Suddenly, HSBC group chairman Stephen Green and Michael Geoghegan, chief executive, can do no right. Since a rapid credit deterioration emerged last December in US mortgages that the bank acquired in 2006, analysts have been picking apart the group’s strategy of the past five years, investors have been attacking the way the bank is run, and the valuation and stock price have fallen.
Is all this starting to smack of an over-reaction?
“HSBC walking blindfold in a mine field” was the title of the note Keefe, Bruyette & Woods put out last December to underline its concerns about losses on US mortgages originated just six months earlier. The markets quickly became gripped by the worry that the...
