Monday, March 17, 2008

This weekend was history in the making as far as Wall Street was concerned. America's fifth largest investment bank, Bear Stearns, collapsed... over a period of 16 days.

On Feb 29, apparently, it was trading at $80 and change. Over the last weekend, JP Morgan bought Bear Stearns at $2 a share. I don't think a company of the size of BSC was ever sold over a weekend, especially at a little over 1 percent its estimated worth.

This is *huge*! If the financial infrastructure goes down, everything else goes down...

The US Fed is trying everything it possibly can to avoid catastrophes. Over the past weekend it stepped in to tackle the Bear Stearns issue, and did something that it hasn't done ever: accept mortgage backed securities as collateral for its loan to JP Morgan.

The next few days will be very very interesting...

5 comments:

Annemarie said...

Looking forward t your report on what transpires in the next few days. You guessed right. We are all jittery here in India.

Kappa said...

So last known, JPM upped it's buying price to 10 bucks a share, and that lifted up the markets' spirit somewhat. But this is down-season overall, with or without BSC.

What's the deal in India? Down much from last year, looks like?

Annemarie said...

Down much from last year, looks like?

Yup, hiring is down, and forced attrition is the order of the day. Picture is bleak! Thanks for the positive sequel :)

Kappa said...

Huh? Forced attrition meaning?

That's a personal question, more cause I want to move back to the motherland.

Annemarie said...

Well people are being asked to leave after their appraisals. TCS cut about 5000 jobs and so have others. Engg grads who were placed in campus placements have been asked not to report to training. Apparently things will look up by mid year. You should enquire before making that trip home.