U.S. Stocks Drop on Bank Downgrades; American Express Declines

U.S. Stocks Drop on Bank Downgrades; American Express Declines

www.bloomberg.com

Feb. 4 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stocks declined for the first time in three days after analysts told investors to sell American Express Co., Wells Fargo & Co. and Wachovia Corp. on concern a recession will worsen defaults among consumers.

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I wonder if these companies are going to start pulling credit cards from their customers? It might explain the unprecedented (and unwanted) phone calls from Wells Fargo over the last two days trying to sell us everything from disability insurance to credit insurance to refinancing.

www.bloomberg.com
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HELOC Alert

Those lines are drying up as Countrywide Financial announced Thursday that it has cut off 122,000 borrowers from pulling any more equity out of their homes. Wells Fargo, Washington Mutual and JPMorgan Chase released statements Friday saying they have also started halting equity lines because of tumbling home values but declined to provide numbers of suspended equity lines. Full Text

From your Bloomberg missive Jacks56:

We probably have not seen the end of the bad news, said Craig Hester, who oversees $1.5 billion as chief executive officer of Hester Capital Management in Austin, Texas. "The first wave has come through the residential mortgage market, and now we're beginning to see credit card delinquencies on the increase.''

A rolling banking crises with no apparent end in sight. Information meted-out in bite-size bitz. Each week something new crawls-out from under a rock, while the wizards work feverishly behind the scenes...another super SIV...stimulus package...rate cut...monoline bail-out. As-per Jim Rogers...after the write-downs from bad paper, the effects of an recessionary slowdown may be the coup-de-grace for certain major financial entities. Then resolution trust revisited...aka: Smoke & Mirrors bank-bail-out.

A MUST READ FOR ALL HELOC OWNERS

*J. Rogers still short Citi...says it's a buy at $5.00

"The first wave has come through the residential mortgage market, and now we're beginning to see credit card delinquencies on the increase.''

Beginning to see? Those numbers came out over a month ago, and were bigger than ever!