California Home Loan 360

Citigroup Inc. and cities in California have asked Moody's Investors Service to change the way it rates municipal bonds because they say the current system is unfair.

The collapse of the nation’s housing market and subsequent mortgage mess that has bedeviled Wall Street for nearly a year cost Stanley O’Neal his job at Merrill Lynch & Co. Ditto for Charles Prince at Citigroup Inc.

The $330-billion auction-rate securities market will "cease to exist" after it collapsed in February because Wall Street firms stopped using their own capital to buy bonds when demand fell short, a Citigroup Inc. analyst said.

April 8 (Bloomberg) -- Bank holding companies including Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co. have the thinnest safety cushion against losses in seven years.

Feb. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and four other U.S. lenders will announce new steps today to help some borrowers in danger of default stay in their homes, according to three people familiar with the plans.

Fourth-quarter results and an $18-billion sub-prime write-down shake Wall Street's confidence. The sub-prime mortgage crisis hit Wall Street with full fury Tuesday as Citigroup Inc. reported a nearly $10-billion fourth-quarter loss, and both Citigroup and Merrill Lynch & Co. got cash infusions to shore up their financial stability.

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the Citigroup Inc. shareholder who came to the bank's rescue during the credit crisis of the early 1990s, might do so again now, the Wall Street Journal reported on its website Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The rare judgment, based on a forecast of new write-downs, sends the bank's shares lower. "Sell" ratings from Wall Street analysts remain relative rarities, and that made Goldman, Sachs & Co.'s rating shift on Citigroup Inc. on Monday all the more shocking.

Moody's Investors Service sent warnings Wednesday to Citigroup Inc. in New York and HSBC Holdings in London that it might downgrade their structured investment vehicles as the rating company reviews $33 billion worth of the debt.

The possibility of even deeper losses from the sub-prime mortgage crisis sends shares lower. Citigroup Inc.'s problems deepened Monday as it was unable to assure investors that a potential $11-billion additional write-down for sub-prime mortgage-related securities wouldn't grow, and its nearly pristine credit ratings were downgraded.