by Calculated Risk on 1/18/2008 04:32:00 PM
Friday, January 18, 2008
The Wall Street "Parade of Write-Downs"
From the WSJ MarketBeat by David Gaffen: Writedowns Surpass $100 Billion. Note: Here are the write-downs in a spreadsheet.
The great 2007-2008 parade of writedowns, which was hovering around the $100 billion mark already, has pushed far past that thanks to Merrill Lynch’s $14.5 billion in assets lost ...There are many more write-downs to come.
The thing is, the writedowns aren’t finished. Several firms retain significant exposure to subprime, such as Citigroup, which still has $37 billion in subprime exposure. Back in November, Goldman Sachs economist Jan Hatzius estimated about $200 billion in mortgage-related losses on the big banking balance sheets. (He was ridiculed for this and charged with “talking his book;” but the figures show his gloomy forecast is on the way to being fulfilled.)