World: 4,1 ý 3,7 (slowest pace since 2002)
US: 1,5 ý 0,5
Eur: 1,6 ý 1,3

www.marketwatch.com/news/story/...2D908E462DA3BC%7D&dist=msr_1

Arbeitsmarktbericht am morgigen Tage bzw. Freitag sollte die Abschwächung der Beschäftigung signalisieren. Aber, wie schon des öfteren in diesem Thread diskutiert, geben auch hier die Statistiker ihr Bestes.

Übrigens, mit Ausnahme des ISM Indexes (leichte Erholung von 48,3 auf 48,6) waren sämtliche Konjunkturdaten (Chicago EK Index, Bauausgaben, Personal Income etc.) dieser bzw. letzer Woche negativ. Sprich, die werden derzeit ausser Acht gelassen, insbesondere bei Preisbildung am Aktienmarkt.  

mehr, news zu lesen, weil sie doch keine bzw. keine kalkulierbare Konsequenz haben.
Das muß aber nicht so bleiben. Der gestrige Tag hat (glaube ich) allenthalben ziemliches Stirnrunzeln verursacht. Und deshalb könnte jetzt wieder die Phase des Luftholens und Nachdenkens kommen, in der news wieder etwas nüchterner betrachtet werden.

kurze Nachlese zum 1. April (Kommentare) im PPT, Posting 5+6
http://www.ariva.de/9658_PTT_Trading_14_KW_t324975

According to the February jobs report, there were 565,000 more non-farm workers who were limited to part-time jobs than a year ago. That's a 21.1% jump in the number of those who are under-employed.In addition, a rapidly increasing number of people are being forced to take more than one job. There were 161,000 more workers in February who held more than one part-time job than there were in January. One economist said this is a further indication of how bad the market is.

"Basically, this is a sign that we're in a recession," said David Wyss, chief economist for Standard & Poor's.

Wyss said another sign of the weakened market is the steady decrease in the past year in the number of temporary employees in the business and professional services sectors. There has been a loss of more than 100,000 jobs in this category in the past 12 months.
"This is a leading indicator, since these are very often the first employees cut," said Wyss............What's more, the somewhat confusing way that the government collects data about the job market may also mask how bad conditions are right now.

The unemployment rate is calculated by a survey taken among members of the general public, the so-called household survey. But the payrolls number is derived from a survey of employers.

The household survey shows the number of job losses over the past three months was 654,000 compared to a loss of only 44,000 jobs according to the payroll survey during the same period.Wyss said part of the reason for the bigger job loss in the household survey is that contract workers, those who are independent contractors, are not counted as having a job in the payroll number. But they are reflected as having a job in the household survey.

So it's not surprising that employers looking to cut labor expenses might trim contract workers first, Wyss said, since they don't have as many severance costs and unemployment benefits to pay when they do so.

DeMario agrees that employers have been quicker to cut back on the use of contract employees in the face of a looming economic slowdown....biz.yahoo.com/cnnm/080402/040208_jobs_outlook.html?.v=1

www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,544858,00.html

Hm, also verarmende Gesellschaft mit mehr Freizeit ;-))  

mit einem Auge etwas TV geguckt (sorry für mein off-topic-Abschweifen):

1) wurde da behauptet, "der Markt" habe gestern die Ehrlichkeit der Banken honoriert (sic!) und die Tatsache, daß jetzt endlich alles Schlechte auf dem Tisch liegen würde   *lol*

2) gab es beim ZDF in "Neues aus der Anstalt" einen bissigen Aprilscherz: Da wurde als Eilmeldung einer der sonoren ZDF-Börsenkommentatoren zugeschaltet mit der Meldung, die FED habe zur Lösung der Liquiditätskrise die Goldreserven in Fort Knox freigegeben, was zu einem Kurssturz bei Gold geführt hätte (gezeigt wurde dazu der Goldchart der letzten Tage), alle offiziellen Stellen würden die Öffentlichkeit beruhigen, und Frau Merkel habe angekündigt, daß alle dt. Banken heute geschlossen blieben. Klasse gemacht, und das interessanteste war, daß ich mir bis fast zum Ende des Clips NICHT ganz sicher war, daß es sich tatsächlich um einen Aprilscherz gehandelt hatte ... alles ist möglich!
anstalt.zdf.de/ZDFde/inhalt/31/0,1872,4291327,00.html?dr=1

3) wurde bei Frontal 21 auf die IKB eingedroschen, nebenbei auch auf die BaFin (leider nicht auf die KfW ;o) und dabei die spanische Bankenaufsicht als Leuchtturm-Beispiel hingestellt, weil sie angeblich auf Eigenkapital-Unterlegung bei SIVs spanischer Banken bestehen würde  *lol*  >>> Welche Banken in welchen Land waren das, die ihre Schrotthypotheken massenhaft in unverkäufliche Pfandbriefe bündeln, um die dan als Kollateral bei der EZB einzureichen ???

Also wirklich, der gestrige Tag war schon bemerkenswert, und die mediale Begleitmusik teilweise echt grotesk ...
VG, Isc.

Between its low in the first quarter of 1982 and its high in the second quarter of 2007, the share of the financial sector’s profits in US gross domestic product rose more than six-fold. Behind this boom was an economy-wide rise in leverage (see chart). Leverage was the philosopher’s stone that turned economic lead into financial gold. Attempts to reduce it now risk turning the gold back into lead again.

Hélène Rey of the London Business School has demonstrated this process for the financial sector.** She describes three ways in which markets have malfunctioned: via the originate-to-distribute model, with its weak incentives to assess loan quality and wide diffusion of assets of unknown quality; via the vicious spiral in credit default swaps, with rising prices forcing a higher cost of funds on banks, so worse credit standing and so forth; and, finally, via tumbling market valuation of assets, with distressed sales in thin markets lowering solvency and forcing further sales.
Each drowning institution drags others down with it. The solution they all desire is for the government to act as lender of last resort against illiquid instruments and buyer of last resort of impaired ones. While the former activity has been known since the days of Walter Bagehot’s Lombard Street, the latter is an overt bail-out. But for the sector as a whole, any other way of reducing excessive liabilities is far too slow, collectively ruinous, or both.

Now consider a second crucial sector: US households. They have been spending more than their income for a decade. Indeed, this spending has been the single most important counterpart of the persistent US surplus on the capital account (or deficit on the current account). In the process, households have accumulated ever more debt.

How might households seek to reduce their indebtedness, collectively? They can try to sell assets. But they can sell houses only to one another, which would not, in aggregate, help. They can sell equities to the rest of the world, but their prices might crash first. They can default. Indeed, many seem likely to do so. But that would damage the financial sector’s solvency and, through that, either the government’s balance sheet, via bail-outs, or the balance sheet of other households, via losses on financial assets.

Finally, they can cut back on spending. But that would guarantee a recession, if not a slump. In the fourth quarter of 2007, household savings were still as low as ever, at 2 per cent of GDP. Imagine that they rose swiftly back to where they were in the early 1990s. That would be an increase of 4 percentage points of GDP. The result would be a deep recession. It is no surprise, therefore, that politicians are trying to rescue the housing market, while the Federal Reserve has been slashing interest rates with vigour.

In such predicaments, the government always emerges as the lender, borrower and spender of last resort. It will act by bailing out insolvent people and institutions, by either replacing or guaranteeing the lending activities of the private financial sector and, not least, by running larger fiscal deficits, as private-sector financial deficits shrink.

, a rise in the indebtedness of the US government is an almost inevitable consequence of any prolonged financial crisis. A jump in public debt is an invisible increase in long-term private obligations. But this is socialised private debt: the prudent pay for the profligate.

An escape from the public sector’s debt trap exists: the mass default known as inflation. By destroying the purchasing power of money, the government can engineer a speedy reduction in indebtedness across the economy, at the expense of creditors, principally the elderly and foreigners. Inflation is a magic tax on creditors whose proceeds are directly transferred to debtors.

The bottom line is simple. Neither households nor the financial sector, as a whole, can de-leverage swiftly, other than via a calamitous mass default or by shifting their debt elsewhere, usually on to the government. For an entire economy, particularly a huge one, to recover from debt-addiction is hard. However much one may loathe the idea, a private-sector financial mania will finish up as public-sector pain.
www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d3321cc4-ffef-11dc-825a-000077b07658.html?
* UBS Investment Research, 27th March  

nur die Analysten zögern mit Downgrades und sagen laut Reuters 15% Plus voraus          

The first quarter of 2008 can now be consigned to history. It was the worst for global stocks since the third quarter of 2002.

Analysts have come to accept that profits will be lower in the first quarter of this year than they were a year earlier, particularly in the US. Thomson Financial says the quarter started with analysts expecting profit growth of 5.7 per cent for the S&P 500; now they expect a decline of 9.3 per cent.

But analysts have been far slower to downgrade their longer-range forecasts. History suggests they have much further to go.According to Reuters Estimates, analysts expect 15 per cent growth in S&P earnings for the full year, fuelled by a 29 per cent gain for financials and helped by a low base for comparison from last year. .....
The last two recessions both saw several quarters where forecasts were written down by more than twice as much. So this implies downgrades have further to go.

Is there reason for optimism? Almost nobody seems to believe the numbers, so traders may not be trading on such optimistic assumptions. In times of crisis, confusion is to be expected.

www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4db32adc-ff51-11dc-b556-000077b07658.html

Just some more detail from the WSJ: Mortgage Securities Back Fed Loan to Bear Stearns The securities backing a $29 billion Federal Reserve loan to Bear Stearns Cos. consist primarily of “mortgage-backed securities and related hedge investments,” the Treasury Department said….The Fed has declined to provide any underlying detail so far.JPMorgan will take the first $1 billion in losses on the $30 billion portfolio, and the U.S. taxpayers will pay for the remaining losses (if any).
calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2008/04/...arns-collateral-is.html

Finanzkrise

Weber nimmt Banken in die Pflicht

Die internationale Finanzkrise ist nach Ansicht von Bundesbankpräsident Axel Weber noch nicht ausgestanden. Gefordert seien nun aber zuallererst die Banken selbst.

     

 

"Es ist noch zu früh, Entwarnung zu geben. Die Vertrauenskrise ist noch nicht überstanden", sagte Weber der Bild-Zeitung. Solange der Preisverfall am US-Immobilienmarkt anhalte, müsse mit weiteren Turbulenzen gerechnet werden.

Weber forderte die Vorstände der großen Banken auf, das verlorengegangene Vertrauen der Märkte wieder zurückzuerlangen. "Es ist leider viel Vertrauen verspielt worden. Das gilt es schnellstens zurückzugewinnen", betonte der Bundesbank-Präsident.

"Verluste offenlegen"

"Das wirksamste Rezept ist Offenlegung der Risiken und Transparenz an den Finanzmärkten." National wie international seien zuallererst die Banken selbst gefordert. "Banken, die hohe Risiken eingegangen sind, müssen ihre Verluste offenlegen. Die Eigentümer dieser Banken, egal ob staatlich oder privat, müssen diese Verluste tragen, sonst werden keine Lehren aus der Krise gezogen", sagte Weber.

Weber warnte zugleich vor einem übereilten Eingreifen des Staates: "Allgemein ist der Staat nur dann gefordert, wenn es darum geht, eine Krise des Gesamtsystems abzuwenden. Unser deutsches Finanzsystem ist im Kern jedoch robust."

Auch EU-Finanzkommissar Joaquín Almunia sieht den Höhepunkt der weltweiten Finanzkrise noch nicht erreicht. "Wir haben noch immer keinen Überblick über das gesamte Ausmaß der Verluste und es fehlt immer noch an Vertrauen in die Banken", sagte der EU-Kommissar für Wirtschaft und Finanzen der Frankfurter Rundschau.

Klagen über den starken Euro weist Almunia zurück: Er helfe vielmehr, die gestiegenen Preise von Importgütern zu dämpfen. Der Kommissar räumt ein, dass einzelne exportorientierte Unternehmen durch den hohen Kurs der Gemeinschaftswährung große Probleme haben. "Aber die Mehrzahl der Branchen hat diese Schwierigkeiten nicht", sagte Almunia der Zeitung.

 

(sueddeutsche.de/dpa/AP/AFP/mel) www.sueddeutsche.de/finanzen/artikel/36/166558/

Analyst William F. Tanona at Goldman Sachs projected Tuesday that Citigroup will take a $12 billion hit and Merrill a $2 billion hit, on the CDOs alone. They also are expected to record billions of dollars in new write-downs on portfolios of loans used for corporate buyouts and commercial-mortgage securities. Merrill has already raised $13 billion in new capital and Citigroup $30 billion since the crisis began. Mr. Tanona said the losses may mean the two firms would need to raise even more cash.

The new round of write-downs comes as regulators in the U.S. and Europe are putting pressure on banks to come clean on their losses, hoping to restore confidence and unblock markets on which banks depend to borrow money. In recent weeks, activity in the securitization markets -- where banks bundle loans and sell them to investors -- has dropped sharply, forcing banks to amass large holdings of mortgage and credit-card debt. This pile-up of assets, most of which must be financed with borrowed money, has made banks increasingly unwilling to lend to one another as they hoard cash for their own needs and worry about further losses among their peers.

The broadening malaise has raised the chances that a major bank could find itself unable to pay its creditors, putting increasing pressure on central bankers to provide banks with the cash they need to stay afloat. Both the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank have made tens of billions of dollars in added loans in recent weeks, including an extra €35 billion, or about $55 billion, from the ECB Tuesday. And bankers in the United Kingdom are pushing the Bank of England to help them unload hard-to-sell mortgage securities by accepting them as collateral for loans of government securities -- a move the Fed has already made in the U.S.

Fresh signs of frailty are cropping up in various parts of the global financial system. Spanish banks face increasing concerns that mortgage losses could rise as that country's housing boom, one of the world's most extreme, comes to an end. On Tuesday, Fitch Ratings said it was closely watching Icelandic banks because of funding concerns.

Both UBS and Deutsche Bank said market conditions deteriorated in March. "Conditions have become significantly more challenging during the last few weeks," Deutsche Bank said. Simon Adamson, a credit analyst at research firm CreditSights in London, said, "For European banks, the first quarter is going to be even tougher than we perhaps thought it was going to be. You are going to get a lot of negative news potentially over the next few weeks."
.......
und zur UBS noch:Some investors welcomed the UBS write-down news. "Sadly, write-downs of that size had to be expected. We are relieved that it is out in the open now and hope there won't be any more," said Herbert Braendli, president of Profond, a Swiss pension fund that had been pushing for a capital increase. "If there aren't any more write-downs, the capital base should be sufficient now."

A spokesman for the Government of Singapore Investment Corp. said it supported the decision for Mr. Ospel to depart as UBS chairman but hadn't decided whether to participate in the UBS stock offering. "The rights issue is required to restore the capital position of the bank to a strong level," the spokesman said.

Other investors could be interested in buying the whole bank as a way to gain access to its lucrative private wealth-management business. While possible suitors such as Bank of America Corp. and J.P. Morgan Chase are already integrating purchases made during the credit turmoil, a person familiar with the situation said that Spain's Banco Santander SA, which has weathered the financial crisis well, could be able to engineer either a breakup or a purchase. Santander declined to comment.

The Swiss central bank is likely to resist letting the country's top bank be taken over.
UBS, like other banks, is struggling to balance the desire to sell bad debt with a belief that those assets at some point will reclaim value. "We do not want to undertake sales of positions at severely distressed levels," UBS said. In the meantime, the bank has segregated troubled securities tied to U.S. real estate into a separate portfolio that could ultimately be sold. UBS is making some progress at whittling down the holdings. Its holdings of investments tied to subprime mortgages now total $15 billion, down from $27.6 billion as of Dec.31.......online.wsj.com/article/...702674576879869.html?mod=fpa_mostpop

Krisenstimmung wird derzeit wahrlich im Keim erstickt.

Achtung, heute spricht der Meister. Und das kann extrem kurstreibend, in eine Richtung - nämlich nach oben, sein.

Stocks set to retreat
Futures decline as investors catch their breath after surge on Wall Street; all eyes on Bernanke.
April 2, 2008: 5:01 AM EDT
LONDON (CNNMoney.com) -- U.S. stocks were poised to pull back at Wednesday's open as investors moved to the sidelines ahead of Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke's testimony before Congress.

At 4:46 a.m. ET, Nasdaq and S&P futures were lower, suggesting a negative start for Wall Street.

Stocks surged Tuesday as investors hoped that the worst of the credit turmoil was over. The blue-chip Dow gained nearly 400 points, or 3.2%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq climbed 3.7%.

But after such a run up, investors may be ready to move to the sidelines. Attention is focused on Bernanke, who is due to testify before two Congressional panels.

Bernanke is to give the Joint Economic Committee an update on the economic outlook at 9:30 a.m. ET. Wednesday. He testifies on the takeover of Bear Stearns (BSC, Fortune 500), which the Fed helped broker, on Thursday.

In global trade, shares in Asia surged on Wall Street's rally. European markets advanced in early trading.

www.bloomberg.com/apps/...d=20601103&sid=aMozVl6P6PH4&refer=us

und die Futures fallen wegen rückgängigen Autoverkäufen und Hewlett Packard
www.bloomberg.com/apps/...d=20601103&sid=aNs7T6r3AzFM&refer=us

http://www.handelsblatt.com/News/...2148&_t=ticker&_b=1411656

In more signs of upheaval in the banking and financial sector, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that National City (NCC, Fortune 500), the embattled Ohio bank dealing with loan losses and a declining share price, is considering selling itself to rival KeyCorp(KEY, Fortune 500). National City signaled it was open to a sale Tuesday morning when it announced it is looking at strategic alternatives.
If the transaction is to occur, the combined company would receive a capital infusion from private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (KKR.UL), sources told the newspaper.
On Tuesday the U.S. regional bank said its board is reviewing a range of strategic alternatives and that it had hired Goldman Sachs (GS.N) as its advisor.
Representatives of National City, KeyCorp, or KKR could not immediately be reached for comment. news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080402/bs_nm/nationalcity_keycorp_dc_1

und wer ist die nächste?

For the second consecutive month, the government and non-profit sector led all job cuts, with 16,167, more than three times the 5,089 planned lay-offs in the next-largest job-cutting sector, transportation. The financial sector was third, with 4,663.


Challenger said the public sector was suffering "from a precipitous drop in tax revenue" that has accompanied the economic downturn, even though the slowdown initially started in the housing market and related sectors.

"The downturn is probably best known for its impact on the financial sector, including thousands of job cuts in mortgage lending and investment banking. However, the downturn is having a significant impact on the public sector," the report said.

Challenger said the amount of job cuts was not on the same level as that accompanying the 2001 recession.

"There could be several explanations for this. For one, job creation never reached the levels we saw prior to the 2001 recession," John Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said in the report.


"There was a long period of jobless recovery that lasted until September 2003. Employers simply may not have as much fat to trim from their payrolls," he said.

Through the first quarter, job cuts totaled 200,656, up 2.4 percent from the 195,986 cuts in the same period in 2007.

media.cnbc.com/i/CNBC/CNBC_Images/header/cnbc_ban_printer.jpg" style="max-width:560px" />

Mortgage Applications Plunge, Refinancing DropsMORTGAGE APPLICATIONS, REAL ESTATE, ECONOMYBy ReutersReuters| 02 Apr 2008 | 08:12 AM ET

U.S. mortgage applications plunged last week, largely reflecting a drop in demand for home refinancing loans, an industry group said Wednesday. media.cnbc.com/i/CNBC/Sections/...AL_ESTATE/mortgage_apps.jpg" style="max-width:560px" /> The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage applications, which includes both purchase and refinance loans, for the week ended March 28 fell 28.7 percent to 688.3. The index, however, gained 48.1 percent the previous week. Overall mortgage applications last week were 6.0 percent above their year-ago level. The four-week moving average of mortgage applications, which smoothes the volatile weekly figures, was up 0.11 percent to 744.5. The U.S. housing market is currently suffering one of the worst downturns in its history. Last week's drop in demand may indicate what is in store for the hard-hit sector this spring, which is the peak home-buying season. Borrowing costs on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, excluding fees, averaged 5.75 percent, up 0.01 percentage point from the previous week. Interest rates were below year-ago levels of 6.13 percent. Fixed 15-year mortgage rates averaged 5.27 percent, up from 5.23 percent the previous week. Rates on one-year adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) decreased to 7.00 percent from 7.02 percent. The MBA's seasonally adjusted purchase index, widely considered a timely gauge of new home sales, dropped 11.8 percent to 356.0. The index came in below its year-earlier level of 402.9, a drop of 11.6 percent. The group's seasonally adjusted index of refinancing applications plummeted 38.1 percent to 2,636.0. The index surged 82.2 percent the previous week. The index, however, was up 25.6 percent from its year-ago level of 2,098.3. Consumers seeking to refinance their existing home loans tend to be highly sensitive to shifts in interest rates. The refinance share of applications decreased to 53,4 percent from 62.0 percent the previous week. The ARM share of activity increased to 5.4 percent, up from 3.8 percent the previous week. While the battered U.S. housing market has not bottomed out yet, data last week suggested it may be nudging closer to recovery, particularly a better-than-expected existing home sales report for February from the National Association of Realtors. An unwieldy supply of homes for sale remains one of the biggest obstacles facing the hard-hit sector.

Bsp. Nasdaq Future - sieht nach Kaufprogrammen aus

seit wann habt ihr von Problemen bei Bear gewußt?
es muß doch seit Mitte letzten Jahres bekannt gewesen sein.
Habt ihr mal bei der SEC nachgefragt?
wieso hat ihr nicht früher etwas dagegen gemacht?

peu:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. economy could contract in the first half of this year but should then pick up as aggressive interest rate cuts stimulate growth and financial and housing market woes recede, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Wednesday.

"It now appears likely that real gross domestic product will not grow much, if at all, over the first half of 2008 and could even contract slightly," he said in remarks prepared for delivery to the congressional Joint Economic Committee.

"We expect economic activity to strengthen in the second half of the year, in part as the result of stimulative monetary and fiscal policies; and growth is expected to proceed at or a little above its sustainable pace in 2009," he added.

The central bank chief appears before Congress slightly more than two weeks after the Fed provided emergency funding to prevent the failure of troubled investment bank Bear Stearns, which he said could have caused a "chaotic" market reaction that would have been difficult to contain.

Bernanke said financial markets remain under considerable strain but emergency liquidity measures have been helpful in alleviating some of the stresses. Funding pressures on large financial institutions seem to have eased somewhat, and some markets, including the key market for agency mortgage-backed securities, appear to be more liquid.

"Much necessary economic and financial adjustment has already taken place, and monetary and fiscal policies are in train that should support a return to growth in the second half of this year and next year," he said. "I remain confident in our economy's long-term prospects."

(Reporting by Mark Felsenthal and Alister Bull; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Leichte Kontraktionen
Wollen wir nicht mal ein neues Wort für Rezession erfinden?
Den besten Vorschlag lassen wir dann Heli-Ben zukommen, damit er sich ned so schwer tut immer ne neue Bezeichnung zu finden.

Bernanke muss ständig auf dem Drahtseil tanzen. Einerseits darf er mit seinen Äußerungen keine Wirtschaftskrise verschärfen, also kann er gar nicht ständig nur schlechte News bezüglich Rezession verbreiten, da das das Verbrauchenvertrauen und den Aktienmarkt mit all den Folgen schwächen könnte. Und andererseits soll er noch die Zinssenkungsfantasie am Leben halten und möglichst gute Laune in Sachen Inflation verbreiten. Dabei soll er auch noch verschweigen, was alles so hinter den Kulissen bezüglich Bankenkrise gelaufen ist, um die Fehler der vorherigen Jahre halbwegs in vernünftige Bahnen zu lenken.

Also ich stell mir das als echten Drahtseilakt vor. Möchte nicht mit Bernanke tauschen. Das es da auch ständig um den heißen Brei herumreden muss, aber er bei gut gestellten Fragen ab und zu die Wahheit rausrücken muss, ist ja logisch.

Aus dem Bloomberg-Blog, zu dem Kicky in # 20364 den Link geliefert hat:

"The Fed agreed last month to take illiquid assets off of Bear Stearns's balance sheet to encourage JPMorgan to buy the firm. Most of the investments were mortgage-backed securities and ``related'' items, the Treasury Department said in a March 28 letter to Senate Finance Committee staffers.
The assets will be placed in a Delaware corporation set up by the New York Fed. BlackRock Inc. will attempt to sell the assets to pay back the Fed and JPMorgan. The first $1 billion of losses, if any, will be charged to JPMorgan, and the remainder go to the Fed."

zu Black Rock ein paar Hintergrundinfos unter:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackRock

Und nun schaut euch mal den Chart dieses Unternehmens an. Besonders merkwürdig finde ich die fulminante Rallye in der Woche zwischen dem 17. und 24.03.08. Wer war/ist da wohl involviert?

Vor dem Hintergrund der allgemeinen Schwäche der Financials seit 2007 ist der Chart dieses Unternehmen einfach "zu gut, um wahr zu sein". Hier noch der langfristige Chart: