Merrill Lynch y Citigroup, en quiebra

Entre otros. Citigroup, Moran Stanley y Goldman Sachs tienen menos capital que deudas (incobrables), por lo que están en quiebra. Y de la situación de Banamex, subsidiaria de Citi, nada se sabe, nada se ha dicho. Pero seguramente se verá serveramente afectado por esta crisis de solvencia.

As fourth-quarter earnings numbers emerge for Wall Street, with analysts expecting a US$15 billion write-off for Merrill Lynch and an $18 billion write-off for Citigroup (which is also tipped to be planning to layoff about 20,000 staff, about a third of them in its investment bank), Wall Street's denizens, anxious for the future of their bonuses and their jobs, are asking: Where will it all end? The answer is: Not close to here, not soon, and not before the landscape of Wall Street and the scattered remaining fragments of the City of London have been transformed beyond all recognition...

...In this context, therefore, the most vulnerable institutions on Wall Street appear to be Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, in that order. Morgan Stanley, according to Nouriel Roubini of RGE Monitor, has $88 billion in Level 3 assets on an equity base of $35 billion, meaning a write-off of less than 40% would wipe out its capital. Goldman Sachs, which claims to have made money on the subprime debacle (though it is not clear how much of its profits consisted of write-up of Level 3 assets) had $72 billion of Level 3 assets on capital of $39 billion. And Citigroup, which after all benefits from a banking license and deposit insurance, has $135 billion in Level 3 assets on a capital base of $128 billion (before this quarter's expected write-down.)