Not necessary, it largely depends how USD play out for the future, those (especailly European and Japanese) invested in US market in recent years, even though stock up 10%, it still can't offset the currency loss of USD which has depreciated more than 10% over the years.

So it depends on how USD situation also. One thing to remind, dropping more doesn't mean it is cheaper than those dropped less one. One needs to use fundamental valuation point to justify whether it is cheap or not.

FYI, HKD is pegged with USD so goes down together.

This post has been edited by cherroy: May 19 2008, 04:51 PM

MYR has basket currency, the currency fluctuation should be very well controlled by BNM.

i'm thinking of investment of 3-5 yrs.

Citigroup $16.820 now..is time to accamulated

Stay away from financials, especially those with really big exposure to subprime. The subprime crisis is just the beginning, it will also lead to credit card default to increase.

Freddie Mac...another Bear Stear?

hi guys,do you all think the subprime crisis already over?
i saw some news state that some of the big financial company may gone in few years later...
Another question,do you guys think that WFC's share price going uptrend ?or just still a lot of space to drop?
your opinion is appreciated thx

It is not like reaching one date, then full stop, it is over. It never will be like that. The credit crisis will be over (for sure it won't last forever, as free market is self correcting mechanism) in a gradual form which there is not indicator to say it is over or not. As long as bank balance sheet improving and become healthy, and credit become loosen over the time, then credit crisis will gradual improve. While housing bubble burst, (house price dropping) become stablise and financial instituition deleveraging into a more comfort zone then with situation improve across the banking and especially investment banks, then it is positive factor for the crisis to be over.

The main problem of recent crisis is that nobody knows what is the card behind on each one. As with subprime crisis exploded, market knew there are some bad cards behind certain players (banks/investment banks), but don't know whom actually and how much, that's why the credit crisis persist until now (after 1 year already)

I have to agree with Dreamer's post earlier, that buying these financials by using the mortgage crisis as a metric means you have to isolate it down to which ones were mortgage only players, vs little to no exposure at all. Unfortunately, all those mentioned are diversified financials, so it's hard to judge.

Bear Stearns long downplayed their exposure to MBS's and CDO's, and despite the market hearing that their credit position evaporated over the course of a week, most of us 'inside' knew this was not the case. In fact, they had been accumulating positions in that market for quite some time, and were one of the first banks along with Merrill to go aggressively in. The worst part was that their risk management business unit as well as the most experienced guys were either just coming off the cusp of the management cycle or too busy playing bridge in some mid-western competition.

I still love C, despite repeated losses from my initial investment point. Not sure about Pandit's experience - he didn't institute all that much newsworthy changes while I was still with Morgan, despite being the head of several business units. Still, what more can he do besides wait out the crisis, right?
I'm not sure I agree with the idea of write-offs vs write-downs as I see these two terms being used interchangeaebly on these forums incorrectly. Write down means when marked to market the positions are adjusted on the books, but the position is still held. This means that if the market corrects, the same positions can potentially recover - write-offs mean the positions are gone from the books to never materialize.

These banks are writing-down massive amounts of debt, but the strongest ones can still hold their positions, especially those MBS's and CDO's tied to all the dilapidated homes in the mid-western US. Seriously though, it ain't looking pretty, and think about where we are (timeframe wise) compared to when this all started 'happening.' We've barely moved forward - regardless of what capital lending efforts and how many bankers are losing their jobs, the amount of losses we're looking at are staggering. It's going to be a long road ahead.

shall we go now?

For those of you trading US stocks, which trading agent do you use? What's the easiest way to open a trading account for US stocks?

looking for Merill Lynch at $20....since Temasek leverage at $24 with USD 6 billion already...

I use DBS in Singapore and Scottrade in the U.S.

DBS is pretty lousy for U.S. trading IMO and I do not recommend it, as there are no real time quotes and most importantly the trade execution time isn't ideal.

Scottrade is a lot better, but is geared for U.S. residents.

I entered two identical orders in both systems, and the one in Scottrade was picked up a full minute earlier based on the recorded transaction time. I believe the lag in DBS is done such that they can put more money in their pockets by shaving the difference between the market price and my limit order. In some cases I have had some orders execute in Scottrade, while not executing at all in DBS! This has made me extremely upset, as the market had obviously moved past my limit order (both identically set) but wasn't triggered by the DBS system. I've complained about this to my banker and to customer service and they simply replied that the system wasn't designed for day trading and that some price variances are expected. They recommended that I place an order directly through my banker, at about 5x the cost.

DBS charges about 29.00 USD/trade
Scottrade charges 7.00 USD/trade

The recent take over of Freddie and Fannie has somewhat increase my risk appetite. I am looking at WB, C and AXP.

As some of you might know, I have 1000 shares of ETFC (Etrade) for my mid term investments. The main reason why i purchased Etrade is because of the turn around plan and it has quit the residential lending business. Another big factor is the decline in oil prices. History has shown that when oil prices decline rapidly, it's a start of a major rally in the US equities. As the emerging markets slow down considerably and battling high inflation, more and more investors will snap up cheap US financials especially since Freddie and Fannie had been taken into conservatorship. Couple of banks will take a hit if their capital holdings are mostly Fannie and Freddie preferred shares but in the long run, home prices will stop its rapid declining and mortgage rates are more appealing.

Ah, and not to mention Ben will cut interest rate next year.

Dollar superbull + low oil prices = US equities RALLY.

This post has been edited by AdamG1981: Sep 11 2008, 02:48 AM

but dont touch Lehman yet...even it drop more than 50% in a week time..

I'm 14 this year but I doubt they'll go pokai. Just my 2 cents.

Citi is already overpriced.

ML : dead

the other 2 , i would leave out , rumour has it UBS was a BIG player in the SBOTCs. And that would also include CS though not as much

hi i agree with u chino; singapore securities suck; i am using uobkayhian, their system for us and hkse is too slow, so i am using interactivebrokers.com(ib) which is us base which provide better intraday trading. but one thing i would like to ask u just for comparison
let say if u didnt trade for a month and as if u have 50 counter in us stock market, is scottrade charging any custody fee? just for ure info
kayhian 2 dollar percounter, ib 10usd for all inactive months.

regards
norman

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Added on October 1, 2008, 12:57 amcitigroup use to be top selection by saudi arabian for their efficent and effective management, can collect onceprice hit below usd13.50
well calculated base on growing EPS, dps, average p/e ratio, roe, still the one worth to collect below 13.50usd.i wont be like lehman as it asset is number 1 in us,total asset 2,187,631mill quote from mergent summer 2008.

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Added on October 2, 2008, 11:44 pmhi chino, i contacted scottrade sales personal,
this is the reply
Dear Investor:

Scottrade would like to thank you for your interest in our company.

Because of the way we are structured and because of certain industry licensing requirements, at the present time Scottrade can only establish accounts for U.S., China, Taiwan and Hong Kong residents.

Again, thank you for your interest.

Sincerely,

James Lu
Asia Pacific International
Scottrade Inc

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Added on October 10, 2008, 12:43 pm
WELL JUST BOUGHT CITI 2000 share at 13 usd last night, going to buy 2000 more if fall below usd 11 per share.

citi goodbuy

This post has been edited by normanTE: Oct 10 2008, 12:43 PM