Bear Stearns bank...kaput. taken over by rival bank JPMorgan Chase

Bear Stearns bank is one of the two largest global investment banks,
securities trading and brokerage firms in the world. The other is
JPMorgan Chase.

Last year Bear Stearn share was  traded at $159 a share...last week it
was $70 a share, Last Friday it was only $30. It is now insolvent with
a subprime losses of over $3.2 billions.   JPMorgan Chase is to buy
over Bear Stearns, at $2 a share.

What happened !

Two words...Subprime and credit crunch.

Will it be the last or first of many to come ?

Looking at the amount of subprime losses suffered by leading banks in
the USA and Europe...(see table below), more banks will have to fold
up soon.

MAIN SUB-PRIME LOSSES SO FAR
Citigroup: $18bn
Merrill Lynch: $14.1bn
UBS: $13.5bn
Morgan Stanley $9.4bn
HSBC: $3.4bn
Bear Stearns: $3.2bn
Deutsche Bank: $3.2bn
Bank of America: $3bn
Barclays: $2.6bn
Royal Bank of Scotland: $2.6bn
Freddie Mac: $2bn
JP Morgan Chase: $3.2bn
Credit Suisse: $1bn
Wachovia: $1.1bn
IKB: $2.6bn

Source: Company re****t  by BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7299938.stm

Time to get rid of your bank shares before it become worthless.