Struggling US brokerage firm MF Global filed for bankruptcy Monday, after confidence in the firm was shattered by a string of losses from European public debt holdings. Shares in the brokerage which at one time held approximately $41 billion in assets were halted on the New York Stock Exchange early Monday in anticipation of the move.
While MF Global is well-known on Wall Street, it is not thought to be so interconnected that its collapse could trigger a crash like that seen in the wake of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in 2008. But attention immediately turned to J.P. Morgan Chase and subsidiaries of Deutsche Bank, after MF's bankruptcy filing showed those firms to be the firm's two biggest creditors.