Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Scotiabank takes a Boot to the Head

Thanks to their dealings with Lehman Brothers Scotiabank is going to take a $595 million hit to their bottom line:

“Both the equity and fixed-income markets have experienced significant declines in value and extreme levels of volatility over the last several weeks, exacerbated by the Lehman bankruptcy,” stated Rick Waugh, Scotiabank president and chief executive.\

I wouldn’t call that a “hit”, that is more like a boot to the head (to quote the Frantics).

In case you didn’t know what I meant about the boot to the head reference, and figured I was only putting stock charts up these days. For you I leave you this boot to the head.

“Rogue” Trader at BMO

Bank of Montreal took a boot to the head with the charging of former Lead Natural Gas Trader David Lee, who has plead guilty to “…inflating the value of his portfolio and conspiring with others to deceive the bank…”, ouch. Makes you wonder how prices of commodities are set after reading:

Separately, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the CFTC filed civil charges against Lee and several other traders he is accused of conspiring with between 2003 and 2007 to fraudulently overvalue a commodity derivatives trading portfolio at Bank of Montreal.

Due to this BMO had to take a 1st quarter 2007 write down of almost C$237 million against it’s income. BMO seems to have taken a boot to the head as well?

Pay Day Loans Boot to the Head!

A while back I reprised my posting Pay Day Loans No No No! but I continue to get inquiries about advertising on this site directly by Payday Loan firms. Now, I must put the disclaimer that one of my “group” advertisers has sold space on my site to a Pay Day Loan site, which I am displeased about and will attempt to remove them as soon as I can. 

Do not mistake my humor, or frivolity at times about this subject as me being flippant, or not caring, as I think this “financial service” is evil. The victims of these “services” are those who can afford to deal with them the least, and I am sure during this ‘credit crunch’ Payday Loan Companies will jack up their “fees” even more than they currently do. I would urge my readers to contact their MP’s and MPP’s to have this industry more closely regulated. 

Oh and a boot to the head for all of those Pay Day Loan companies too!

Carnivals

• The Money Hawk hosted Carnival of Money Hawks #1: Links for Saving, Investing, and Spending Wisely where my article Debt is like Fat was added.