FTAlphavilleFT Alphaville is a 2008 Webby Award Winner

Bungle Bank, BBB, Bye Bye…the hunt for a disparaging moniker for Bradford & Bingley during its current difficulties is over.

FT Alphaville’s ad hoc competition has been won by….

The Tripartite Authorities. More…

Killer Chart of the Day - the Dow in Euros.  Nicked from Alea.

A fresh writedown for UBS.

An ethical writedown, that is. The below chart compiled by Covalance - an ethical research outfit. As you’ll notice, UBS - generally a poorly behaved child - has been very naughty since mid-April. More…

On FT Alphaville this morning,

- B&B: the Bungle Bank.

- And why a lifeboat has been launched to save it.

- A roundup of the UK banking sector, with all the latest analyst comment, in Markets Live. More…

Quick chart from the BoA credit team: “Rating Migrations”

Related links
Rating agencies in depth - FT
Insight: Making the abstract more human - FT

A report earlier this week highlighted a somewhat surprising development in the ABS market: issuance up 158% in Q2 this year against Q1.

Now admittedly, we’re working up from the bottom here, so percentages need not indicate such a stunning a recovery in absolute terms. More…

We know there’s a lot going on in other key markets of the world, but just to focus on Japan, briefly, as one of the few equity markets cited this week (along with Canada) to have done relatively well amid the gloom, More…

Markets live chat transcript for the chat ending at 12:04 on 4 Jul 2008. Participants in this chat were: Paul Murphy (PM) Neil Hume (NH)   PM:Welcome to Tin hat time    PM:This FT Alphaville’s daily markets commentary, More…

Did you need any more evidence of a tough few months ahead for equities? How about these lines, from Citi:

Buyers lacking - Little support from traditional institutional investors, hedge funds or private equity. More…

And why, for that matter, is HBOS - suffering from the same liar loan/buy-to-flip virus - trading just 4p lower, bang on its own “rescue” refinancing price of 275p?

Think about it.

Bungling chief executive Steven Crawshaw agrees a statement back in April pooh-poohing some nonsense in the press saying Bradford & Bingley is talking to Citi planning a rights issue. More…

bun.gle [buhng-guh l] v, n. 1. v (with object) to do clumsily and awkwardly; botch: He bungled the job. 2. v (wihout object) to perform or work clumsily or inadequately: He is a fool who bungles consistently. More…

Elsewhere on Friday:

- Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75%

- “Assets the Federal Reserve agreed to accept in March from Bear Stearns Cos. to facilitate its sale to J.P. Morgan Chase are now worth about $1 billion less.” More…

Comment and Analysis in Friday’s FT,
Dear Lucy: Listening to ‘cooing’ colleagues
The FT’s ‘agony aunt’ answers a desperate reader: “Several times a day my colleague telephones his wife and his taciturn manner is replaced by a sickly cooing. More…

The latest on Friday,

- Bradford and Bingley forecast to open down as much as 10% - Reuters

- UBS pre-announces “renewed losses” in investment banking unit - FT

- BG group update on Origin offer, More…

Bradford & Bingley’s largest shareholders on Thursday night stepped in to rescue the ailing mortgage lender after TPG Capital, the US private equity group, pulled out of a £400m capital increase. The emergency rescue was triggered shortly after Moody’s informed B&B it planned to cut the bank’s credit rating. More…

Eurozone interest rates hit a seven-year high on Thursday with a quarter-point rise in the main rate to 4.25%, but the ECB’s less hawkish tone relieved market fears of further imminent rises. Remarks by Jean-Claude Trichet, More…

The $6.1bn private equity takeover of Penn National Gaming - one of the last remaining buy-out deals negotiated before the credit crisis – had been aborted, the company said Thursday, because of market More…

Origin Energy, the Australian energy producer and retailer, advised shareholders on Thursday to reject a $13.1bn bid from British gas company BG Group, saying it undervalued its coal seam gas (CSG) reserves, More…

HBOS led a rebound for the London market Thursday when the UK bank closed above the underwriting price on its rights issue for the first time in three days. The stock rose 7% to 279¼p amid speculation that HBOS could sell Bank West, More…

US buyout firm KKR is still considering floating on the New York Stock Exchange, one year on from first declaring its interest, reports the Wall Street Journal. The Daily Telegraph follows up, saying that KKR recently announced plans for its first foray into infrastructure investing and has also brought its credit business KKR Financial firmly in-house. More…

Property tycoon Robert Tchenguiz on Thursday moved against short-sellers in UK pub group Mitchells & Butlers, converting a derivatives holding of almost 26% into shares in order to stop it being lent to those betting on price falls. More…

Sir Martin Sorrell’s WPP on Thursday launched a third attempt to persuade shareholders of Taylor Nelson Sofres to accept WPP’s approach rather than its agreed nil-premium merger with German research group GfK, More…

Taylor Wimpey, the stricken UK housebuilder, plans to seek a waiver for a possible breach of covenants from holders of some £380m of outstanding private placement notes. These notes are subject to the same covenants as its bank debt, More…

JPMorgan is expected to complete a reduction of up to 10% of its investment banking workforce in Europe in the third quarter, in the latest sign that the economic slowdown is hitting even relatively resilient banks. More…

GLG Partners, London’s second-biggest hedge fund, has limited withdrawals from its flagship emerging markets fund after news that star manager Greg Coffey was leaving prompted a rush for the door by investors. More…

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York on Thursday confirmed the estimated fair value of assets that were formerly held by Bear Stearns at about $29bn, the amount at which it was sold to JPMorgan in March. More…

Lone Star, the US buyout group, may sell out of Korea Exchange Bank through block share sales, the Korean lender’s chief executive said Thursday, as attempts to sell the bank to HSBC continue to face regulatory hurdles. More…

The number of financial market bets on crude oil prices hitting $200 a barrel before the end of this year has almost doubled in the past month, a further sign of growing concern that oil prices will continue to rise sharply in the near term. More…

The Australian Stock Exchange became the latest bourse to offer traders the chance to locate their computer servers next to an exchange’s matching engine to improve trade execution times. The ASX said Thursday it expected its “co-location hosting service” would start in the fourth quarter. More…

US markets (half-day Thurs for July 4 hol.)
DJIA up 73.03 at 11,288.54
Nasdaq down 6.08 at 2,245.38
S&P500 up 1.38 at 1,262.90

Asian markets
05:02am BST
Nikkei down 77.56 at 13,187.84
Topix down More…