Household HSBC Watch

Moody’s Investors Service on Friday cut its bank financial strength rating on HSBC Bank USA, indicating it may be more likely to need support from its parent, HSBC Holdings. The cut “was prompted by the accelerated deterioration in HSBC USA’s financial fundamentals in the last quarter of 2007 and first quarter of 2008, and the expectation of continued pressure on these indicators for the foreseeable future,” Moody’s said in a statement. HSBC USA has been propping up former predatory lender Household International, now owned by HSBC and called HSBC Finance. Financial fundamentals and HSBC FInance do not belong in the same sentence according to activist investor Knigh-Vinke and others.