JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley to Buy Back Billions in Securities
by Tom on August 14, 2008
in Market Musings
The pair of banks will repurchase a combined $7 billion in the troubled securities from investors. Morgan Stanley agreed to pay a fine of $35 million, while JPMorgan will pay a fine of $25 million.
I’ll be quite honest with you, I don’t fully understand auction rate securities, but I don’t really need to know this one simple fact:
In today’s financial markets, any bank that has to come up with $7 billion and pay a fine in the millions (or even two banks) is not going to do so without some difficulty. This isn’t a good thing for the financial health of our banking system.
Tom Vanderwell

