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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter V who wrote (123222)	5/15/2008 9:53:06 AM
From: Jim McMannis	Respond to of 306849

Japan in on the act... Mizuho profit sinks 50 pct, cites subprime fallout news.yahoo.com TOKYO - Mizuho Financial Group Inc., Japan's second biggest banking group, reported Thursday a 50 percent drop in profit for the fiscal year, taking a beating from U.S. subprime credit problems. Expectations had been high that subprime-linked losses at Mizuho might be the worst among Japanese lenders after it drastically reduced its fiscal year forecast last month. The bank said its money-losing Mizuho Securities Co. had been hit hard by U.S. credit woes. mo'

To: Peter V who wrote (123222)	5/15/2008 10:18:50 AM
From: Jim McMannis	Respond to of 306849

Denver's commercial real-estate market booming denverpost.com (Artwork by Thomas McKay, The Denver Post )Even as the national economy appears to spiral downward, a number of companies are choosing Denver to expand their operations, bolstering the region's commercial real-estate market. At least three national engineering companies are considering adding staff and increasing their space here. Denver-based Utility Engineering, which occupies 70,000 square feet in the Park Central Building downtown, needs another 9,000 square feet of space. Black & Veatch Corp., which is in 35,000 square feet at the Cascades office building in Greenwood Plaza, plans to expand by 6,000 square feet. It added 5,000 square feet of space last year. URS Corp., which acquired Washington Group this year, is in the process of developing its strategic plan, said Rob Link, executive vice president and branch manager of Studley, which is representing all three engineering firms. URS has 140,000 square feet of space in the southeast market and several downtown locations that are 20,000 square feet each. Washington Group has more than 250,000 square feet in the southeast office market.

To: Peter V who wrote (123222)	5/15/2008 11:06:59 AM
From: Peter V	Respond to of 306849

Financials flat, Senate set for housing bailout 10:36 AM ET 5/15/08 \| Marketwatch RELATED QUOTES 11:04 AM ET 5/15/08 Symbol Last % Chg XLF 26.18 -0.23% MER 49.51 1.31% LEH 43.24 2.39% MS 47.16 0.43% JPM 46.01 0.22% C 23.17 -0.34% GS 187.34 -1.47% BAC 36.43 -1.00% WB 27.24 -1.45% BCS 33.04 -0.81% Real time quote. NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Shares of major U.S. financial stocks traded flat Thursday as Washington lawmakers continued last-minute talks on a deal that would expand a government program to insure hundreds of billions of dollars in mortgages held by troubled homeowners. A meeting of the Senate Banking Committee, originally scheduled to for 10 a.m. Eastern time, was pushed back to 11:30 a.m. "We're very close," said Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd on Fox Business Network. "We're very, very close." Sen. Richard Shelby, the panel's ranking Republican, echoed Dodd's sentiment on the odds of hammering out bipartisan legislation during an appearance on CNBC. The Financial Select Sector SPDR (XLF), an exchange-traded fund that tracks the financial stocks in the S&P 500, slipped less than 0.1% in early action. Banks, brokers mixed as Bernanke speaks Shares of the nation's biggest banks and brokers traded mixed. Merrill Lynch (MER), Lehman Bros. Holdings (LEH), Morgan Stanley (MS), J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM) and Citigroup Inc. (C) all gained ground, while shares of Goldman Sachs Group (GS), Bank of America Corp. (BAC) and Wachovia Corp (WB) slipped. Those firms and their rivals should continue to raise capital to help them navigate financial markets' turmoil, said Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke earlier Thursday. "I strongly urge financial institutions to remain proactive in their capital-raising efforts," Bernanke sid in a Chicago speech. Bernanke couldn't quite bring himself to criticize federal oversight of financial institutions, saying only that supervisors must redouble their efforts. Earlier this week, San Francisco Fed president Janet Yellen bluntly said that the Fed "missed" some of the risky developments as they were unfolding. European banks feel subprime sting, again U.S-listed shares of Barclays (BCS), the U.K. banking giant, fell 1.5%. The bank said first-quarter profit fell from a year earlier due to a write-down of 1.7 billion pounds ($3.3 billion) at its investment-banking arm, while also leaving the door open for a possible rights issue. Barclays didn't give any overall figures for the quarter but said tough capital market conditions in March dragged its bottom line lower. See full story. Capital One's shares on the rise Capital One Financial Corp. (COF) saw net charge-offs in its U.S. card and international segments climb in April, as delinquencies dipped in the U.S. card segment but rose in auto-finance and international businesses. In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the credit-card issuer and bank said net charge-offs in the U.S. card segment rose to 6.08% of average loans held for investment in April, up from 6.07% in March and 5.5% in February. Meanwhile, charge-offs in its auto-finance business dipped to 3.49% last month from 4.09% in March and 3.87% in February. International charge-offs jumped to 6.34% from 4.8% and 5.45%, respectively. See full story Capital One's shares rose 2.4%. .