NWR - Wall Street Woes

Original post by Kristina2009

Sep 14, 2008 10:39 PM

I have been reading every financial article I can find tonight. Is anyone else feeling very nervous about the downfall of Lehman and this Merril Lynch buyout? I feel like we are nearing a depression.

IrishBrideASmiling Posted: Sep 15, 2008 01:29 PM

Re: NWR - Wall Street Woes

Its so scary how things have changed. When I was looking into colleges, everyone was telling me to look into Finance and anything with computers because those were the 'jobs to have'. That was only a few years ago!!!

flairforfashion Posted: Sep 15, 2008 02:42 PM

Re: NWR - Wall Street Woes

Posted by vicky1125

WaMu's stock is barely at $3. if this bank fails it'll be the biggest bank failure in history. i have a friend at chase that's telling me people are coming in with checks from WaMu for thousands of dollars. it's getting really bad out there.

I saw that. Today during lunch, I closed out all my WaMu accounts and went to Bank Of America. Who knows how long they will stay strong. Every bank is at risk due to the lending scandals.

ddnsp618 Posted: Sep 15, 2008 03:34 PM

Re: NWR - Wall Street Woes

Posted by vicky1125

Posted by VickiR510

Seriously, but it always gets worse before it gets better. So hopefully we will begin the uphill climb!!!???

i hope so, but not before me & FH buy a house.

same here for us...

i was reading in the times that the stocks are plumeting...oil went down as well, to under 100 so thats good

flairforfashion Posted: Sep 15, 2008 03:49 PM

Re: NWR - Wall Street Woes

Posted by ddnsp618

Posted by vicky1125

Posted by VickiR510

Seriously, but it always gets worse before it gets better. So hopefully we will begin the uphill climb!!!???

i hope so, but not before me & FH buy a house.

same here for us...

i was reading in the times that the stocks are plumeting...oil went down as well, to under 100 so thats good

Yea, it's a good thing that oil is approximately about 95 a barrel. But still it's expensive- with the Ike turmoil causing our gas prices to climb again. Man times are tough. And yes, I hope that it remains a buyers' market for a long time for anyone buying a house! That's the plus side to all of this.

teamC Posted: Sep 15, 2008 05:16 PM

Re: NWR - Wall Street Woes

FH and I were talking about this all weekend. He works at JPMorgan Chase. Although they bailed out Bear Stearns he was already told that they were not likely to get bonuses come next year.

And on top of that, I just lost my job (I'm a law clerk for a judge who just got reappointed to another court and he can't take me with him due to politics and freezing of jobs) so we are at the point where we stopped wedding plans (at least until I find a job).

I was getting real anxiety about it all...but then felt better today because its all in God's hands. With loving family and FH supports we will all survive. What goes down must come back up again!

MrsLarrea2B Posted: Sep 15, 2008 05:26 PM

Re: NWR - Wall Street Woes

OMG, ladies this is all very scary stuff. It makes me really nervous about spending all this money on a wedding.

Celeste617 Posted: Sep 15, 2008 05:28 PM

Re: NWR - Wall Street Woes

This guy I work with's fiancee works for Lehman (or I should say DID...) Last night she got the call that they were letting her go And their wedding is on Saturday!!! What bad timing I feel so bad for her

EsquireBride Posted: Sep 15, 2008 05:35 PM

Re: NWR - Wall Street Woes

I was just on a phone conference and we wound up discussing this. Some people were told to come in today to remove their personal items (and these are higher ranking people). All but the main entrance are locked down too and they are usually open during business hours.

shoegal68 Posted: Sep 15, 2008 05:54 PM

Re: NWR - Wall Street Woes

I work for Merrill Lynch & didn't sleep well at all. after speaking to several people today we are better off today than we were on Friday. for the most part we don't know what is going to happen. but nothing will really happen until 09. My boss said there is no overlap. but is still worried about jobs. Luckily i just paid off my credit card and we do have money saved.
It is very draining to work on wall street these days

I really feel horrible for the people that worked for Lehman

bluegreen08 Posted: Sep 15, 2008 06:06 PM

Re: NWR - Wall Street Woes

Posted by Celeste617

This guy I work with's fiancee works for Lehman (or I should say DID...) Last night she got the call that they were letting her go And their wedding is on Saturday!!! What bad timing I feel so bad for her

wow

beram63 Posted: Sep 16, 2008 05:17 AM

Re: NWR - Wall Street Woes

i've been reading a lot of stuff about this and trying to wrap my brain around what that means for the US and the global market aside from obvious job loss. lehman is closing bc of the huge losses from the mortgage craze, right?

why were the financial institutions that are struggling now so willing to give mortgages away to anyone and everyone? this would have inevitably come down the pipe after lending money to people who can't really afford to pay you back i swear this is an innocent question; i'm just trying to understand the whole thing.

IrishBrideASmiling Posted: Sep 16, 2008 08:33 AM

Re: NWR - Wall Street Woes

Posted by beram63

i've been reading a lot of stuff about this and trying to wrap my brain around what that means for the US and the global market aside from obvious job loss. lehman is closing bc of the huge losses from the mortgage craze, right?

why were the financial institutions that are struggling now so willing to give mortgages away to anyone and everyone? this would have inevitably come down the pipe after lending money to people who can't really afford to pay you back i swear this is an innocent question; i'm just trying to understand the whole thing.

The reason for the mortgage boom was because houses were at an all time high, therefore people were borrowing more. Alot of mortgage brokers were offering a sub prime mortgage to these people. People thought this was a great idea. I mean if i were sitting in front of a broker with my credit score of 100 and I was offered a mortgage at a reduced interest rate, I might just jump on it myself without reading the fine print about fees, adjustable rates, etc.

OH and the best are these interest only mortgages. People would buy houses and only pay the interest, but alot of people forget that they eventually they have to pay the actual mortgage payment at some point.

I think the reason why these mortgages were given was to a. get people in homes and b. get their bonuses.

I used to work in Foreclosures and its really scary. The bank is taking houses left and right but they cannot get what is owed to them since the houses are not worth what they were when they lent them to people when they got their mortgages 5-6 years ago. They end up either holding onto the house which costs the bank more money or sells it at a lower price than what is owed to them and they lose money.

PROBM Posted: Sep 16, 2008 08:36 AM

Re: NWR - Wall Street Woes

there is not just one answer to why this is all happening , I will try to explain a big portion of the issue at hand:

many people were given loans without proper qualifications, the bank in turn sold those loans to institutions such as lehman, merril, jpmorgan, citi, etc and those firms packaged all those loans together will other products and sold it to an investor (me, you, corporations, money managers, hedge funds etc) as a structured product with a very high rating and 'safe gaurentee.'
When people started to default on thier mortgages, investors started to question thier investments and question the rating agencies that gaurenteed them to be safe. Therefore the value of the securties decreased and companies had to write down the value of thier assets.

If you would like to talk about it more i would be happy to explain or if you have any personal questions please fm me

meara Posted: Sep 16, 2008 08:38 AM

Re: NWR - Wall Street Woes

Yeah, it's all becoming fairly awful. The only good thing (if you are not in real estate) is that the housing market will continue to drop too but it's not a fair trade-off. I do have my 401 K invested but am worried if I take it out of the stocks now, I will lose money but it's probably best to just cut my losses, right? aargh, so awful, esp when you look at picking a band that is over 2 months take home pay!!!!

beram63 Posted: Sep 16, 2008 04:18 PM

Re: NWR - Wall Street Woes

thanks, ladies i feel like i have a better handle on it now.

Espo22 Posted: Sep 16, 2008 04:34 PM

Re: NWR - Wall Street Woes

The other day all i thought was 'if this keeps getting worse, i am moving out of the US for 2 years or so' when Dh got home from work he said 'lets just move to europe' seems like we're on the same page if it wasnt for his job, i would do this

beram63 Posted: Sep 16, 2008 04:39 PM

Re: NWR - Wall Street Woes

Posted by Espo22

The other day all i thought was 'if this keeps getting worse, i am moving out of the US for 2 years or so' when Dh got home from work he said 'lets just move to europe' seems like we're on the same page if it wasnt for his job, i would do this

we talked seriously about moving to france. it seems more and more like an option.

here's the thing though--a crashing US market is going to affect the entire industrialized world. asian and european markets are feeling this as bad as we are, and in some cases, it's worse.

ETA: just heard on CNN that barclay agreed to buy a piece of lehman, which should save 10,000 jobs.

MaureenM618 Posted: Sep 16, 2008 05:35 PM

Re: NWR - Wall Street Woes

Silly question..but I'm not good with all this financial stuff.

I bank at Wamu..should I take out all my money and switch banks??? If they go under will I lose my money??? Thanks!

Espo22 Posted: Sep 16, 2008 06:12 PM

Re: NWR - Wall Street Woes

Posted by beram63

Posted by Espo22

The other day all i thought was 'if this keeps getting worse, i am moving out of the US for 2 years or so' when Dh got home from work he said 'lets just move to europe' seems like we're on the same page if it wasnt for his job, i would do this

we talked seriously about moving to france. it seems more and more like an option.

here's the thing though--a crashing US market is going to affect the entire industrialized world. asian and european markets are feeling this as bad as we are, and in some cases, it's worse.

ETA: just heard on CNN that barclay agreed to buy a piece of lehman, which should save 10,000 jobs.

i honestly want to move to spain for a short period of time. The lifestyle is just so different, people in europe REALLY enjoy their lives. Its not all just spend your life working and then family 2nd. Family comes first in europe, and enjoying yourself too. You will have big cities like NYC but everyone is so nice, relaxed, ppl arent rushing and have that mentality. Its so nice and different.

Its sad but now its like you have to dedicate your life to working here, and family comes 2nd. Jobs expect more now from ppl, they want you to stay late, come in weekends if they need you. And god forbid you have a family its like they dont care. You spend anywhere from 8-12 hours a day at work, and some even more and then you have like 4-5 hours if that with your family and its not like its mostly quality time, you cook, clean have other things to do and then try to get some time with them. Thats why you see mostly 20-something people at large corporations.

It would be nice to do for a year or two.