Today an analyst, Geraud Charpin, who is the head of European credit strategy at UBS in London, predicted the losses from the sub prime mortgage collapse will reach at least $600 billion. This, after AIG, the world's largest insurer announced they lost $5.3 billion in the last quarter, in no small part due to the $11 billion in write downs they took last year on mortgage backed (read:sub-prime) assets they held.
And the write-downs are just starting, as more and more companies come out of the closet and fess up to owning sub-prime junk. $600 billion....just vanished somewhere in the market. How will the world's economy cope with this one?
I fear that somewhere out there, right now, a major retirement fund manager is wringing his hands wondering when would be the 'right' time to announce the huge write down. The DJIA lost 315 points today. Soon that will seem minor.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment