Financial stocks finished lower Tuesday in a volatile session in which Washington Mutual(WM) skyrocketed and battered mortgage giants Fannie Mae(FNM) and Freddie Mac(FRE) continued to take their lumps.
The government-sponsored mortgage giants were once again a focal point of the market, as Fannie Mae collapsed nearly 30% at one point in trading and Freddie Mac [...]

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Merrill Lynch booked its fourth-straight quarterly loss Thursday, this time losing nearly $5 billion, as the nation’s largest brokerage was forced to once again take massive writedowns.
Merrill said it lost $4.9 billion overall. On a continuing operations basis, it lost $4.6 billion, or $4.95 a share, down from a profit of [...]

July 15 (Bloomberg) — Wachovia Corp. fell 7.7 percent after saying it’s “a fundamentally strong and stable company on solid footing.”
Wachovia has $150 billion in liquidity, spokeswoman Christy Phillips Brown said today in an e-mailed statement. The bank attracted $800 million in deposits yesterday and remains well capitalized with more than $50 billion in [...]

NEW YORK (Fortune) — They own or guarantee $5 trillion worth of mortgages­ - nearly half of all the country’s outstanding home loan debt - and they’re crashing. But not everybody is convinced they should be.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are struggling with an investor loss of confidence so great that, while they’re unlikely [...]

Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) needs to go to rehab.
Shares are trading near where they were in 1996. Where’d the 12 years of prosperity, acquisitions, and globalization success go? Credit market mayhem and real estate pandemonium make up the bulk of the losses, but there’s more. You don’t need to be Sigmund Freud to realize [...]

One of America’s largest mortgage lenders has collapsed, as the credit crisis grows.
IndyMac Bank is the second largest financial institution to fail in US history.
Regulators feared the California-based bank did not have enough cash to cope after panicked investors withdrew more than $1.3bn in 11 days and seized its assets.
The business will reopen on Monday [...]

Morgan Stanley cut its rating on Bank of America Corp (BAC.N: Quote, Profile, Research), and lowered its 2008 earnings view for large-cap U.S. banks saying the banks may have to raise additional $51 billion in capital and record further loan losses.
Analyst Betsy Graseck downgraded Bank of America to “underweight” from “equal weight” and said the [...]

uly 11 (Reuters) - Fox-Pitt Kelton cut Wachovia Corp’s (WB.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) rating and price target on its expectation that the bank would announce a big capital raise and a further dividend cut when it announces second-quarter results on July 22.
The brokerage cut the bank to “in-line” from “outperform,” and slashed its [...]

HONG KONG (Reuters) - The U.S. government is considering taking over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac if their funding problems worsen, the New York Times said on Friday, causing shares of the mortgage finance companies to plunge.
Shares of Fannie fell 27 percent to $9.66 in pre-market trading, while shares of Freddie fell 35 percent to [...]

The nation’s housing meltdown is disrupting lives and devastating families. One New York grandmother is trying to put the pieces back together.
By Tami Luhby, CNNMoney.com senior writer
Last Updated: July 10, 2008: 2:03 PM EDT
HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. (CNNMoney.com) — Only weeks after moving into their first home in 2006, Margarita Rios celebrated Christmas with her two daughters [...]