Tuesday, April 01, 2008

April Fool's Joke?

UBS's chairman abruptly resigned today as the Swiss bank reported a first-quarter loss of $12.1 billion and said it would seek $15.1 billion in new capital. UBS revealed more serious damage from exposure to the U.S. subprime crisis and said it expects write-downs of approximately $19 billion (that's in addition to the $18 billion it wrote down last quarter). The punchline is that the stock led a rally in financial stock, posting a 15% gain.

Lehman Brothers hares jumped 18%. It said it plans to offer 3 million convertible preferred shares "in response to investor interest." Translation: we need capital.

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