Tim Geithner is probably tired of having to come to the rescue of financial firms, which are all some part of the Occupy Wall Street protests. Yet that is what he did today. Treasury Secretary Geithner came out and defended Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) and other major financial institutions today in front of the Senate Banking Committee. When asked if the eurozone sovereign debt “situation” would create another Lehman-scenario in the major Too-Big-To-Fail financial institutions in the United States and be able to take down a firm like Morgan Stanley, Geithner gave an answer of ABSOLUTELY NOT!
Geithner’s intent was that Morgan Stanley was not at risk as some have suggested, but he might as well have thrown in Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS), Citigroup (NYSE: C), JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM), Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) and even Bank of America (NYSE: BAC).
With almost 90 minutes to the close, this how the bank and brokerage stocks are trading …
Morgan Stanley is up 3.6% at $15.03 versus a 52-week range of $11.58 to $31.04.
Goldman Sachs is up 2.7% at $96.90, still under $100 … and the 52-week range is $84.27 to $175.34.
Citigroup is up 4.7% at $25.86 and the 52-week range is $21.40 to $51.50.
JPMorgan Chase is up 3.3% at $31.87 and the 52-week range is $27.85 to $48.36.
Wells Fargo, Warren Buffett’s favorite bank, is up only 1.9% at $24.98 and it has a 52-week trading range of $22.58 to $34.25.
Bank of America, Wall Street’s current top whipping boy, is up 6.6% at $6.15.
Geithner still maintains that the major banks and firms are far healthier than they were back during and after the financial crisis. He also describes the current exposure of our big banks to the troubled spots in Europe as being only very modest.
JON C. OGG
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