Friday, January 16, 2009

Bailout Du Jour: Viability of U.S. Banking at Risk

From Bloomberg today:

Renewed questions about U.S. banks’ viability are pushing regulators toward a new plan that would remove toxic assets from bank balance sheets, in what may become the biggest effort yet to unfreeze lending.
President-elect Barack Obama’s advisers see an increasingly grave banking crisis and are considering proposals far more sweeping than any steps that have been taken so far, according to people who’ve discussed the outlook with them.

Despite this, stock futures, without any underlying fundamental data to support it, have risen yesterday and overnight, as despicted on this 4 hour chart. Perhaps this is an oversold rally following six consecutive days of declines. Stock market bulls successfully defended the Dow 8000 level yesterday and overnight, shrugging off the systemic risk of this news today. The elation may be temporary if the horror of recent news continues.