The Crash is Continuing

You thought you were off the hook with all the lowering of interest rates. Well forget it Charlie. The Union Bank of Switzerland is looking for over twice as much in bank write-offs of bad loans than what has already occurred since the crash began in June 2007. Here is the latest from Larouche Pac.



The world's top banks may have to write off as much as $203 billion in new losses on top of the $152 billion in writedowns already taken, Swiss banking giant UBS said in an analyst's report. The bank said the banks may have to write off as much as another $120 billion on their CDO holdings, another $50 billion for losses in SIVs, $18 billion for mortgage-related securities and $15 billion for LBO loans. "Risks are increasing and spreading and the liquidity situation is still far away from normal," the report said.

On Feb. 14, UBS revealed it had additional $26.6 billion exposure to American mortgages, on top of the $27.6 billion in exposure to such paper it had already admitted, plus a $2.9 billion exposure to monoline insurers. The bank took a $13.7 billion writedown in the final quarter of 2007, after a $4.4 billion writedown in the third quarter, giving it a net loss of $4 billion for the year.