BosyBillups Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Just spoke to a “Technician” who said C at $8-$14 > is very realistic. FYI Wow, that is a pretty precise prediction. A spread of 6 dollars on a 26 dollar stock. You are resorting to technical analysis in a market like this, huh?
drs Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > BosyBillups Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Just spoke to a “Technician” who said C at > $8-$14 > > is very realistic. FYI > > > Wow, that is a pretty precise prediction. A > spread of 6 dollars on a 26 dollar stock. You are > resorting to technical analysis in a market like > this, huh? If you knew that this range was 100% true. If you knew that C would drop to 8-14, you could become a billionaire.
BosyBillups Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > If you knew that this range was 100% true. If you > knew that C would drop to 8-14, you could become a > billionaire. sh1t, I could be a billionaire if I knew 100% what C was going to do tomorrow. Problem is, I don’t.
shit, someone tellme whats going to happen tomrrow!
Sigh. 8-14 on technicals is quite different than bankrupt synthetic or otherwise. If the technician is not short I wouldn’t listen to him. Anyway, the big picture here has a mountain of history behind it that has nothing to do with the chart.
Some pretty weak arguments in this thread. Comparing C’s fate to CFC just because both stocks have tanked? Please. CFC is trading at about a quarter of book value while C is still at about 1.1x. Stupid comparison anyway, as one is a monoline US mortgage lender and the other is a diversified money center with operations all around the world. C had a horrible quarter and is in a world of pain, with more to come likely, but they are still nowhere close to going bankrupt. And that is without even considering the too big to fail arguement (which I agree with) or the SWF factor. And before some jackass jumps all over this, that doesn’t mean I’m saying the stock is a buy.
BosyBillups Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Just spoke to a “Technician” who said C at $8-$14 > is very realistic. FYI Yeah, if you were this “technician” and knew this without a doubt, would you be telling people? …or putting your money down?
Was Enron too big to fall?
CFAdummy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Was Enron too big to fall? obviously not. but, and someone please correct me if i’m wrong, Enron’s total assets were around $50 BN when they filed. Citigroup’s total assets are $2.2 TRILLION. So with Enron about 2% the size of Citi, it doesn’t strike me as a particularly valid comparison.
Big Nodge Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > CFAdummy Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Was Enron too big to fall? > > > obviously not. but, and someone please correct me > if i’m wrong, Enron’s total assets were around $50 > BN when they filed. Citigroup’s total assets are > $2.2 TRILLION. So with Enron about 2% the size of > Citi, it doesn’t strike me as a particularly valid > comparison. More importantly, Enron was outright fraud.
I don’t understand these derivative products that Citibank has on their books. Is it like someone sort of writing a put and having unlimited liability? How come they can’t come clean and say that they lost about $xxx to $xxx amount, but the losses won’t ever go below $xxx amount. They are always readjusting it and saying that they don’t know.
like somebody said earlier the FED cannot afford to let CITI fail …Citi might probably bring down a 1/2 dozen other regional banks along with it , not to mention other banks Internationally …
With all banking sectors that deal with Derivatives, remember this: Bond defaults have been historically low the last couple of years (w/ a booming economy and spending, etc). I believe it has been under 1%. If corporate defaults go back to historical *norms* of 1.50%, which seems more likely than not in a slowing consumer environment, then there would be losses as *great* as the subprime situation. If corporate defulate rise above that 1.50% level, then the damage gets compounded. There is a great article in the journal today about ACA on this if you’re interested. But the bottom line, we have to keep corporate defaults low or else there will be further problems. The more important bottom line, this is all symptoms of a deflating credit bubble.
Regarding the CDOs, they really have no idea how much they are worth, that part at least they aren’t lying about. No one knows. They don’t trade so there are no market prices. These securities are structured products backed by pools of other structured products with so many layers of leverage that it is really tough to tell what the ultimate cash flows will be, not to mention the fact that their value is highly dependent on a large variety of macro and mortgage market factors that no one can predict with any degree of certainty, especially in a housing market like this. They hold the super senior tranche of ABS CDOs, so as of this point they haven’t actually lost any real money (meaning the losses are all paper losses based on their model-derived prices at this point). Since they are at the top of the stack it will take a while for defaults to eat through all the subordinate tranches. I agree that things will get interesting when defaults tick up, and they def will. But as I mentioned on another thread, remeber that for everyone who sold protection and will get hurt, there is someone who bought protection who stands to gain. Net net it’s a zero sum game. I don’t think it will play out that cleanly though, it will get a bit hairy. More immediate, next shoe to drop is a big financial guarantor getting downgraded. That will cause a whole wave of forced selling and all sorts of second and third order effects. Pretty scary.
My forecast then: the Fed will be forced to lower rates, pump money into the system. The dollar gets de-based, loses it’s stature as the global currency and further depletes the asset. Congress will then pass tight restrictive laws (i.e. SOX) as a knee-jerk reaction. I am an optimist, but don’t see a clean way out of this.
I saw on CNBC this morning they mentioned something of Financial insurers going down and some people say that this will be a disaster if it happens and something that Warren Buffett is starting a new insurer company.
Why Citi? It seems to me that citi, being the largest and arguably most diversified bank, is much less likely to go under than some of the other banks (particularly Merrill and MS) even if they lost the most money (net). I admit that I haven’t analyzed the particulars, but I was doing a small research project yesterday and saw that Merrill has written down 23 B and Citi has written down 24, although they may have used different methodologies to get these numbers…it seems that citi has more diverse business segments that will support it as compared to a Merrill or MS.
I can’t wait for Citi to go down in flames… Sandy Weill stepped on a lot of people with his reckless acquisitions. Including my grandfather and his father… There is nothing I would rather see than a total failure of his strategy.
you guys are so laughable. citi will not go down, not on this at least. vikram is simply taking huge provisions to buffer/boost citi’s earning this year.
couldn’t agree more with propanol on that…