Category: Credit Crisis 2008
The analysis published under this category are as follows.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Lehman, Treasury, Fed Lose Control of Banking System Game / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Mike_Shedlock
Analyst Richard Bove has stated Lehman CEO Richard Fuld has "lost control of the game." That is something I completely agree with as it should be obvious to all. Bove went on to say "If he doesn't do something this weekend, as of next week, the game is on." That makes absolutely no sense. Nor does Bove's price target of $20 per share. Yes, Lehman has been shopping around for buyers, but buyers have been balking. I talked about Lehman talks collapsing and how poorly Lehman's preferreds trade in Ten Financial Entities On The Brink . Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, August 22, 2008
Ten Financial Institutions On The Brink of Collapse / Companies / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Mike_Shedlock
Clearly Lehman (LEH) is on the brink of disaster. I talked about that on Tuesday in Lehman In Deep Trouble . On Wednesday, the Financial Times was reporting Lehman's secret talks to sell 50% stake stall .
Lehman Brothers, the beleaguered US investment bank, held secret talks to sell up to 50 per cent of its shares to South Korean or Chinese parties in the first week of August but failed to reach agreement with either.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Jim Rogers Exclusive: Bigger Financial Shocks Loom Consequences to Impact for Years / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Money_Morning
Keith Fitz-Gerald wrotes: VANCOUVER, B.C. – The U.S. financial crisis has cut so deep – and the government has taken on so much debt in misguided attempts to bail out such companies as Fannie Mae ( FNM ) and Freddie Mac ( FRE ) – that even larger financial shocks are still to come, global investing guru Jim Rogers said in an exclusive interview with Money Morning .
Indeed, the U.S. financial debacle is now so ingrained – and a so-called “Super Crash” so likely – that most Americans alive today won't be around by the time the last of this credit-market mess is finally cleared away – if it ever is, Rogers said.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, August 18, 2008
Bradford & Bingley Rights Issue, Citigroup, UBS left Holding the Bag / Companies / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Mike_Shedlock
The International Herald Tribune is reporting Investors shun rights offer by British lender .Bradford & Bingley, the biggest buy-to-let mortgage lender in Britain, revealed Monday that its bankers have been left with more than 70 percent of its £400 million rights issue, confirming expectations of a poor take-up by investors.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, August 18, 2008
G7 Collapsing GDP Growth Mirrors Plunging Corporate Earnings / Economics / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Ty_Andros
Confusion reigns supreme as markets correct, in predictable manner, allowing the Main stream financial press, G7 central banks and poorly prepared investors dream of the days when the financial wind was at their backs, rather then brutally in their faces. Markets are moving in a violently countertrend manner allowing people and investors with short term memories to predict the return to happy days. Don't blink or you may miss your day in the sun as: NOTHING HAS CHANGED! Absolutely nothing. Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, August 15, 2008
Brainwashing of the American Investor / InvestorEducation / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Steve_Selengut
Jefferson Airplane has never, ever, been mistaken for a band of financial advisors, but the White Rabbit lyrics can be incredibly instructional to the generation of investors who experienced the classic first hand--- as a description of their own college days' lifestyle. If only they had heeded the dormouse's call to "feed your head." For the sake of your retirement sanity and security, you just have to make income investing an intellectual exercise--- not an emotional one. Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Slump in Private Equity Deals / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Mike_Shedlock
Bloomberg is reporting KKR, Apollo Seek Debt Investments as Private-Equity Deals Wane . Aug. 14 (Bloomberg) -- KKR & Co. and Apollo Global Management LLC, two private-equity firms planning to go public later this year, are turning to debt and distressed-asset investments as financing for leveraged buyouts remains scarce.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Distressed Bank's Capital Destructive Debt Issuance / Companies / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Mike_Shedlock
Minyan Peter was back posting on Minyanville today after a 3 week hiatus. Peter is a former treasurer for a large Midwest bank and one of the brightest minds you can find anywhere. From Peter:
I am finally back from three weeks away from the markets and would offer two quick thoughts from Europe. Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Fannie, Freddie Common Stock Now Valued as a Call Option / Companies / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Mike_Shedlock
John Hussman had some interesting comments on Fannie Mae's last earnings statement in Nervous Bunny . With regard to Fannie Mae's report, the most interesting figure wasn't the reported $2.3 billion loss, but rather the much larger deterioration in the reported fair value of Fannie's balance sheet. We can observe what's going on by comparing Table 32 of Fannie Mae's Q2 2008 10Q filing with the same table in Fannie Mae's Q1 2008 10Q filing.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, August 11, 2008
Foreign Investors Growing Weary of US Junk Paper / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Captain_Hook
You Can Stiff Some Of The People Some Of The Time - But, you can't stiff all the people all of the time. To what do we refer? Answer: The likelihood that once the Beijing Olympics are over, because increasing defaults of US corporate paper / agency debt leave a worsening bad taste on foreigner's palates, demand for domestic sovereign debt is expected to wane at an accelerating rate, which would send bond yields (market rates) higher – possibly much higher.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, August 11, 2008
Fed Failing to Get Credit Flowing / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Money_and_Markets
Mike Larson writes: It's no secret what the Federal Reserve — as well as Congress and the Bush administration — want. They want banks to open their wallets. They want lenders to keep the credit flowing. They want firms of all stripes to take the Fed's cheap money and DO something with it — make business loans, make mortgages, make car loans, you name it.
But the lenders aren't playing ball!
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, August 10, 2008
RBS Record Loss as Systemic Banking Crisis Deepens / Companies / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Lost a record £691mln during the first six months of 2008 set against a profit of £5 billion for the same period last year, as the bank continued to write down the value of assets in the face of mounting bad debts as a consequences of exposure to the US subprime housing market. The loss was lower than analysts estimates that had varied to as high as 1.6 billion, following its most recent write down of £6 billion. Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, August 08, 2008
Auction-Rate Debt Buyback, Now What? / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Paul_Lamont
With news of UBS' $19 Billion dollar buyback of frozen auction-rate debt , we expect former clients of UBS ( Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Wachovia and Bank of America, too ) to begin looking for secure places for their cash. Some may even be considering CDs. We would like to point out to investors that CDs (in fact all deposits) allow banks to borrow short and lend long.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Systemic Risk Spreads as Gold Loses Safe-haven Status / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Anthony_Cherniawski
Less than meets the eye…is a good description for the Wal-Mart July sales report . The sales results, along with cautious outlooks for August, left little hope for any lasting boost from tax rebate checks to prop up consumers headed into the back half of the year and an all-important December holiday season.
"The stimulus (checks) really had a marginal effect at best and it has run its course and there's no carry-through," said Retail Metrics President Ken Perkins. "It's difficult to see where some sort of boost in spending is going to come from."
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Money Printing to Save Imploding Banking System Will Send Gold Soaring / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Jim_Willie_CB
The path to the printing press is a long one. It is used at first to spread credit indiscriminately in sustaining commerce and funding financial systems. For the United States , that means horribly inefficient usage of credit in commerce, where 5 units of credit produce one unit of business activity. In the twisted bizarre arena that is Wall Street, the financial maze they created has imploded as yet another chapter is written in the standard textbook of boom & bust. They managed to cause the most powerful deflation storm in eighty years, all born from the monetary inflation wellspring, no easy feat. Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Credit Crisis Continues as Banks Sell Assets to Cover Losses / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Money_Morning
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: "Have we seen the worst from the financial sector?"
The question - a very good one - came from an audience member following my global investing presentation at the Agora Wealth Symposium in Vancouver, British Columbia. During my entire time there, the interest in the ongoing credit crisis was intense.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Citigroup Posts Loss on Credit Cards and Fantasy Balance Sheets / Companies / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Mike_Shedlock
In what is likely to be the shape of things to come across the board, Citigroup Posts Loss on Credit-Card Securitizations .Aug. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Citigroup Inc. reported its first loss since at least 2005 on credit-card securitizations, signaling that risks may be growing in a business that generated $3.5 billion of revenue in the past three years.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
The Light at the End of the Tunnel of the Financial Crisis? / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Adam_Perl
Covered bonds to stimulate the housing sector, GDP of 1.9%, Jobless claims of 448,000 and unemployment that reached a new level of 5.7% - those were just a few of the things that painted the screens red last week, as the major indices erased Monday and Tuesday's bullish sentiment, showing optimists that it is still to early to jump for joy. In addition to the data released in the U.S, showing a dire situation, global economies continue to lag behind the US , affected by high inflation and slow economic growth. Taking a glance at the chart below, one can see that five of the main economies are still showing real negative growth, due to high inflation, accompanied by high unemployment.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
US Blackmailed By China on Fannie and Freddie Bailout / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Mike_Shedlock
Bloomberg is reporting Fannie's Mudd Soothed Asian Investors as Bonds Rose . Fannie Mae Chief Executive Officer Daniel Mudd was sitting down to a glass of wine with his wife at their Washington home around 10 p.m. on Saturday July 12 when Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson called.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, August 04, 2008
Derivatives Deleveraging Forcing Lehman's to Sell Assets at a Big Loss / Companies / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Mike_Shedlock
Reuters is reporting Lehman may have to raise capital if sells assets . Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc is expected to follow in Merrill Lynch & Co Inc's footsteps and sell a lot of risky assets at a loss. But shedding the assets may create another headache for Lehman -- the need to raise large amounts of new capital, including common equity.
Read full article... Read full article...