Looking at a press release put out this morning by Royal Bank of Canada, you’d think the news was the bank’s $325 million pretax gain on Visa’s recent IPO. You’d be wrong, because the lead is buried at the bottom of the press statement:

RBC also expects to record a charge in its Capital Markets segment in the fourth quarter associated with the valuation of subprime collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and subprime residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) of approximately $360 million pre-tax ($160 million after-tax and reflecting compensation adjustments).

Surprise!