Lehman Brothers estimates that the total global write-down tally could
reach $400 billion by year end.
Below are the 25 largest write-offs announced by financial
Institutions

Company                    US $ billions
UBS                                $37.10
Citigroup                        $32.00
Merrill Lynch                   $24.50
AIG                                 $14.80
HSBC                              $12.40
Morgan Stanley              $11.86
IKB Deutsche                  $ 8.90
Bank of America              $ 7.90
Deutsche Bank                $ 7.50
Bayerische Landesbank  $ 6.70
Ambac                             $ 6.30
Freddie Mac                     $ 6.00
Washington Mutual         $ 5.80
Bear Stearns                   $ 4.96
Wachovia                        $ 4.70
Fannie Mae                      $ 4.55
Goldman Sachs                $ 3.84
Societe Generale             $ 3.80 ?
Lehman Brothers             $ 3.70

MBIA                                $ 3.50
Mizuho                             $ 3.40
Barclays                           $ 3.30
J.P. Morgan                      $ 3.20
Royal Bank of Scotland    $ 3.20
WestLB                            $ 3.14
--------------------------------------
Source: Lehman Brothers Fixed-Income Research
? Blamed on rouge trader - added by Haymore

Great blog!!!  Thanks.

At the risk of repeating myself:

"How is it possible that upper management at seemingly every bank and financial company in the world defied prudent conduct and invested in subprime mortgages?  Didn't any director have the independence of mind to say "No"?

I looked over the list, and that is good for the short interest. The one thing I am not seeing is BB&T for Long Stock. So I did a search for BB&T for Write downs. I have been pounding on the table about philosoby, economics, and psychology of the way i invest and my understanding of state economies, political and government events and how they affect the world and the effects it causes on world markets.

http://download-v5.streamload.com/2792a4a0-8448-4b9f-98d3-3a5e3d6dffdb/bbkjbbkj/Hosted/Stock%20Reports/2008/03/BBT%20(2008-03-01).pdf

http://knowledge.emory.edu/article.cfm?articleid=969

Of course I fully understand the Short plays and the hedging affect can have on the profitabilty of our portfolio's. Danny Upshaw has a good understanding,  as well as some other, of the practicality of shorting as an Insurance policy. At the same note this is explained very well by our option guy Brian and how we should use options for our portfolio. Overall we have the morale and ethical obligation to utilize options in restraint rather than overabundance. Other wise Option trading turns into a Hyper game of Hot Potatoe.

The question poses a hypothiesis of not a singular nature, but rather a collective understanding of options by a group or society. The action that those group(s) take are dependant on there underlying goal and values within each person in the group.

I do not believe a singular identity could have done this, rather a group or even several different groups that had paralell goals with negative conotations not necessarily in the home state of each market. Peace

Indeed a good post, thank you. It is mind blowing when you think about how reckless we were with the financial system. I think it was a (look the other way) posture in upper management and the funny thing is that they will not be held accuntable. There are banks losing billions because one person ran amuck and unchecked.

The final fix will take a while probably because the banking system will never really put all their cards on the table, but I wish I could close my eyes and make it all go away so this market will be returned to the companies that are being clobbered on earnings because of this crap.

Of the 50 largest banks ranked by the Federal Reserve  http://www.ffiec.gov/nicpubweb/nicweb/Top50Form.aspx

only the largest 1 through 5 and number 7 are on the list of the 25 largest write downs by financial institutions.  This doesn't mean they did not have write downs, just that the amount is currently under the $3.14 BILLION cut off to make the top twenty five.  It should also be noted that the bank in the number 6 position, Wells Fargo, is controled by Berkshire Hathaway. 

BB&T is #17.

thanks Haymore, I mentioned BB&T and recommend that for Long Stock. Reason NC was hit early a year and half ago with furniture makers going to china job losses ect. So they didn't offer the SubPrime loans and had to pass stringent loan process to qualify. so all that was cleared out before any of this ever happened. Cauldwell wouldn't even offer SubPrime they pushed for fixed rate. Plus the market cap with dividend makes it apealing. hopefully nothing bad comes out. I looked over the finiancials and technicals but haven't made a decision. there is plenty of oppertunity and some time on my side. BB&T, Dell, WAG is my watch list.