Opinion on  Bank of America Corp (BAC)     Sector: Financial  >  Industry: Money Center Banks
Need Cash - A new not so subtle form of 'give me the money'

Show me the money is history, and we are all chanting 'Give me the money' BAC is within its rights to ask for TARP cash to fund the Merrill Lynch acquisition, otherwise they would be suffering from a high cost of funds for having navigated the crisis on their own. They need to be on par with the other players to compete with Morgan Staney Smith Barney JV and the others so miraculously saved by Paulson and who will also be funded by Obama's team as and when they sort out the mechanics for an approval of $700 bn as a new avatar of TARP To make a fair stab at the market, while working on redenominating mortgages which seems to be less than 20% of the funds support required by the market, we need a level playing ground unless free market economics is allowed to operate whimsically at this time.

The Carolinas and Phils have been handed over to the Wachovia team for strengthening Wells up at the pond. The Wells WFC merger is being handled much more seamlessly and without information opacity . BofA has to remind itslef how it managed to put the horse before the cart all these years since 2001 Also as the startribune.com reports: The CEO of Wells Fargo & Co., now the nation's fourth-largest banker, said Friday the bank has ample capital and has grown its loan portfolio by about 20 percent in the past year as it has taken business from weaker competitors in the beleaguered financial services industry. The brass at Wells Fargo, which recently acquired capital-short Wachovia Corp, the North Carolina institution that operates in the Southeast, also said they believe they can pull off a successful merger similar to that of the Minneapolis-based Norwest buying larger Wells Fargo a decade ago. "I like this deal more than I did at first," said Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf, 55. "This is not our first rodeo. This can be a wonderful long-term deal for our shareholders. We think we're building something for the ages." Stumpf's optimism, however, did not temper a bad day on Wall Street for the financial services industry. Shares of Wells Fargo and other major players swooned as Bank of America and Citigroup, two of the industry's once-proud performers, announced a combined $10 billion in fourth-quarter net losses on credit and other woes. Meanwhile, the federal government has redoubled its efforts to support a financial system that has shown few signs of recovery despite massive capital injections and restructuring in recent months.