A Citi situation

摘要

It has a fearful symmetry to it. A year ago Wall Street banks were taking turns to chalk up record profits. Now they are sheepishly making history writing down curdled mortgage investments. Citigroup, the world's biggest bank by assets, if no longer by market value, plumbed new depths this week, reporting a $9.8 billion fourth-quarter loss (see chart). It cut the value of collateralised-debt obligations (cdos) and other nasties, already marked down heavily, by a further $18.1 billion.