Banks Are Getting Killed

We thought Northern Trust (NTRS - commentary - Cramer's Take) was safe. We figured State Street (STT - commentary - Cramer's Take) was out of the woods. We bet that the worst was over for Suntrust (STI - commentary - Cramer's Take). How low could Sovereign (SOV - commentary - Cramer's Take) go?

Oh well.

Now, of these, I am least concerned about State Street, which has made a clean case for itself repeatedly. That news about Northern Trust having to back/bail out SIV funds, though, was something that I feared and didn't fear would come true. Good outfit. Suntrust is simply slipping; it is no longer the conservative outfit I thought it was. And who knows about Sovereign.

The regionals have just been awful here. Huntington Bancshares (HBAN - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Fifth Third (FITB - commentary - Cramer's Take) -- another once-well-run outfit -- are just hurting really badly. Nat City (NCC - commentary - Cramer's Take) has taken the medicine and holds in. I still fret about FirstFed (FED - commentary - Cramer's Take), Downey (DSL - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Corus (CORS - commentary - Cramer's Take), each of which have huge issues but are so heavily shorted that they get buoyed by the positions. BankUnited (BKUNA - commentary - Cramer's Take) acts as if it is dead already. BKUNA is just awful.

There are also a ton of smaller banks that did aggressive things, maybe 50 to 100, who knows? So many banks did stupid things to juice returns that it's pretty unfathomable. Where were the regulators?

I know -- we decided to emasculate the regulators. Better for business.

Good grief.

Random musings: One of the real villains of the last years, Dick Fischer, a Federal Reserve bank president out of Dallas, is out assuring us that things aren't all that bad.

You have got to be kidding me. This guy has been wrong the whole way. If I were that wrong about things, I would have been given the hook years ago.

Painful to even read the guy.

At the time of publication, Cramer had no positions in the stocks mentioned.

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