The sub-prime catastrophe has spread far beyond the United States. Certain foreign banks have already been swept up into this sub-prime mess. And it’s hardly beyond the realm of plausibility that more foreign banks could fail.
Investors are rushing back into stocks, reports AP, causing the Dow Jones industrials to surge more than 300 points on the first day of the second fiscal quarter.
Financial stocks were among the big winners after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Switzerland’s UBS AG issued new stock to help bolster their balance sheets. With that upbeat news and a fresh quarter ahead of them, investors appear quite willing to make some bets that the worst of the damage from the nation’s credit struggles has been felt. Moreover, the moves buttressed the view that financial services companies are taking aggressive action to improve their capital bases and stave off the potential of a collapse similar to Bear Stearns Cos. Analysts believe there…