It makes the federal government look weak. GM (GM) got another $2 billion to stay afloat while it negotiates with the UAW and creditors. Both parties have to assume that the Treasury is doing everything it can to keep the company out of Chapter 11 including pumping what may well be good money after bad. According to Reuters, “The U.S. Treasury could lend another $3 billion to GM”. The unions Read More...

A must-listen radio report from American Public Radio regarding yesterday’s revelations that Bernanke and Paulson forced BofA to close its deal for Merrill. REPORTER: If Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke really told the CEO of Bank of America to keep quiet about losses at Merrill Lynch, they were probably breaking the law. That’s according to Lynn Turner, former chief accountant at the SEC. LYNN Read More...

TARP, TALF, PPIP. TBTF. How many more acronyms can we have? Today’s Stress Test might as well just be called the “ST.” Technically, this is called the Supervisory Capital Assessment Program, so we will call it the “SCAP” for the future. At 2:00 PM we got to see what the parameters were and it comes as no surprise that most banks are said to have enough capital. This is a 21 page re Read More...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve says the U.S. government is prepared to rescue any of the banks that underwent “stress tests” and were deemed vulnerable if the recession worsened sharply. The Fed says the 19 companies that hold one-half of the loans in the U.S. banking system won’t be allowed to fail — even if they fared poorly on the stress tests. The tests are Read More...

NEW YORK (AP) — A person familiar with the matter says Chrysler’s lenders have delivered another counteroffer to the Treasury Department as the two sides continue to haggle over Chrysler’s debt. The offer was delivered Friday, but the terms were not immediately available. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations are private. Earlier this week, the Treas Read More...

While the actual results of the US bank stress tests won’t be released until May 4, today we are getting something almost as interesting – the methodology. The 30-page report will reportedly be released at 2pm New York time/7pm in London. While the core economic assumptions have already been made public, there’s still a bit of divergence about the other scenarios, mostly pertaining to lo Read More...

With Thursday’s SEC filing by Sirius XM Radio (SIRI) comes a reminder of just who it is that is steering the ship. That would be John Malone. With 3 seats on the current board and the right to take 3 more, I thought I’d take this opportunity to review just what it is that Liberty Media (LCAPA) sees in Sirius XM. This video interview with Greg Maffei, Liberty Media CEO & president, Read More...

Chart couresty of Phil’s Stock World Read More...

Talking Stress Tests ! How About Ken Lewis CEO of Bank of America ??? NY Times Headlines Read : Ken Lewis had a gun to his head ” Not to reveal to his share holders ” that Merrill Lynch was giving out multi million bonuses as well as at the same time they were recording “record losses” Mind you all this under the cover of night as to not inform the share holders of Bank of Read More...

Research in Motion Ltd. (RIMM) is getting a boost this morning from an analyst upgrade. The maker of the notorious Blackberry was raised at Citigroup with a new “Buy” rating rather than the prior “Hold” rating and was even given one of the “Top Picks” status at the firm. The old $65.00 target was also raised to $100.00. Citigroup had been one of the more cautious firms against the Read More...

Ford has refinanced alot of its debt, and forged new deals with the UAW. It’s in much better shape than it was a year ago, IMO. And much better shape than the other two. Ford has had success to date dealing with stakeholders to implement needed structural changes. No reason to think this wouldn’t continue, especially with Ford’s global product successes. If you check the chart o Read More...

Dow Industrials, up 70.49 points, or 0.89% to 7957.06. * Up five of the last seven sessions. * Today’s top contributors to the Dow’s movement and their point contribution: CVX (14.18), AXP (12.27), JPM (10.43), MMM (9.16), UTX (9.16). * Today’s laggers and their point contribution: IBM (-9.00), HD (-3.27), DD (-2.23), PG (-2.23), T (-1.91). Nasdaq Composite, up 6.09 points, or 0. Read More...

Last night, Bear Mountain Bull highlighted Mish’s post on the “woefully underfunded” FDIC, whose declining Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) ratio has left it “ill prepared” to deal with future bank failures. Here’s a chart from Mish’s post which illustrates that decline: As outlined in the post above, this declining reserve ratio has (according to some) left Read More...

“The Government threatened to oust Bank of America Chief Executive Ken Lewis if the bank didn’t go through with its acquisition of struggling investment bank Merrill Lynch, according to the results of an investigation by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo released Thursday.” Holy Cow, does everyone understand the enormity of that sentence? It is no longer up to the stockhold Read More...

“The Treasury has an agreement in principle with the United Auto Workers union to protect pensions and retiree health care benefits as a condition of the bankruptcy filing …” So the taxpayer will get stuck with paying for retiree health care and pension benefits at Chyrsler? They get better health care coverage then most of us! Someone please wake me up from this nightmare! Read More...