Roman Catholics have fish Fridays. Boxing fans have Friday Night Fights. For distressed investors, like Jon Winick, president of Clark Street Capital, there’s Friday night Failure. 
 
“You can count on Friday failures for the next six to twelve months,” Winick said at a distressed investing conference in New York this week. He forecasts bank failures to rise to 200 through next year.
 
There have been 14 bank failures so far this year, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, with filings every Friday since Jan. 16 after the year end and New Year’s Day holidays.
    
The FDIC seized 25 banks last year. In just the first seven weeks of 2009, the 14 bank failures mean the FDIC is on pace to close more than 100 banks in 2009.
     
Distressed investors say they are expecting a record wave of bankruptcies this year, marking unprecedented opportunity for investors and a feeding frenzy on Fridays. The filings on Fridays are procedural, as the FDIC posts the failures at the end of the week. That allows the declaring bank to give regulators the weekend to sort things out, and it prevents a big run on the bank because branches are closed.
 
Brad Hunter, national director of consulting at Metrostudy, a housing industry research firm, thinks things are just getting started. He said bank takeovers ultimately could exceed 1,000. 
 
“Option ARM loans are coming due, and that will trigger another wave of foreclosure,” he said.