Fannie, Freddie, Lehman, Merrill, AIG decimated within a span of merely seven days. And rumors of more to follow this week. Wow. Our newsroom has been busy Sunday afternoon, and will be working overtime throughout the night, most likely. Below, some links to tide readers over until Monday hits:
- The Mother of All Mondays (WSJ)
- Wake-Up Call: Lehman’s Mortgage Marks (WSJ)
- Lehman Said to Prepare Bankruptcy as Buyers Withdraw (Bloomberg)
- Fed Statement
Also, you may want to take a peek at DealBreaker, which tends to be right on top of this sort of stuff. And of course, Calculated Risk. We’ll be taking a look at the mortgage industry ramifications extensively Monday here at HW. Update: Great zinger from WSJ’s Mean Street….
This is where the Lehman death drama turns into farce. It isn’t a shortage of outside capital that is driving Lehman into bankruptcy. It is the bid-ask spread on its bad assets, or the difference between a buyer’s and seller’s views on price. Sure, the $53 billion in assets are illiquid, but at some price there is a buyer. Are the assets worth 10 cents on the dollar or 50 cents on the dollar? Dick Fuld was afraid to find out because he knew that at 10 cents, Lehman likely was bankrupt anyway.
