For the fourth straight day, the stock market finished the day in the positive. However, compared to the previous three days, Tuesday’s gains were minimal.
While strong news from the national housing industry helped some stocks, a number of financial institutions saw their stock prices drop substantially. For example, Goldman Sachs fell $1.20, American Express dropped nearly $1.30 and JP Morgan was down by more than $1.60.
Overall, the stock indexes showed that the market moved in the right direction. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 0.2% to finish Tuesday at 8.740.9. The S&P’s 500 was also up 0.2%, while the …read more

Citigroup has created the Citi Homeowner Assistance program to help mortgage holders avoid foreclosure.
Citi is not the first and will not be the last bank to announce homeowner relief efforts.  Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase have already taken recent measures to spare homeowners from foreclosures.  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will release details of their homeowner relief programs this afternoon.
According to MarketWatch, Citi has trained counselors who will initiate contact with homeowners particularly in areas where prices are falling and unemployment is high.  Over the next six months these counselors will attempt to make contact with 500,000 borrowers via mail, email, phone, social networks…this type …read more

Is it me or it does it seem as if J.P. Morgan Chase is the Fed’s rescuer of choice for all bank failures? ;)
Washington Mutual finally caved in.  Company reps have adamantly denied rumors of insolvency for quite some time but, the jig is up.  Maybe the bank would have survived if customers had not withdrawn over $16 billion in deposits in the past nine days.
While it is possible that the initial buzz exaggerated WaMu’s condition, the bank was obviously in a vulnerable position.
WaMu is officially the largest bank failure in the history of the United States.  The bank had over $300 billion in assets …read more