O petróleo está em queda, mas a incerteza continua em alta

[Bala]

"Citigroup CEO Resigns"
Interim Named
Citigroup Chairman and CEO Prince Resigns, Replaced As Chairman by Former Treasury Secy Rubin

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/art ... cdcf4c.htm

[RJCP]

O engraçado foi ver as acções da Citigroup abrirem com uma forte desvalorização e conseguirem manter e até melhorar um pouco não fechando nos minimos, enquanto o resto do mercado acentuava as perdas.

Será que encontrou um fundo?

[Ulisses Pereira]

"My Citi in Ruins"

By Jim Cramer
RealMoney.com Columnist
11/1/2007 11:59 AM EDT
"You see they were always kidding themselves at Citigroup (C - commentary - Cramer's Take - Rating). All of these warnings about how Chuck Prince was putting the franchise at risk, all of these worries, all of the signals and the heads-ups, they were always about the franchise. The blowup of the franchise.

You see that of all the big financial institutions, the one that should have been the least vulnerable was Citi. It has the biggest deposit base, it had the most stable platform, it had all of these businesses that when you turn the lights on each day, you made money.

This was the easiest bank to run and the hardest bank to run into the ground. It had no overreliance on housing or mortgages. It has this great worldwide business that was the least dependent on U.S. housing.

And Prince blew it. I understand that O'Neal had to go at Merrill (MER - commentary - Cramer's Take - Rating); he made a terrible bet on mortgages well after everyone else did in a weird me-too analysis that was stupid as all get out. I understand how Warren Spector had to go at Bear Stearns (BSC - commentary - Cramer's Take - Rating); he told Jimmy Cayne everything was under control. That was wrong.

But the one who has really screwed things up, the one who will have caused a cut in the dividend because he simply didn't understand banking -- it was over his head -- is Prince.

Soon it will be too late. But maybe it doesn't even matter.

This board's actions have been so unconscionable as to make them liable for all of this, particularly Bob Rubin, who has, in my eyes, lost so much cachet.

If this bank had just done nothing in the last five years, if it had done nothing at all, it would be in such better shape than with every initiative that Prince has taken. Prince is going to do to Citigroup in 2007 what old management did to Citigroup in 1990. It is getting written that way.

I own the stock for Action Alerts PLUS.com, and I own it because of the dividend, and because I figured that there is no way that Prince would be allowed to stay. I never banked on this level of dereliction of duty.

Looks like I bet wrong. "

(in www.realmoney.com)

[acintra]

Será que a queda pára por estes valores...

November 1, 2007

Citigroup fears send Wall Street reeling
Stocks plunge in London and New York on speculation that Citigroup could cut dividends or sell assets to raise $30bnMarcus Leroux and agencies
The Dow Jones plunged by nearly 200 points today on speculation that Citigroup may have to raise $30 billion in short-term finance.

The prospect was raised in a note from CIBC World Markets, which downgraded Citigroup to “sector underperformer” from “sector performer,” citing capital concerns.

The note sent Citigroup shares down 9 per cent, or $2.74, to $38.62 by late morning in New York - their lowest levels in more than four years.

Sentiment spread across the sector. Bank of America, the US's second-largest bank, fell $1.48 to $46.80, while Merrill Lynch was off $2.48 from $63.54.

Related Links
Citigroup and BoA jettison bankers after losses
Citigroup credit traders notch up $600m losses
Citigroup’s fixed-income chief joins casualties
Meredith Whitney, an analyst from CIBC, said: "We believe Citigroup will need to raise over $30 billion in capital as a result of its tangible capital ratios falling to the lowest levels in decades, now standing at almost half their peer group average at just 2.8 per cent”.

The bank was also downgraded at Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley. The CIBC analyst said Citigroup will be forced to sell assets, raise capital or cut its dividend to shore up its capital ratios, over the near term.

The mood dragged down London where the FTSE 100, already depressed during the morning, fell by almost 130 points.

Almost two weeks ago Citigroup's profits plunged 57% as credit crunch write-offs hit three parts of the business and the bank's renowned credit traders lost $636 million in three months.

Charles "Chuck" Prince, the bank's chief executive, said it was a "disappointing quarter, even in the context of the dislocations in the sub-prime mortgage and credit markets".

In the three months to the end of September, profits dropped 57 per cent to $2.38 billion. Mr Prince said a "significant amount" of this was a result of sliding revenues at the fixed-income business.

Revenues at that division plunged 70 per cent to $671 million in this year's third quarter, compared with $2.3 billion last time.

Citigroup blamed the trading loss on "significant market volatility and disruption of historical pricing relationships". The drying up of market liquidity during the summer meant it was virtually impossible in some cases for traders to mark their positions to market.

The bank took a $1.56 billion hit on sub-prime mortgages that it was preparing to use in highly-structured credit portfolios.

On top of that, Citigroup said investment banking revenues halved to $541 million, as it wrote off $901 million on leveraged loans it was expecting to make.

Similar writedowns of $451 million meant that lending revenues at the markets and banking arm were down 14 per cent to $412 million.

Last month, Citigroup sent a shiver through Wall Street investment banks as it said it was preparing to write off $5.9 billion and see profits fall about 60 per cent in the wake of the summer turmoil in the credit markets.

The losses have already led to high-profile departures at Citigroup including Thomas Maheras, who ran the fixed-income division and Randolph Barker, one of his close associates. A third colleague was moved to another job inside the bank.

Citigroup was not immediately available for comment.

[mig]

Não será um bom ponto de entrada? Está a fazer minimos do ano .....cai 8%

[Ulisses Pereira]

"Play the Spin Cycle in Bank Stocks"

By Jim Cramer
RealMoney.com Columnist
9/5/2007 7:43 AM EDT

"If you want to know why people get confused about stocks, just turn to the front and back pages of the Money and Investing Section of Murdoch's "Wall Street Journal."


On the front page is an article headlined "Conduit Risks Are Hovering Over Citigroup," which highlights -- in relatively gruesome detail if you are a Citigroup (C - commentary - Cramer's Take - Rating) holder, and my charitable trust is -- the woes that could be caused by some big investments in commercial paper entities that might have huge losses. The stuff sounds like it could blow up any minute, possibly taking Citi with it.

On the back page is an article about State Street (STT - commentary - Cramer's Take - Rating). The subject? Conduit risks.

Same woes? Not on your life. This time it's the fact that the conduit woes to the commercial paper market might be overdone because the stock's gone down a great deal.

Even though I could argue that this "woe" is the exact same as Citigroup's, except potentially a much bigger hit to the entire capital of State Street, the conduit story was last week's story. Now it is time to put it in perspective and make people feel better about the risk.

Will we get the same "overdone" story about Citigroup next week that puts all of this bad conduit news into perspective?

Now let's say you play the short side. You will have smashed State Street down to oblivion. You can operate on Citigroup today. Maybe bring it in to be ahead of next week's apologia.

But here's two more: Bank of New York (BK - commentary - Cramer's Take - Rating)and Northern Trust (NTRS - commentary - Cramer's Take - Rating). They have mystifying conduits that could come back to hurt them. If I were in the short game I would set both of these up with puts, betting that the conduit police can't resist writing about them.


In the case of Bank of New York you can see a Three Rivers partnership that "feels" a lot like the Centauri, the structured investment vehicle that could now, we learn, cause hideous losses for Citigroup.

Look, anything "structured" is codeword for "it's going down." I am not dismissing the notion of analyzing these; I am just saying that this stuff is now very 1990 when we started looking at everything that could go wrong, not what was going wrong, and it had a dramatic effect downward on the stocks.

We are in that phase.

In fact, the State Street defense is rather early. I would figure that one could easily be raided down again with the right spin. But this article will blunt that raid and turn it around unless the raid is backed by concrete losses for the company.

Do I want these things to happen? Last week on CNBC I gave today's Journal's assessment. I looked like a Pollyanna in the face of the bad news.

Who knows? But just be aware that business, like politics, has spin cycles. Citigroup just got caught up in the one that just ran its course for State Street; Northern Trust and Bank of New York are next.

Better get set up that way. "

(in www.realmoney.com)