National City is Crashing

By Tony, Bank Implode

The victims of the bubble burst are rolling over and dropping rain, there’s a new one every day and today it’s likely National City Corp..  The Cleveland bank indulged in subprime lending as the bubble expanded and is now upchucking the ill-gotten feast.

Shares of National City Corp. crumbled to an all-time low as investors appeared to be looking anew for the financial crisis’ latest victim following Washington Mutual Inc.’s federal seizure.

Bearish investors focused Wachovia Corp. in premarket trading Friday — its stock was recently off 28% to $9.83 — and then apparently set their sights on National City.

The Cleveland-based bank’s stock was subjected to intense selling pressure. It was down 40% to $3 and earlier reached an all-time low of $2. Volume topped 155 million shares at early afternoon, six times the daily average.

One would normally call that exhaustion volume meaning exhaustion of sellers, but clearly the only thing exhausted today or national cities last chance of remaining independent. In fact lacking a bailout the bank finished the day seeing its shares hammered by over 50%. Read more….