Bear Stearns expects to write down $1.2 billion of assets linked to mortgages in the fourth quarter, but the worst of the bank's mortgage writedowns is over, Bear's chief financial officer said.
Right. And we can win a land war in Asia....
Weekly Outlook
1 hour ago
1 comment:
I tend to take the same view you do that, we're a long way from in the clear here. But what I'm trying to figure out is what value there is to these firms downplaying their long term exposure. Generally speaking isn't the tendency to downplay future results so that when you exceed them everybody thinks you're wonderful and your stock goes up? I should think this is setting them up for future plunges in their value as they end up having to write down things "unexpectedly".
Is what we have basically a game of financial musical chairs? They are all saying, "we're over the hump," because they don't want to be the lone firm being totally up front about their problems and have all their investors flee for cover to equally vulnerable but less honest competitors? Is the situation so bad that they figure there's no point in fighting to save the stock value in the next year or two and it's better to do what they can to convince people to keep their portfolios at these firms?
It just doesn't quite add up.
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