Ahead of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein's visit to the Congress next week, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released emails (PDF) that suggest the firm was making money while the mortgage markets collapsed, which would then contradict the firm's claims it lost money during that period. A November 2007 email from Blankfein said, "Of course we didn’t dodge the mortgage mess. We lost money, then made more than we lost because of shorts." more ›

Taxpayers still own 7.7 billion Citigroup shares since the government bailed out the bank as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program. So as a valued shareholder, you might be interested to know that Citigroup lost $7.77 billion in the fourth-quarter, or 33 cents per share. Citigroup says $6.2 billion of the loss was tied to a $20 billion fourth-quarter repayment on some $45 billion in government bailout money. (The bank also shed 100,000 jobs during the year.) "The environment continues to be challenging," said Chief financial officer John Gerspach in a statement worthy of the Understatement Hall of Fame. more ›

Once a victim of Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme, alway a victim of Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme, but even the people trying to figure out the victims' claims are messing up: A laptop containing "names, addresses, Social Security numbers and some Madoff account information on 2,246 investors" was stolen from a car. more ›

Irving Picard, the trustee in charge of liquidating Ponzi king Bernard Madoff's assets, has asked a judge to define what constitutes investors' losses. Naturally, some investors believe they are owed the inflated (hello, 46%, 950% returns), very fake and non-existent amounts that Madoff listed on their last balances—while Picard thinks they are owed simply what they invested minus withdrawals. The Post reports, "A decision could prove crucial in how Madoff's assets are divided among his victims, because some investors -- whom Picard calls 'net winners' -- might be denied a share if their withdrawals exceeded their investments." The Manhattan Bankruptcy Court will have a hearing about the matter in...February. And we must bring up this December 2008 quote from one burned (Berned) investor: "The point with [Madoff] was that I always got every document. If you get all the documents, you are not suspicious." more ›

HSBC's net profits in 2008 were down a breathtaking 70% from 2007, dropping from $19.13 to $5.73 billion, the London-based bank announced today. During a conference call with reporters, CEO Niall Booker said the bank will scale back its U.S. consumer-lending operations, closing its HSBC Finance Corp. and Beneficial brands, causing a loss of 6,100 jobs. (According to Crain's, there are two locations of each in NYC.) The retail-bank-branch and credit card business in the U.S. will remain intact, but HSBC's 2003 expansion in the consumer loan market is being written off as an epic fail. In a statement, HSBC said, "Management believes it will take years before property values return to the levels seen prior to the decline and, as such, has concluded that recovery in the sub-prime mortgage lending business is uncertain and the industry is unlikely to stabilize for a number of years." Executives also confirmed today that HSBC, which is Europe's biggest bank, lost about $1 billion to Bernard Madoff's fraud! more ›

Despite a forecast earlier this year that City pension funds would break even this year, it now appears that the funds will post large losses for the year. Three quarters of the way through the current fiscal year, city funds have lost almost $5 billion. Taxpayers are the ones who likely be called upon to make the funds whole and meet worker benefit commitments. Of the billions that will have to be repaid, the first installment will be $190 million in 2010. more ›

Today, it's expected that Citigroup will start firing around 10% of its investment banking group, which has 65,000 employees. more ›