It's all about stress (and non-stress) today!!

So that's kind of what today seemed to be about. To preface....Monday morning it was announced that Citigroup was going to buy the banking division of Wachovia Corp. Okay. The bank was in trouble, so that's good to get that liability off our hands. Well, trading on Wachovia's stock had to be halted because the price of the stock went under $1.00 a share!! Yikes!!! So the big concern all week has been are we going to be an independent brokerage firm or is someone else going to come along and buy us out? With the price of the stock so low, it would really only be a matter of time before someone snatched us up. So fast forward to this morning. We get to work and Nate calls and lets me know that the deal with Citi is off and that Wells Fargo is buying ALL of Wachovia Corp, including the securities side and Evergreen investments. They've made an agreement to keep the home office in St. Louis. That's awesome news. Wells Fargo is the only AAA rated bank (by Moody's and S&P) in the country. They're an awesome company and definitely a company I would be proud to work for. A couple of hours later we hear the deal is off and that Citi was going to contest this because Wachovia signed a loose agreement (not contract, mind you) that they wouldn't have any talks with any other outside parties. Apparently there's no "break-up" fee if they decided not to go with the deal. The FDIC says they're backing the Citi deal, yet they are also saying they're exploring all proposals. I think a lot of people are freaked out, but I'm still not. I really don't have any qualms about this whole thing going through because the FDIC is required by law to find the least costly resolution to taxpayers. The deal with Wells Fargo wouldn't require any backing by the FDIC, whereas with the Citi deal the FDIC would be responsible for anything that exceeds the 42 billions dollars in losses that Citi would absorb. That could be quite a chunk of change when you consider that Wachovia's loan portfolio is 312 billion dollars. I think it's a crappy deal because with the bailout plan being passed, Citi would be able to sell Wachovia's distressed mortgage-related assets to the government for a profit. So that's what it's all about. That's what it's always about - the money. What a bunch of bunk. Never did I think I would devote so much of a blog post to something I find so incredibly boring, but this is pretty huge and completely affects us since we both work for Wachovia. It just sucks being in limbo - knowing that we'll get bought out somehow, but not knowing by whom or what the conditions might be. Oh well. It does no good to worry about it. There's absolutely nothing we can do but hold on tight - it's gonna be a bumpy ride!! :)

Speaking of stress, I went for my first non stress test tonight. I had never had one before and it was a piece of cake. It's funny that the doctor's are so overreactive about the blood pressure thing because my second blood pressure reading tonight was 118/71. The nurse said that the doctor's there do have a tendency to make mountains out of molehills. I'll say!! She said a lot of times you might have a couple of high readings and that will earn you 2 NST's a week till you deliver!! Sheesh!! It was actually a pretty comforting thing though to be able to hear Claire's heartbeat for a good 20 minutes!! So calming!!

Well, not a whole lot else going on here. Since I got the NST out of the way tonight, we don't have to go tomorrow. YAY!! Anywho, this is a WAY boring entry, but that's okay - I'm entitled to those every now and then. Or always, LOL!! Just planning on scrapping and hanging out this weekend. YAY!! Oh and one more teensy tiny thing before I go....

It's NUCLEAR NOT NOOKYALER. Seriously!!! (okay, I feel better!!)