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Thursday, September 25, 2008

WaMu Cliff Diving

by Calculated Risk on 9/25/2008 01:29:00 PM

WaMu's stock price now off 31%.

Fitch and S&P both cut their ratings earlier this week. And any hope for a deal is apparently fading ...

Bank Failure Friday might be interesting tomorrow. With $310 billion in assets (hat tip Nemo), WaMu would be the biggest bank failure in history - in fact it would be larger than the previous top ten added together (although maybe not in inflation adjusted terms).

UPDATE: Analyst Richard Bove put an estimage on a WaMu failure, from Bloomberg: FDIC May Need $150 Billion Bailout as Local Bank Failures Mount (hat tip Michael Brian)

A federal takeover of Washington Mutual, which has assets of $310 billion, could cost taxpayers $24 billion ... according to Richard Bove, an analyst at Miami-based Ladenburg Thalmann & Co.