🠈 Washington Mutual 🠊
Washington Mutual
Washington Mutual (often referred to as WaMu) was the world's largest savings and loan organization. The company succumbed to the mortgage and short selling woes of 2008 after which WaMu was acquired by JP Morgan Chase. The site DeepCapture has a graph showing how WM stock succomb to a financial ploy called Failure to Deliver. Essentially brokers short the stock with shares that don't exist.
WaMu was founded as a mutual company 1889 in an effort to help finance the rebuilding of Seattle after a major fire.
WaMu grew for a century offering savings, mortgages and small loans. In 1983 the WaMu "demutualized." They purchased the brokerage firm Murphey Favre and rapidly expanded with a variety of stategic mergers. Hoovers reports that in 2006, Washington Mutual had $26 billion in sales from about 2,200 branches and 49,824 employees.