Under Pressure - BofA, Citi, Deutsche, HSBC, JPMorgan, RBS, UBS

Bank of America

The firm's stock fell almost 19% Monday and Tuesday, after Citigroup analyst Keith Horowitz said that the firm may post a $3.6bn fourth-quarter loss and cut its dividend. Horowitz also said that Bank of America may only have recorded one-third of losses, that could hit $165bn between 2008 and 2011.

Citigroup

The firm's stock fell 17% Monday (although recovered by 5.4% Tuesday) on concerns over credit losses and worries that the CEO Vikram Pandit may be forced to sell all the company's best businesses to survive.

Deutsche Bank

The firm has pre-announced earnings, saying that it anticipates a $6.3bn loss in the fourth-quarter. Deutsche's shares were down over 12% in morning trading in Frankfurt Wednesday.

HSBC

HSBC's shares fell in London trading Wednesday, after Morgan Stanley analysts came out and predicted that the firm may have to raise up to $30bn in additional capital and cut its dividend in half. Morgan Stanley warned that HSBC's profits are likely to fall 'sharply' this year, and won't recover until 2011. HSBC's stock was down 5.7% in morning trading.

JPMorgan Chase

Shares fell 4.1% Monday (but fully recovered Tuesday), after it confirmed that it will announce its fourth-quarter earnings Thursday, 6 days earlier than planned. The market is confused about whether the early announcement signals that the results are worse than feared, or better than expected! The bank is, however, expected to post its worst quarter since CEO Jamie Dimon took charge 2 years ago.

Royal Bank of Scotland

The bank is to sell its $2.3bn stake in Bank of China to beef up its balance sheet. The firm looks likely to face losses on the $3.7bn in loan exposure it has to US chemical company Lyondell Chemical, which has now filed for bankruptcy.

UBS

The firm's shares fell over 6% Monday and a further 5.3% Tuesday on concerns that the bank will post a bigger-than-expected 2008 full-year loss next month.

Finally, Raul Weil, the former head of UBSs' wealth management unit, has now been declared a fugitive, after failing to surrender to US authorities in connection with the probe of the bank over allegations that it helped US citizens hide assets to avoid tax. An indictment against him was unsealed in November, although Weil has denied than he was involved in, or aware of, any wrongdoing.

Sources - Bloomberg, Reuters, The Financial Times

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