By CNBC-TV18.com
Published Sept 13, 2024
HSBC announces losses linked to US subprime mortgages. By April 3, New Century Financial, which specialises in sub-prime mortgages, files for bankruptcy protection and fires half its workforce.
US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says the rising mortgage defaults will NOT ‘seriously harm’ the US economy, just weeks before rivals refuse to bail out Bear Stearns, an investment bank, in July 2007.
Credit markets freeze when BNP Paribas halts activity in three of their funds due to illiquidity of the subprime mortgages that they are holding. By Aug 28, German Sachsen Landesbank gets recued by competitor Baden-Wuerttemberg Landesbank.
The rate at which banks lend to each other rises to its highest level since Dec 1998. LIBOR rate hits 6.7975%, way above the Bank of England's 5.75% base rate. Within 10 days, there’s a run on Northern Rock, the first on a British bank for 150 years. Depositors withdraw £1 billion in 24 hours. The UK government took over the bank in Feb 2008.
The US Federal Reserve cuts its main interest rate by half a percentage point to 4.75%. A day later, the Bank of England announced a £10 billion bond auction.
UBS's chairman & CEO resigned after a $3.4 billion loss on subprime investments. Two weeks later, Citigroup's losses exceeded $9 billion, reaching $40 billion within six months. Merrill Lynch's CEO resigned on Oct 30 after $7.9 billion in bad debt. By May 2008, UBS's losses reached $37 billion, prompting a $15.5 billion rights issue.
President George Bush announced plans to help over a million homeowners facing foreclosure. The Bank of England cut interest rates to 5.5%. On Dec 13, the US Fed coordinated with five central banks worldwide, releasing $20 billion to support banks through Christmas.
Global stock markets, including London's FTSE 100, saw their biggest falls since 9/11, just before the US Fed's first emergency rate cut since 2001 by 75 basis points, the sharpest in 25 years. Two weeks later, the Bank of England cut rates by another 25 bps.
G7 says worldwide losses from the collapse of the US subprime market may reach $400 billion.
Fed makes the biggest intervention until that point, making $200 billion in funds available to banks and other institutions. 9 days later, JP Morgan Chase agrees to bail out Bear Stearns with a $30 billion guarantee against its losses.
The IMF warns that potential losses from the credit crunch could reach $1 trillion or higher. The Bank of England cut rates by another 25 basis points to 5% two days later and, on April 21, promised a £50 billion plan to bail out struggling banks.
The FBI arrests 406 people, including brokers and housing developers, for mortgage frauds worth $1 billion. Separately, two former Bear Stearns workers face criminal charges for hiding the banks’ problems from investors who lost $1.4 billion.
UK’s stock index, FTSE 100, enters bear market after a 20% fall from the recent highs. Crude oil prices had hit $147.5 a barrel by July 11.
The European Central Bank pumped €95 million into the continent’s banks. It added a further €108.7 billion over the next few days.
The UK Treasury increases stamp duty exemptions from £125,000 to £175,000. But by then, a recession seemed inevitable within two quarters.
The US unemployment rate rose to 6.1%. FTSE 100 clocks the worst weekly fall since 2001.
The last trading day before Lehman Brothers fell. Dow Jones closed higher for the day, but was down 20% from a year ago. Crude oil prices hit a six-month low.
Lehman Brothers, a British investment bank, files for bankruptcy after the central bank refuses to bail it out citing ‘moral hazard’. The S&P 500 lost another 40% by March 2009.