- Budget Blow for Health Plan
- Bank of America Profit Drops Less Than Expected on Fee Income
- Citigroup Reports Second Quarter Net Income of $4.3 Billion, $0.49 Diluted EPS
- AIG Swaps May Take Decades to Expire Leaving a ‘Toxic Pool’
- Lawmakers Blast Paulson For His Response to Crisis
- Paulson Lambasted for Crisis
- With Credit Markets Still Frozen, CIT Shops for Investors
- CIT, Clients Scramble to Secure Lifelines
- Retailers Say Losing CIT Would Crimp Supply Chain
- Lenders Plan To Make Bid For Delphi
- City Jobless Rate Reaches 9.5 Percent, Matching National Figure
- Google quarterly results fail to excite
- GE earnings down, but better than expected
Budget Blow for Health Plan – Wall Street Journal
Congress’s chief budget scorekeeper cast a new cloud over Democratic efforts to overhaul the nation’s health-care system, telling lawmakers Thursday that the main proposals being considered would fail to contain costs — one of the primary goals — and could actually worsen the problem of rapidly escalating medical spending.
“We do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount,” Douglas Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, told the Senate Budget Committee. “On the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health-care costs,” he added….
Bank of America Profit Drops Less Than Expected on Fee Income – Bloomberg
Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. lender, said second-quarter profit dropped less than most analysts estimated on gains from fees at its securities unit.
Net income declined 5.5 percent to $3.22 billion, or 33 cents per diluted share, from $3.41 billion, or 72 cents, a year earlier when fewer shares were outstanding, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank said today in a statement. The average estimate of 21 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg was 18 cents a share….
Citigroup Reports Second Quarter Net Income of $4.3 Billion, $0.49 Diluted EPS – Citigroup
Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) today reported net income for the second quarter of 2009 of $4.3 billion, or $0.49 per diluted share. Second quarter revenues were $30.0 billion. These results include an $11.1 billion pre-tax ($6.7 billion after-tax) gain associated with the Morgan Stanley Smith Barney joint venture transaction, which closed on June 1, 2009.
Today’s results reflect Citigroup’s previously announced realignment into two principal segments, Citicorp and Citi Holdings. A third segment, Corporate/Other, consists of various corporate level activities. An organizational chart detailing the businesses in Citicorp and Citi Holdings is attached in Appendix A…..
AIG Swaps May Take Decades to Expire Leaving a ‘Toxic Pool’ – Bloomberg
American International Group Inc.’s trading partners may force the insurer to bear the risk of losses on corporate loans and mortgages for years beyond the company’s expectations, complicating U.S. efforts to stabilize the firm, analysts said.
European banks including Societe Generale SA and BNP Paribas SA hold almost $200 billion in guarantees sold by New York-based AIG allowing the lenders to reduce the capital required for loss reserves. The firms may keep the contracts to hedge against declining assets rather than canceling them as AIG said it expects the banks to do, according to David Havens, managing director at investment bank Hexagon Securities LLC…..
Lawmakers Blast Paulson For His Response to Crisis – Washington Post
Former Treasury secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. yesterday was lectured, insulted, blamed and excoriated by House Democrats and Republicans still angry about the Bush administration’s handling of the financial crisis.
Months of pent-up frustrations boiled over as lawmakers called on Paulson to account for a litany of perceived offenses: misleading Congress to gain approval of the $700 billion rescue program, investing in banks on overly generous terms, failing to help homeowners facing foreclosure and allowing the nation to fall into economic crisis…..
Paulson Lambasted for Crisis – Wall Street Journal
Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was assailed by Congress for his role in the government’s rescue of Bank of America Corp. and for his broader response last year to the financial crisis.
Mr. Paulson, making his first appearance on Capitol Hill since leaving office in January, defended the government’s response and his role in ensuring that Bank of America closed its transaction for Merrill Lynch & Co. At times, he was visibly irritated at having to repeat the same answer multiple times…..
With Credit Markets Still Frozen, CIT Shops for Investors – NY Times
….Unless CIT can raise billions of dollars, the company — a source of financing for hundreds of thousands of small and midsize businesses across the country — could file for bankruptcy protection within days.
CIT was locked in negotiations with investors late Thursday, hoping to persuade them to provide the company with $2 billion to $3 billion. Any deal, however, would hinge on a special waiver from the Federal Reserve, and time was short…..
CIT, Clients Scramble to Secure Lifelines – Wall Street Journal
Worries about the fate of CIT Group Inc. cascaded through the retail and manufacturing industries on Thursday, as companies stopped shipments and businesses worried about cash being tied up at the lender should it file for bankruptcy-court protection.
The disruptions were an indicator of the potentially wide fallout from a failure of CIT, which was unable this week to persuade the government to provide financial assistance…..
Retailers Say Losing CIT Would Crimp Supply Chain – NY Times
For the nation’s already struggling retailing industry, the collapse of CIT would send yet another wave of pain through the supply chain, wiping out suppliers’ capital, depleting retailers’ credit and leaving the racks and shelves of the nation’s stores sparsely stocked — just in time for Christmas…..
Lenders Plan To Make Bid For Delphi – Wall Street Journal
Delphi Corp.’s lenders said they will bid for the auto-parts supplier, in an effort to defeat a government-orchestrated sale of the company to General Motors Co. and a private-equity firm.
“Lenders have assembled a management team to operate the debtors’ businesses, conducted negotiations with GM and lined up financing,” a creditors group led by New York hedge fund Elliott Management Corp. said in a filing late Wednesday with the court overseeing Delphi’s bankrutpcy proceedings…..
City Jobless Rate Reaches 9.5 Percent, Matching National Figure – NY Times
….In June, the city’s unemployment rate jumped to 9.5 percent, matching the national rate and suggesting that the city’s economy is still weakening a year and a half after the national recession began. The rate of joblessness in the city had not been as high in almost 12 years.
In May, it was 8.9 percent, significantly lower than the national rate of 9.4 percent for that month…..
Google quarterly results fail to excite – Reuters
Google Inc’s (GOOG.O) quarterly profit beat Wall Street expectations, but the weak economy and slump in advertising spending took a toll on revenue growth and the price of its search ads.
Shares of Google fell 3 percent after the results, which exceeded average forecasts but failed to live up to the heightened expectations of investors following Intel Corp’s (INTC.O) strong earnings earlier this week. Google shares have risen 4 percent since Intel’s report on Tuesday…..
GE earnings down, but better than expected – CNNMoney
General Electric Co. reported sharply lower second-quarter earnings Friday that still beat Wall Street expectations, even as its revenue fell more sharply than forecasts.
Shares of GE, a component of the Dow Jones industrial average, were up more than 1% in pre-market trading following the report…..
Tags: AIG, Autos, Bank of America, Bankruptcy, CIT, Citigroup, Delphi, GE, Google, Healthcare, Henry Paulson, NYC, unemployment
