Thursday, March 13, 2008 NEW YORK -- Standard & Poor's on Thursday said subprime write-downs for large financial institutions are likely past the halfway mark, but they could still hit $285 billion.
S&P's estimate of subprime write-downs was up from a $265 billion figure it published in January, but the credit ratings agency said the end to write-downs was in sight.
"The positive news is that, in our opinion, the global financial sector appears to have already disclosed the majority of valuation write-downs of subprime asset-backed securities," S&P credit analyst Scott Bugie said in a report.
S&P's statement gave a boost to financial stocks and helped Wall Street indexes pare losses.
The Dow Jones industrial average was last down 0.45 percent after earlier falling about 2 percent. The S&P 500 Index was down 0.32 percent, also paring earlier losses of over 2 percent.
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http://moneynews.newsmax.com/money/archives/articles/2008/3/13/140754.cfm
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