Friday, March 21, 2008

Desparate For Good News

Goldman, Lehman Reduce Loan Backlog With Discounts
U.S. banks from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. have whittled their holdings of leveraged buyout loans to $129 billion from $163 billion at the beginning of the year by offering the debt at discounts, according to analysts at Bank of America Corp.

The decline is a ``ray of hope'' for banks amid a slump in credit markets and a slowing economy, said analysts led by Jeffrey Rosenberg. The firms also have $73.6 billion of high- yield bonds they need to sell, they said.


Apparently people are treating this as if it is good news. I would not take it as such at face value, but any momentum out of the logjam of February is a positive sign.

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