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CIT Group Inc., a 101-year-old commercial lender, filed for bankruptcy to cut $10 billion in debt after the credit crunch dried up its funding and a U.S. bailout and debt exchange offer failed.

CIT listed $71 billion in assets and $64.9 billion in debt in a Chapter 11 filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. The U.S. Treasury Department said the government probably won’t recover much, if any, of the $2.3 billion in taxpayer money that went to CIT.

The bankruptcy “will allow CIT to continue to provide funding to our small business and middle-market customers,” said Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Peek in a statement.

CIT, which filed the fifth-largest bankruptcy by assets, said it plans to exit quickly due to support from bondholders, who voted in favor of a so-called prepackaged plan. None of CIT’s operating subsidiaries, including Utah-based CIT Bank, were included in the filing, and operations will proceed as normal, CIT said in a statement.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a3.t_GrxbL2U

The dollar advanced against the currencies of six major U.S. trading partners as a government report showed employers eliminated fewer jobs in July than economists forecast.

The yen dropped against all of its major counterparts as the payroll report indicated a recovery in the world’s largest economy, encouraging Japanese investors to buy higher-yielding assets overseas.

The dollar climbed 0.4 percent to $1.4283 per euro at 9:45 a.m. in New York, from $1.4345 yesterday. The U.S. currency gained 1.4 percent to 96.78 yen from 95.46. The euro advanced 1.3 percent to 138.25 yen from 136.94.

Futures on the Chicago Board of Trade indicated a 74 percent chance that the Fed will increase the target lending rate from its range of zero to 0.25 percent by its January meeting, compared with 66 percent odds a month ago.

General Motors Corp., the world’s largest carmaker until its 77-year reign ended last year, filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. with a plan to create a 21st-century company that can compete in world markets.

GM reported $82.29 billion in assets and $172.81 billion in debt. The U.S. government will bankroll the transformation of the 100-year-old automaker, a victim of tumbling sales and higher gas prices. The U.S. plans to convert much of its $50 billion of loans to a 60 percent stake in the new entity, administration officials said. Today’s filing coincides with a deadline for GM to convince a government auto task force that it could reorganize out of court through debt and cost cutting.

Mike Mayo, who left Deutsche Bank AG last month and joined CLSA, assigned an “underweight” rating to U.S. banks and predicted loan losses will exceed levels from the Great Depression. After Mayo gave “sell” ratings to banks U.S. stocks dropped. Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., the two biggest U.S. banks by assets, were assigned “underperform” ratings, Mayo said in a report today.

The ROE is useful for comparing the profitability of a company to that of other firms in the same industry. ROE measures a company’s profitability by comparing its net income to shareholders equity (book value). ROE is a speed limit on selffunded growth (company’s profit). That is, a company cant grow earnings faster
than its ROE without raising cash by borrowing or selling more shares. For instance, a 15% ROE means that the company cant grow earnings faster than 15% annually by relying only on profit to fuel growth.

Higher ROE is usually better. ROE, then, becomes a measure not only shows return of the company is generating, but also of how successfully management has been in running the corporation. Good ROE ratio depends on the company’s industry. When looking for stocks, we want to find companies that show an
increasing ROE over time. It’s a sign to us that management is getting better and better at deciding what to do with its money. The higher the number, the better management has allocated capital.

It turns out that a company cannot grow earnings faster than its ROE without raising additional cash. That is, a firm with a 15 percent ROE cannot grow earnings faster than 15 percent annually without borrowing funds or selling more shares. So ROE is a speed limit on a firm’s growth rate. Many specify 15 percent
as their minimum acceptable ROE when evaluating investment candidates.

You also must pay attention on the company’s debt when calculating ROE. Recall that shareholder’s equity is assets less liabilities. High liabilities means low equity. The higher-debt firm will then show the higher return on equity. Consequently, you should take debt levels into account when comparing different firm’s return on equities.