NOTE TO EDITORS: The Following Is an Investment Opinion Being Issued by Bridgewater Equity (BWE).

Let me be first to congratulate myself, writes David Weidner: Almost all of my predictions for 2008 panned out.

Citigroup Inc., General Motors and Chrysler have agreed to account for how they are using billions of dollars invested in their corporations by the Treasury Department as part of a $700 billion bank bailout fund, according to the inspector general overseeing the program.

U.S. financial shares stage a broad retreat in early action, pulling back as an influential Oppenheimer & Co. analyst predicts banks will need to raise lots of additional capital this year -- and will likely face further credit downgrades.

Oppenheimer's star banking analyst Meredith Whitney is out slamming the banking giants yet again this morning. The difference between today's note and her prior slamming of earnings and reserves, this report shows that she expects that many banks will need to raise additional capital in 2009. She sees additional loss provisions at Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC), Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C), JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM), Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC), and at other banks in here universe. Yep, Meredith Whitney is putting banks back on the stretching rack and into the Iron Maiden.

Oppenheimer Analyst Whitney's Comments Ding Financial Stocks

The banking landscape in the U.S. has changed drastically over the past few months. We anticipate further consolidation in the banking space, as the weaker players fail and the stronger players seek to build up their positions.

The Treasury Department is the latest owner of preferred shares and warrants in around 208 different U.S. financial institutions, but why aren’t consumers and exchange traded fund (ETF) investors reaping the rewards yet? Despite having injected billions into them, the Treasury Department has been so far unable to make banks lend, leaving most U.S. ...

Filed under: Consumer experience, Rants and raves, Market matters, Scandals, Citigroup Inc. (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC)

If we keep hearing about companies that are "too big to fail" what in the world are we doing allowing Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) to swallow up everything in their financial path so that they can become even bigger, potentially creating the next catastrophe!

During my tenure at BloggingStocks I have made some bonehead calls and some that were more astute. Among my better calls was the story I wrote 20 months ago, Break up Citigroup as soon as possible, and the follow on story a year later when nothing had changed: Citigroup should hire forensic auditors. My colleagues Peter Cohan and Douglas McIntyre made similar points.

Given these stories and the dialog I have had with many of our intelligent and equally frustrated readers, I have had thoughts of starting a non-profit organization to shadow the Securities and Exchange Commission that has been dormant for the last ten years. Instead of hiring Wall Street types to run the SEC we might do better hiring inquisitive university students, and not from the business or law schools, but the accounting, journalism and criminology programs.

Continue reading Why do BAC and JPM want to be Citigroup?

Why do BAC and JPM want to be Citigroup? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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US stocks fell sharply on Wednesday after a worse than expected employment report rattled investors ahead of Friday's key jobs data. Deteriorating corporate outlook also dampened the sentiment.[More...]

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