If you thought today's market was great off of the nuclear holocaust of earnings out last night, wait until tomorrow! WM reported a $3.3B loss afterhours! Woohoo!
The thrift's deteriorating health prompted Moody's Investors Service to say it may downgrade Washington Mutual to "junk" status, and shares of WaMu fell more than 2 percent.
Excluding a one-time adjustment, Washington Mutual said it lost $3.34 per share -- triple the $1.09 per share loss analysts on average expected, according to Reuters Estimates. Retail banking, mortgage and credit card units all posted losses.
Hallelujah! Lock limit up! To the Moon!
Okay, maybe I'm being a little silly. Maybe it's all just the noise of a bear market rally within a nasty bear market. Maybe I'm just obsessing over the Moon.
On the otherhand, maybe most of this sort of news is priced in. It's no secret. Billions were lost. Lots of folks bought homes when they had no financial means of making monthly payments. Lots of money was made by Big Lenders. Yeah, we get it. The media has been banging that drum for so long as if they were playing a Playstation 3 Rock Band drum kit - expert level.
It's extremely nice to see stocks rally on what should be considered bad news. It's a bullish sign.