CNNMoney.com
Companies Economy International Corrections Pre-market Trading After-hours Trading Winners/Losers/Actives Bonds Currencies Commodities World Markets Money Magazine Real Estate Taxes Jobs Ask the Expert Money 101 Autos Mutual Funds The Help Desk Loan Center Best Places to Live Ask the Expert Ultimate Guide to Retirement Retirement Calculators Rules of Retirement Best Funds Best Places to Retire Fortune Brainstorm Tech Apple 2.0 Blog Big Tech Blog Sectors and Stocks Tech Talk Resource Guide Small Business Makeovers Questions & Answers Small Business Video 100 Best Places to Launch FSB 100 Fortune Small Business Fortune 500 Brainstorm Tech Investing Management C-Suite Rankings Main Create Portfolio Edit Portfolio Create Alerts Edit Alerts
TRADING
CENTER
Commentary

Bank stocks: April Fool or the real deal?

On the first day of the second quarter, investors are shrugging off bad news from the financial sector and are accentuating the positive. Is the worst really over?

EMAIL  |   PRINT  |   SHARE  |   RSS
 
google my aol my msn my yahoo! netvibes
Paste this link into your favorite RSS desktop reader
See all CNNMoney.com RSS FEEDS (close)
By Paul R. La Monica, CNNMoney.com editor at large

paul_lamonica_morning_buzz2.jpg
What's your key economic issue this election year?
  • Jobs
  • Healthcare
  • Housing
  • Gas prices

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- It's another gloomy day for the financial services industry.

UBS (UBS) and Deutsche Bank (DB) are reporting more multibillion dollar subprime-related writedowns .Lehman Brothers (LEH, Fortune 500) needs to raise $4 billion to quell credit concerns. Legg Mason (LM) is talking a nearly $200 million charge to bail out a struggling money market fund. And National City (NCC, Fortune 500), hit hard by the mortgage meltdown, has hired Goldman Sachs to shop it around.

Wait..there's more! Goldman Sachs slashed its earnings estimates on Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) and Merrill Lynch (MER, Fortune 500) Tuesday morning due to expectations of more credit writedowns. And Morgan Stanley analysts in London wrote in a report that "the industry is facing the most severe investment banking crisis in 30 years." Ouch!

But I'm sorry. Did I say it was a gloomy day for banks? April Fool! For some reason, investors are treating this latest round of bad news as a good sign...a possible indication that the worst may soon finally be over for the beleaguered financial services industry.

Shares of the Switzerland-based UBS surged more than 11% Tuesday morning in trading in New York while Germany's New York-listed Deutsche Bank shares rose 3%. Lehman's stock shot up nearly 10% and Legg Mason gained 2%

National City gained more than 4%. Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, despite another earnings haircut, soared 7% and 9% respectively.

So is this it? Now that the brutal first quarter is finally behind us, is it time to move forward and proclaim that the credit crunch is history?

To be sure, there is some legitimately good news to be found in Tuesday's bleak bank headlines.

In the case of UBS, investors appear to be focusing less on its $19 billion in additional writedowns and more on the fact that the company is planning to raise $15 billion from a sale of new stock. In addition, the company's embattled chairman, Marcel Ospel, is stepping down.

The UBS news, combined with Lehman's decision to sell $4 billion in convertible preferred stock, could be interpreted as a sign that both banks will shore up the necessary amount of cash on their balance sheet to avoid becoming the next Bear Stearns.

And if National City can find a buyer, that could be the start of healthy consolidation that is sorely needed in the banking industry. (I define healthy consolidation as a bank merger in which the Fed doesn't have to guarantee to cover $29 billion in losses in order for the deal to go through...and at a fire-sale price to boot!)

But declaring that the worst is really over might be a bit, dare I say it, foolish.

Keep in mind that many investors were hopeful back in October that banks were reporting a kitchen sink of subprime charges in their third quarter so that they would not have to disclose any more bad news beyond that. And bank bulls said the same thing in January when many financials were reporting huge losses in the fourth quarter.

We're now preparing for another wave of red ink in the first quarter. So that's the third consecutive quarter in which banks will be hit with big charges...and the third straight time that these charges are supposed to represent the last of the big writedowns.

And some pretty smart people are still scared about the future of the financial services industry.

Bond guru Bill Gross of Pimco, in his commentary out Monday, said the new rules and regulations for investment banks will force companies such as Goldman, Merrill and Lehman to adopt reserve requirements that he thinks will result "in reduced profitability" for major brokerage houses.

And Oppenheimer analyst Meredith Whitney, now widely acknowledged as the "axe" among bank analysts on Wall Street, is still sounding alarm bells about the balance sheets and earnings of Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and others.

Yes, it's starting to feel better at long last. And the Federal Reserve's series of rate cuts and liquidity injections might finally be starting to restore order in the credit markets.

But with many key analysts continuing to cut their estimates for leading commercial banks and investment banks in recent weeks, it's hard to get that excited about the financial sector just yet.

"We are contrarian investors, so you'd think we'd be dipping our toes into financials," said Michael Petroff, manager of the Heartland Value Plus fund. "But we still think it's way too early."

Petroff said he thinks banks will report more charge-offs and subprime writedowns in the coming months, and that another shoe to drop could be writedowns of goodwill (i.e. intangible assets such as brand name) by banks that have made numerous acquisitions.

There still seems like there could be more bad news in the cards. So buying into Tuesday's bank rally might be a bad idea.

Issue #1 - America's Money: All this week at noon ET, CNN explains how the weakening economy affects you. Full coverage.

Have you lost your job, your business or your home? Are you raiding retirement accounts to pay the bills? We want to hear from you. Tell us how you're being affected by the weakening economy and you could be profiled in an upcoming story. Send emails to realstories@cnnmoney.com. To top of page

Features
Markets Last Change
Dow Jones 10,520.10 53.66 / 0.51%
Nasdaq 2,285.69 16.05 / 0.71%
S&P 500 1,126.48 5.89 / 0.53%
10-year Bond 96 15/32 Yield: 3.80%
U.S.Dollar 1 euro = $1.437 -0.000
December 24, 2009 12:00 AM ET
CompanyPrice% Change
YRC Worldwide Inc 1.01 6.23%
Freddie Mac 1.26 -3.82%
US Airways Group Inc 5.35 3.50%
Allegheny Technologies Inc 45.68 3.30%
Dec 24 12:43pm ET †
Biggest losers: Where Americans aren't moving Through most of the decade Florida was one of the fastest growing states. But the sunny clime -- and 6 others -- lost more residents than they gained in the year ended July 1. More
8 hot cars: Class of 2000 In just 10 years, the market's changed a lot when it comes to cars. Where are these models now? The Prius became a hit; the Aztek got killed. More
Obama's Main Street favorites President Obama meets often with small business owners, peppering his speeches with their stories. We checked in with 6 entrepreneurs touted by the President to find out how they handle health care. More


© 2009 Cable News Network. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Privacy Policy. Advertising Practices.
Copyright © 2009 BigCharts.com Inc. All rights reserved. Please see our Terms of Use.
MarketWatch, the MarketWatch logo, and BigCharts are registered trademarks of MarketWatch, Inc.
Intraday data provided by Interactive Data Real-Time Services and subject to the Terms of Use.
Intraday data is at least 20-minutes delayed. All times are ET.
Historical, current end-of-day data, and splits data provided by Interactive Data Pricing and Reference Data.
Fundamental data provided by Morningstar, Inc..
SEC Filings data provided by Edgar Online Inc..
Earnings data provided by FactSet CallStreet, LLC.