nation's largest mortgage companies used a single document processor who said he signed off on foreclosures without having read the paperwork - an admi...

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U.S. Banking Agencies Express Support for Basel Agreement FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 12, 2010 The U.S. federal banking agencies support the agreement reached at the September 12, 2010, meeting of the G-10 Governors and Heads of Supervision (GHOS). This action, in combination with the a...

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Editorial NYT The New Bank Rules Published: September 13, 2010 Basel Committee on Banking SupervisionThe most significant rule approved by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision — a group of regulators from 27 countries, including the United States — means banks will have to boost t...

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In addition to Frank Dodd Act reforms, banks will be contending with Basel reforms international regulators are considering which could increase reserve requirements. That means how much money bank need to keep on hand to protect them from losses. The more the banks need to hold, the less the taxp...

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The number of insured financial institutions on the FDIC’s so-called “problem list” has risen to 775, up from 702 at the end of 2009. The total assets of problem banks have increased from $403 billion at the close of last year to $431 billion. The FDIC says both the number and assets of problem...

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Prevent banks from diong REO or workout deals that would benefit the borrower or guarantorsd, which makes sense. But one potential impact of this is that a guarnator may be willing do buy the property at a short sale for a higher price than an unrelated buyer is willing to pay, but the bank cant do...

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...Allow 7 years for bank taking over failed institution to sell commercail REO and 12 year for residential. Reimburse for 80% of loss. This is going to last a long time.......

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702 banks (holding $402.8 billion) were on the FDIC’s “problem list” and 45 failed as of Q4 2009, 27% more than Q3 2009 (552). Total failures for 2009? 140. Total so far for 2010? 20! In Novemeber FDIC required many banks to prepay 3 years worth of deposit insurance premiums – almost $46 bill...

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Funny how you can pick up any paper today and read two or more articles related to the many indicators we rely on and predicting vastly different recovery time lines, patterns and outcomes. For example, on the one hand, CRE transactions were looking good in December, leading some to at least hin...

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Increasingly aggressive mortgage lenders are seeking to collect deficiencies from former home owners who walked away from their properties or sold them in short sales. Many states, including Florida, give mortgage holders as long as five years to seek a deficiency judgment. If granted, the bank g...

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The sad truth is regional and small banks are the most exposed. Almost 3000 of them are sitting on 300 percent risk to capital. ...

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We've been saying since day one that government needs to be saving for a rainy day. Yes giving folks cash to buy new cars may help make consumer spending stats look better. But keeping our banking system afloat is certainly more important. The FDIC has only about 10 billion left of the $50 bill...

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1. Prepare Transaction Memorandum detailing credit history and structure. 2. Prepare Loan Document Binder and Index 3. Provide detailed break down of all sums due, any funds in escrow, and description of default(s) 4. Provide Index of all other property related information in pos...

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These things being called "test" are starting to sound more and more like college sorority hazing. Unlike a test would measure skills learned, these are putting banks under a fabricated (we hope) seriies of worst case scenarios and watching to see if they "break." And talk about secracy...it...

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With stress test outcomes pending, the question on everyone's mind (OK maybe not everyone) is whcih bankls will pass or fail and how exactly again are the Feds grading this thing. The later question is looking more and mroe like a moving target with synics wondering if the criteria maybe wont be cu...

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There are some banks thaty just dont want to govt money anymore. Did they not want it in the first place and simply take it as a favor to make those who actaully needed it look less desparate? Do they not want the strings, including limitation on exec compansation? Do they feel too stgmatized by ...

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Converting the governments preferred shares in some of the nation's largest banks to common equity. What do you think? The markets it seemed didnt like the idea - they fell. should we be surprised? Who on Wall Street likes what is essentially the nationalization of banks? The idea seems to hav...

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JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Countrywdie, WaMu were the biggest holders of mortgages...

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Stress test results show that 10 of 19 banks don’t need more TARP money leading to confidence, and some of these banks issuing new shares for the first time in a long time and investors actually buying them. In February financial stocks were only 8 to 9% of S&P 500. Usual is 20%. Now they’re abo...

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