Apple Inc (AAPL)

[langostino]

Whoa, Brinker did that?!!

That is SERIOUS. That guy has a large audience out the PacNW. If he triggers a run on the bank, they are toast within 48 hours.

I'm actually not entirely surprised by BoA. If people thought US banks had become anti-competitive gouge machines after the repeal of Glass-Steagall and 15 years of consolidation and concentration, just wait 'til they get a whiff of a BoA dominated US finance system.

I think BoA figures they're going to be the one "too big to fail" institution, and therefore give themselves a free ticket to a longer time horizon to digest whatever they can get their hands on.

I guess I see BoA of grabbing for the big brass ring here, and, in the long-term, succeeding, what with Citi more likely to be forced to breakup, that leaves JP Morgan and foreign interests. In the near term, I think it's a dangerous mess even for them. It's preposterous to believe their claim that Countrywide will be accretive in 2009. Not a chance it winds up being anything but a complete dilutive disaster unless Treasury and the Fed let them dump huge amounts of Countrywide garbage onto Fannie and have the taxpayers perform a massive subsidization.

I think that leaves just one more piece ... IMO BoA will wind up the entire meltdown by buying out SunTrust (and possibly Regions Financial). But they'll wait for the next round of commercial and consumer credit disasters to cause another crater before they come in on that.

Who's big enough to take WaMu off the hands of the government if it goes? Citi's in no position to take it on. That leaves HSBC, UBS, Royal Bank of Scotland, JP Morgan or possibly Wells Fargo. Wow, wouldn't Wells Fargo love to grab up a monster market position and lock up the entire west coast!