In an article from BusinessWeek Online, the question is raised of how many other banking institutions on the verge of collapse. Here is an excerpt:

The Federal Reserve most likely did the right thing when it backed JPMorgan Chase's (JPM) purchase of Bear Stearns (BSC) on Mar. 16. But the sudden collapse of a well-known Wall Street firm and the penny stock, $2-per-share price that JPMorgan is paying—less than 10% of Bear's already battered market cap on Mar. 14—rattled European and Asian markets on Mar. 17.

If Bear is close to worthless, the thinking goes, what does that mean for other troubled institutions in Europe, the U.S., and elsewhere? Can other failures be far behind? A wide range of European banking shares, including UBS (UBS), which has been hit hard by subprime writedowns, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), whose capital base has been stretched by the ABN Amro takeover, and smaller British banks such as Alliance & Leicester (ALLL.L), took a pounding on Mar. 17.

Read the full article here on the BusinessWeek Online Website.