Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch

With the fall of Bear Stearns in March other major investment bank names began popping up in speculation over their possible failure. Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley were said to have high counterparty exposures to the failed bank and would have followed suit had Bear not been bailed. We discussed the sale of assets by failing companys to capture some equity before an ultimate collapse. This would almost seem the case with Lehman and Merrill. Lehman and Merrill have both been putting up pieces of it's companies for sale in the past couple months which would, if today's discussion can be applied, indicate an imminant failure or atleast a slow unraveling of a doomed enterprise. Because it is against the law to start rumors and short big banks on Wall Street now-a-days, and because of these increasingly large sales of assets, especially with a bid to buy 25-50% of Lehman by Korean Bank KDB, I would be willing to bet (not on the open market) that Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch are failing.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gdhcgQsMtGn3t44cuC8W6GaVJxcQD92V73UO0

http://www.cnbc.com/id/26546070