Category: Credit Crunch
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Saturday, November 10, 2007
US Fed Buying Bad Debt to Halt Credit Crunch - Headlines in Disguise / Interest-Rates / Credit Crunch
Scanning a newspaper or watching the news recently seem more like a covert operation with secret codes and cryptography than anything resembling factual news. In fact, more than once, I have felt compelled to dig through cereal boxes in search of one of those plastic decoder rings that were so popular when I was young.Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Credit Crunch Grows From a $2bn to a Trillion Dollar Problem! / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
We seem to be entering a new phase of the credit crunch. The markets are finally catching on that the attempts at minimizing the losses at the banks are not working as the smoke clears and the real losses are becoming more apparent. Bill Gross, the chief investment officer at Pacific Investment Management, Inc. and the manager of the largest bond portfolio in the world recently stated that the sub-prime and alt-a problem exceeds $1 trillion and that he expects to see some $250 billion in defaults.Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Credit Crunch to Credit Crisis - Financial Sector Crash Continues / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
In this issue:
- A Confidence Credit Crunch Credit Crisis
- How Much is That Dog in Your Net Capitalization?
- King Dollar Faces the Guillotine
- The Euro-Yen Cross
- The Consumer is Getting Tired
- New York, Philadelphia, Switzerland and Phoenix
Just when it felt like it was safe to get back in the water, a second and potentially much meaner version of this summer's credit crisis has reappeared. This week we look at why there are more mortgage write downs coming (in a self-fulfilling prophecy) in the financial sector, how an obscure new accounting rule is shedding light on a lot of risk in the world's banking system, how this is all tied to the consumer and is part of the reason for the fall in the dollar.
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Tuesday, November 06, 2007
The Credit Markets Credit Crunch - Tragedy or Farce? / Interest-Rates / Credit Crunch
This week in Outside the Box we bring you the text of a powerhouse speech by Michael E. Lewitt, made at the The Bank Credit Analyst Conference last week. We have been discussing the current market turmoil in our weekly letters for quite some time, addressing the adverse effects of CLOs, (collaterized loan obligations), CDOs, (collaterized debt obligations), SIVs, (Structured investment vehicles), what have you, outlining the how these products among others have been instrumental to the market decline.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, November 05, 2007
The Credit Cycle Peaks - The Worst Is Yet to Come / Interest-Rates / Credit Crunch
“I don't think the worst is over. We are coming off the greatest lending bubble .…not housing bubble! ... in U.S. history . We will feel its impact for a very long time.” - Robert Arnott, CEO Research Affiliates .Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, November 03, 2007
Why the Fed Will Keep Cutting US Interest Rates, Jobs Number is Really a Negative 211,000 / Interest-Rates / Credit Crunch
In this issue:
Why the Fed Will Cut and Cut Again
Payroll Survey Sausage
When a Positive 166,000 Jobs Number is Really a Negative 211,000
Round Two of the Credit Crunch
A Few Thoughts on Bias
New York, the Marines, and the Mavericks
The economy added 166,000 new jobs last month, almost double the average estimate. GDP for the US came in at a blowout 3.9% growth, well above trend. The Fed cut its rate by another 25 basis points, but many observers see language in the accompanying statement which they think suggests the Fed is done with cutting, at least for now, as the economy appears stronger.
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Saturday, November 03, 2007
US Banking Sector Suffers Worst Decline Five Years As Banks to Declare More Bad Debt Write-downs / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
Yesterday the U.S. banking index suffered its worst 1-day decline in five years, according to the London Financial Times . The biggest single reason for the decline in equities was the revival of worries that big banks in the US and Europe would unveil further credit write-offs. Another focus of concern involved a less well-known pillar of the global financial system – smaller specialist insurers that provide credit guarantees to lenders and investors.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, October 29, 2007
Could Crude Oil $100 Cause the Next Credit Crunch? / Commodities / Credit Crunch
The Financial Sector is still coming to terms with the US Subprime Mortgages induced credit crunch, could again be in the line of fire of a new credit crunch caused by crude oil surging to $100, triggering a similar collapse of hedge funds and put the banking sector under renewed pressure as the crude oil credit crunch contagion spreads.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Sub-Prime Mortgage Collapse Crisis Over? - Part 1 / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
"...If you can't spot the patsy then it might just be you - or your retirement-fund manager, money-market fund, local government trustees or mutual fund..."
ON AUGUST 8th THIS YEAR , just one day before the sudden and savage "credit crunch" that Alan Greenspan - former head of the US Federal Reserve - now says was "an accident waiting to happen", the Investment Council of Oregon State voted to change the way it invests public retirement funds.
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Thursday, October 25, 2007
More Subprime and CDO Banking Problems / Interest-Rates / Credit Crunch
Security pricing used to mean you checked your Bloomberg terminal or the Wall Street Journal for valuation prices. Now, pricing has become so complex that it has been broken down into 3 separate levels. The short version is that if you are pricing by Level 1, the security is being market to market and based on market prices. Level 2 is marking to matrix where prices are based on dealer-pricing based on surveys or market bids and offers. Level 3 pricing is based on marking to model which is based on models or managements best estimates.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
UK Firms Resiliant To Credit Crunch Market Turmoil / Companies / Credit Crunch
Business Barometer for September shows:• Majority of firms expect activity to increase over the next year
• Industrial sector drives confidence
• Confidence in wider economy drops sharply
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Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Housing Market Meltdown and the Structured Investment Vehicles Frothy Rescue Plan / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
Who can pretend to know everything about the housing meltdown? The complicated intricacies of this backroom dealing seem to unfold everyday, baffling even the savviest of market watchers. Perhaps, as the financial titans look for ways of covering their tracks, hiding their losses and hoping that, by the time this incident completely reveals just how badly these investors/lenders/borrowers acted, we will have been too confused to point fingers at any one person.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Paulson's $100 billion “Bankers Bankruptcy Fund” and the G-7 Subprime Fiasco / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
Friday's bloodbath on Wall Street proved that the troubles in the credit markets have not been relieved by the Fed's rate cuts. The Dow Jones slipped 367 points on the 20th anniversary of Black Monday, the stock market's biggest one-day loss in history. Since Friday, Asian markets have plunged; stocks are down sharply in Japan, Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan and South Korea. The global sell-off is a reaction to ongoing problems in the subprime market and deeper-rooted systemic issues related to the US's structured-debt model.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
A Subprime Credit Crunch Outlook for the Global Economy / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
Stephen Roach is one of my favorite analysts. However, since he moved to Asia to take up new responsibilities, he has not written as much. Thus I was delighted to receive what will be today's Outside the Box last week. Roach argues that the US is getting ready for a subprime economy and the world, and in particular Asia, will also slow as a result. This is a particularly sobering essay, but one that should be read.Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, October 21, 2007
FedWatch: Who's Going to Buy the Structured Investment Vehicle Asset Junk? / Interest-Rates / Credit Crunch
The backers of the proposed superfund being set up to buy assets from cash strapped structured investment vehicles (owned by banks) met last night. The presence of some $280 billion in leveraged debt vehicles is not only the source of new potential losses, but ties up funds from being lent in new, more profitable loans. These numbers are pretty much in line with the $251 billion of maturing asset backed commercial paper this week. In essence, these banks wish to slough off their mistakes and start afresh. But who's going to buy the stuff?Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, October 21, 2007
The Shadow Banking System Rescuing the SIV Garbage / Interest-Rates / Credit Crunch
In this issue:
Taking Out the SIV Garbage
The Rhinebridge to Nowhere
The $100 Billion Superfund to the Rescue?
Don't Ask, Don't Sell
The Shadow Banking System
New Orleans, Houston and Old Friends
This week was not pretty for stocks. It all started off with the announcement of a special 80-100 billion dollar fund orchestrated by the US Treasury to bail out something called an SIV. Then Caterpillar gave negative guidance this morning, especially on its US business and the selling began in earnest. October 19 is still not a friendly day to the stock market 20 years later. But it was a great week for bonds. One-month treasury bills dropped 60 basis points in one day in a real flight to short-term quality, and the entire yield curve moved down substantially.
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Wednesday, October 17, 2007
US Scheme to Rescue Banks from Bad Subprime Mortgage Debt / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
“ There is today an incredibly speculative financial sector hell bent on sustaining Credit and asset Bubbles – and perfectly content to adulterate our functional system of “money” in the process. The Federal Reserve is perceived to condone the whole affair and is openly willing to employ all measures to avoid bursting Bubbles. And in a contemporary world of acutely fragile finance structures, this ensures that bust avoidance translates briskly to bubble perpetuation and speculator delight.” Doug Noland “Credit Bubble Bulletin”Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Citicorp, Bank of America and JP Morgan Attempt at Halting Asset Liquidation with MLEC / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
The big news over the weekend is that Citigroup, Bank of America and JP Morgan were putting together a consortium of financial institutions to establish an entity, the Master Liquidity Enhancement Conduit (MLEC), whose purpose would be to buy securities from structured investment vehicles (SIVs) that are having difficulties funding themselves (see Banks agree $75bn mortgage debt fund ).Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
US Banks $75 Billion SIVs Fund - You Call That A Bailout? / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
Imagine walking into a hospital with chest pains and the doctor telling you that he will do his best to treat you in a few months. Such is the latest development on the U.S. bailout/bust front.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Systematic Threat to Global Financial System - The Fingers of Instability, Part 9 / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
In This Issue – 3 Fingers of Instability
- Marking to Myths!
- Keeping the Illusions Front and Center
- Bodies Beginning to Float to the Surface…And They Are WHALES!
Series Introduction – Click Here
Things are unfolding in an interesting manner and it is the ebb and flow of the issues into and out of the financial Media's reporting of them that provide us with the true picture as it merges. This week several VERY INTERESTING articles allowed us a better picture on the enormity of this Systemic threat to the global financial systems of the G7. The enormous lengths the authorities are going to in order to keep the enormity of the problem from hitting “THE HEADLINES”. It is now becoming clear that new cockroaches are emerging in the biggest money center banks in the world and they are “STUCK” in the “ROACH MOTELS” (see Ted bits archives at www.TraderView.com ) of their own making.
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