Wall Street pulled $10.4bn (£5.19bn) of cash and other highly liquid assets out of Bear Stearns in a single day this month, leaving it with only $2bn and forcing the stricken securities firm to approach JPMorgan Chase in desperation, it emerged yesterday, The Times reports.
Bear Stearns, which agreed a fire sale to JPMorgan on March 16, four days after the mass withdrawal of funds, saw its so-called liquidity pool evaporate after customers and counterparties suffered a crisis of confidence in it, according to Christopher Cox, chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Bear's liquidity pool, which stood at $21bn early this month, fell dramatically from $18.1bn to $11.5bn on March 10 “as rumours spread about liquidity problems at Bear Stearns, which eroded investor confidence”, Mr Cox wrote in a letter to Nout Wellink, chairman of the Basel Co...
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