J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. was expected to announce as early as Thursday night a deal to acquire the bulk of Washington Mutual Inc.'s operations in a deal that would mark the end of independence for what once was the largest U.S. thrift.

Pedestrians walk past a Washington Mutual branch in downtown Seattle.

Federal regulators have been heavily involved in orchestrating the transaction, which comes as WaMu was besieged by a mountain of bad mortgage loans. Seattle-based WaMu has been scrambling to find a solution and put itself on the auction block last week. A number of interested parties have been poring over WaMu's books, but the bank didn't receive any offers.

While the exact structure of the transaction wasn't immediately known, J.P. Morgan is expected to acquire Washington Mutual's deposits and branches, as well as other operations. The deal isn't expected to result in any hit to the bank-insurance fund, according to a person familiar with the arrangement. But it's likely that another arm of government would have to pick up the tab. Some analysts have worried that a WaMu failure could cost more than $20 billion.

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122238415586576687.html

What's scary is - a friend of mine on Facebook warned all her friends in her status like 2-3 days ago to withdraw their loot from WAMUs. I laughed, but apparently she knew something we didn't know.

i feel kind of bad for shorting some of these stocks before shorting the financials got banned, but its very sweet at the same time.

who didnt see this one coming from a mile away. looks like the bailout is going to fall through too with congress.

Yeah. I fully expect the GOP to stonewall and everything to go to hell in a handbasket.

Wheeeee, massive failures are fun!

It's official - it's a done deal. JPMorgan Chase has acquired all of WAMU.

This is just crazy.

That bailout is just gonna delay hell from opening up, history sure likes to repeat itself

Bailout will help, its needed cause everyone hoarding their capital. It can keep this from spiraling even farther. But, house republicans have thier own solution:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/25/news/economy/deal_reached/index.htm?postversion=2008092518

"House Republicans have not agreed to any plan at this point," Boehner said.

Instead, they issued a statement of economic rescue principles that calls for Wall Street to fund the recovery by injecting private capital - not taxpayer dollars - into the financial markets. Easing tax laws would prompt investors to put in their own dollars, they said."

Even with easing tax laws, you'd have to be crazy to believe anyone is going to invest atm. Its not gonna fix the credit problem and until thats worked on some no one in their right mind gonna buy anything. The only reason stocks went up today is because people thought the bailout was solved.

I thought Wamu already went under.

It's official now. JPMorgan Chase will buy up most of the company's deposits and such.

I wonder if this is why they never called me back :/