Superstar Oppenheimer analyst Meredith Whitney has trained her sights on Merrill Lynch. She now expects Merrill Lynch to take total writedowns of $5.8 billion for the second quarter, to cover losses on CDOs, hedges with bond insurers and various other items. That will result in large losses. According to the AP, Whitney now predicts Merrill Lynch will lose $4.21 a share for the quarter. Previously, she was expecting a gain of 20 cents. It's common these days for analysts to go super bearish as earnings day approaches. For the most part, this approach has worked well. Whitney is hardly the only analyst to go bearish on Merrill ahead of its earnings announcement.  

For more:
- here's the AP article on Whitney

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