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Blue Index News and Press Releases. Please visit this page often for regular updates regarding Blue Index as an organisation.

The Fall Of WaMu

It is hardly surprising that the Republicans have been in a hurry to push through the $700bn bailout as at the current rate of implosion we are losing a major US financial institution a week. Washington Mutual, know as WaMu for short, and now more famously as the largest US bank failure ever, was closed by the US Government yesterday. In fact, for a while the bailout was a “done deal” the FTSE 100 was up 100 points and we looked like at least retesting the highs of last week. This may still happen, suggesting that the 100 point markdown for the UK index is actually a buying opportunity.

Back To Normal

While the stomach volatility on Friday was at least something to celebrate for the bulls, those who are just day / swing traders may be grateful that the London market seems to have returned to normal. At the very least the financials are perhaps less interesting if all you can do is go long. But they are in focus as ailing buy to let bank Bradford & Bingley (BB.) was revealed as having the FSA looking for a buyer on its behalf, something which might explain why there are no takers as of this point.

The Waiting Game

No one likes being kept waiting. However, with the markets the “delay” on the US bailout of Wall Street is not only rather embarrassing for the Republicans in an election year, there is even more money at stake than $700bn. The effect on the FTSE 100 so far has been a 250 point decline from the intraday high of Friday at 5,351. One would have thought that those sucked in at the top would finally have been removed from their positions in banking stocks, thus completing the hammering of first the bears and then the bulls in the past week.

A Good As Goldman

The FTSE 100 was saved from yet another wave of selling down to 5,000 from news that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway investment vehicle had paid up to $5bn for part of Goldman Sachs. Obviously a very bullish move, he joins a long line of bottom fishers who have attempted to call time on the Credit Crunch. In the meantime jitters continue as we await the fate of the Troubled Asset Rescue Package (TARP). The problem with TARP is that it may simply take too long for the markets, even if it only a takes a few days in being approved by Congress.