Writedowns Hit $120 Billion

Writedowns Hit $120 Billion

The admissions of greater-than-expected writedowns from Swiss bank UBS, along with reports out of major Japanese institutions, means the total amount of subprime- and CDO-related writedowns has surpassed $120 billion, according to WSJ.com estimates.

Following up on earlier estimates that put total writedowns at around $108 billion, the newest news -- which also adds in the recent earnings release from Bank of America -- puts writedowns related to this type of financial engineering (not including the more typical charge-offs related to loan delinquencies, and also leaving out monoline-insurer-related exposures) at around $120.9 billion.

UBS has written down about $18.4 billion in 2007 so far, an increase of $4 billion from earlier estimates after the bank updated investors in a release yesterday. The new figures, include $2 billion which UBS says relates to "other positions related to the US residential mortgage market."

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