Friday, July 18, 2008

Merrill Lynch reports $4.9 billion loss

Nation's largest brokerage suffers its fourth-straight quarterly loss, confirms plans to sell Bloomberg stake for $4.43 billion.

Merrill Lynch booked its fourth-straight quarterly loss Thursday, this time losing nearly $5 billion, as the nation's largest brokerage was forced to once again take massive writedowns.

Merrill said it lost $4.9 billion overall. On a continuing operations basis, it lost $4.6 billion, or $4.95 a share, down from a profit of $2.01 billion, or $2.24 a share a year ago. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were expecting the company to report a loss of just over $1.8 billion, or $1.91 a share on this basis.

The company has now lost more than $19.2 billion in the past twelve months, making it one of the hardest hit companies during the credit crisis roiling the nation's big financial services firms.
Merrill (MER, Fortune 500) shares plunged about 6% after hours, nearly wiping out the stock's 10% gain in regular trading on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday.

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