November 8, 2007 (LPAC)--Just four days ago, LPAC reported that 11 of the world's biggest financial institutions had written down over $32 billion assets in the last two months; and warned that was only the beginning.

Yesterday, Morgan Stanley announced it had written down its assets by $3.7 billion, because of a bad bet on the subprime mortgage market. But when the firm's new Chief Financial Officer, Colm Kelleher, was asked how confident he was of Morgan Stanley's new valuations (after the $3.7 billion write-down), Kelleher made no promises, telling analysts: "I'm confident that this number is accurate as of today. My crystal ball is not working well--it is what it is."

Take that into account, when considering the other financial writedowns reported yesterday:

AIG Insurance Group, the world's largest insurance company, reported a $2.68 billion writedown of its investments insuring banks and hedge funds against losses in the mortgage-backed securities markets.

Germany's Commerzbank claimed a writedown of nearly $500 million.

France's Societe Generale reported over $550 million in writedowns and trading losses.

Today, France's largest bank, BNP Paribas SA, announced a mere $337.5 million in writedowns.

The banks themselves don't believe these figures. A research report by Citigroup today projects that Wall Street banks will have to write down $64 billion in collaterized debt obligations (CDOs) backed by worthless mortgages, calling the write-downs on these CDOs "the scariest" of "the many skeletons hiding in the subprime closet." $64 billion is nothing, according to a Royal Bank of Scotland research report, also reported today, which projects banks and brokers could have to write down as much as $500 billion.