Daily Speculations

Washington Mutual: Pilot Fish?

By "The Hornet" (Dec. 10, 2003)

I am speculating that Germany or France will be the next banking fiasco and I am going to get my hedge fund client list looking potential trades
over there. Most would classify the Japan and WaMu moves as independent in nature, but they are all pointing to the same larger problem on the
horizon.

WaMu's profit warning and subsequent spillover into the mortgage/banking area could be a MAJOR SIGNAL that this market is going to get real nasty, real soon.
It was just a week or two ago when the so-called "experts" of Wall Street - as seen on CNBC and other propaganda channels and papers - were hoping for the
market to level off it's recent move up so we could in fact "leave room for January".

If we all just stop for one moment and reflect on the economy's recovery (?) over the last few years, fueled by lower rates, refinance booms, etc. (note the
performance of the stock prices of WM, CFC, et all), yesterday's move could certainly be the ultimate Pilot Fish.

A few weeks I mentioned the 20%+ dump in Japanese Banks and warned that a move like that has definite spillover potential into the US. Those these events
are certainly independent of each other, I think in conjunction, they demonstrate that the world banking system in general is in danger.