Some Quotes

"Ambac Financial Group Inc. is in discussions to effectively split itself up ... A halving of Ambac would create one unit that insures municipal debt and one that would cover rapidly diminishing securities tied to the mortgages in a structure that effectively creates a so-called "good bank" and "bad bank."" -source

"Regulators' plans to break up bond insurers into "good'' businesses covering municipal debt and "bad'' businesses liable to subprime-related losses may trigger "years of litigation,'' Bank of America Corp. analysts said.

"It is the equivalent of going to a casino and trying to keep only the winning bets,'' said Tim Mercer, chief investment officer at Hong Kong-based hedge fund Musashi Capital Ltd. "This would be a straightforward case of fraudulent conveyance and everyone involved would be liable for damages from deprived creditors.''" -source

"Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. fell to a 2 1/2-year low in Sydney trading after Chief Executive Officer Michael Smith said the "bloodbath'' in debt markets will erase profit growth this year.

"Credit costs are going up, well above underlying earnings growth,'' said Smith, who joined ANZ from HSBC Holdings Plc last year, in a webcast briefing. The Melbourne-based bank, Australia's third largest, will also take a $200 million charge for derivatives linked to U.S. debt insurer ACA Capital Holdings Inc." -source

"Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling said the U.K. government will nationalize Northern Rock Plc (Bank) because bids from private companies didn't ensure taxpayer loans to the struggling lender would be repaid quickly enough." -source

This clip is from last September:


"Bank of America Corp. will join the Dow on Feburary 19th... Coincidently, analysts at investment researcher Morningstar Inc. made a bold prediction for the Dow to rise 50% by this time in 2011 -- more than 6,000 points -- just as Dow Jones & Co., publisher of MarketWatch, announced the index changes." -source (lol)

"The housing market continues to fall deeper into recession,'' said Michelle Meyer, economist at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in New York. -source

"I don't see a housing market recovery right now,'' said Mason, 43, who predicts Treasury yields will fall as investors continue to buy the debt as a haven from losses in higher risk markets. "People can't get a mortgage'' because "banks are restricting access to credit,'' he said.

Declining property values are also making it harder for a growing number of homeowners to refinance. By year-end as many as 15 million households may owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, according to an estimate from Jan Hatzius, chief U.S. economist of New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc."-source

"Guy de Blonay, Philip Gibbs and Kokkie Kooyman, the managers of Europe's three best-performing funds focused on financial companies, say they're buying bank shares after an 11 percent decline in a benchmark index in 2007.

"We never saw the collapse in subprime happening to the extent it did,'' said Kooyman, who's based in Cape Town and whose fund is registered in Dublin. "But we'll always find shares somewhere that we think are cheap.''" -source (lol)

"Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the U.S. economy is on the verge of its first recession in six years as falling home values hurt consumer spending. "We are clearly on the edge,'' he said.

"Home prices will continue to weaken,'' the 81-year-old former Fed chief said. "When a bubble breaks, you go to primordial fear.''"-source

Feel free to add quotes xerxes, btb and indigo.