Category: Credit Crisis 2008
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Monday, September 15, 2008
Credit Crisis Developments Explained - China Cut Short-Term Interest Rates / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
There appears to be a good deal of opacity in what the Fed has said on Sunday regarding a broadening of the collateral it is willing to hold on short-term emergency loans to primary dealers. The exotic financial instruments created this week-end by the Fed are very difficult to price. The effects are less contained than in the past and they are larger given that they emanate from the subprime crisis and directly affect the net worth of households.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, September 15, 2008
Pimco, Vanguard Are Biggest Bond Fund Losers in Lehman Collapse / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2008
It's payback time for betting on moral hazards as Pimco, Vanguard Are Biggest Bond Fund Losers in Lehman Collapse .Pimco Advisors LP, Vanguard Group Inc. and Franklin Advisers Inc. are among the investment companies that will face losses of at least $86 billion stemming from the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the biggest bankruptcy in history.
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Monday, September 15, 2008
Lehman's Bankruptcy the Ultimate Wall Street Derivatives Defaults Nightmare / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
Martin D. Weiss writes: In the wake of Lehman's demise, Fed Chairman Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Paulson will try to put out the word that it's no great trauma.
But it's a lie and they know it. If they openly admitted that the Lehman collapse will paralyze Wall Street, torpedo the stock market and sink the economy, they'd have to pony up $100 billion or more to support it. Instead, their agenda was to push big banks to put up the money. And they failed to do so.
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Monday, September 15, 2008
Bank of America, Merrill Bailout Disguised as Buyout? / Companies / Credit Crisis 2008
Bank of America's buyout of Merrill Lynch seemed laughable to me - that is until I realized the full picture. With a $50 billion all-stock deal valued at $29 per share, at first glance it might appear that Bank of America doesn't stand to lose much considering its stock is at least 50% overvalued by my analysis. However, even at an adjusted price of $25 billion, Bank of America will be responsible for absorbing all of Merrill's losses. Good luck. But wait. They don't need luck, they have the Fed.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, September 15, 2008
Deleveraging Not Deflation Resulting In Commodities Temporary Violent Correction / Commodities / Credit Crisis 2008
I went out of town last week to the Resource Investment Conference in Las Vegas. I'll get to that in a second, but so much is happening that this is going to be a longer message than usual. This weekend we are seeing Lehman go broke, Merrill Lynch in a desperate buyout, AIG try to fend of bankruptcy, and a frightening gap down in the market this morning. And of course last weekend we saw Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac get taken over by the government last Monday. That spurred a beefy gap up that immediately got sold - and that selling pressure sparked a cascade of selling, which in turned caused only what I can describe as a crash in gold stocks.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, September 15, 2008
Bank of America and Merrill Lynch: Another Fed Sponsored Shotgun Marriage / Companies / Credit Crisis 2008
It's all over for Lehman. Action in the main poker room action has stopped. None of the players wants to bet a penny on the Lehman pot. Indeed, Lehman Prepare For Bankruptcy as Buyers Withdraw .This is a realization the pot is worthless. Nonetheless, expect to hear clowns screaming about "naked shorts" wrecking Lehman just as they screamed the same nonsense about Bear Stearns.
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Monday, September 15, 2008
Gold and Silver Rally As Financial Crisis Deepens / Commodities / Credit Crisis 2008
Gold and silver rallied Friday as the crisis on Wall Street deepened with gold up $17.80 to $759.80 and silver up 21 cents to $10.74. The rally continued in Asia overnight when gold surged more than $20 to over $785 before gradually giving up those gains in early trading in London. Gold's gains in Asia have been eroded as oil prices have fallen sharply (some 4%) and in extremely volatile trading the dollar has recovered sharply from steep overnight lows ( dollar has rallied 1.6% from 1.4478 to the euro to trade back up to 1.4250).Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, September 15, 2008
AIG Insurer Struggling To Stay Alive, Begs Fed For Bailout Cash / Companies / Credit Crisis 2008
The high stakes poker game has shifted to another side room. This room has AIG one on one with the Fed begging for assistance.Here is the background: Battered insurer AIG's $20bn asset sale .
AIG, the world's largest insurer, is planning a $20 billion (£11 billion) asset sell-off as it fights to correct a record slump in its share price and braces for the impact of Hurricane Ike.
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Sunday, September 14, 2008
No Bailout for Lehman as Fed Awakens to Bond Market Crash Risk / Companies / Credit Crisis 2008
My Fridays commentary closed with expectations that the weekend would see the formerly worlds fourth largest investment bank, Lehman's Brothers taken over by one or a consortium of bidders at mere peanuts of its former valuation further sweetened by a healthy subsidy from the US government / central bank. However the noises emanating from Hank Paulson at the US Treasury department over the weekend of having drawn a line against an effective bailout of the bankrupt investment bank, this will not live up to bidder expectations of providing tens of billions of tax payers money so as to enable a relatively risk free takeover by other banks, this therefore results in suitors in advanced talks such as Barclays now declaring their withdrawal from a possible weekend bid for the bank and indicates that Lehman's is now heading directly towards bankruptcy.Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Lehman High Stakes Poker Game in Play / Companies / Credit Crisis 2008
The Wall Street Journal is reporting Lehman Deal Could Come Soon As High-Level Talks Continue .Talks continued Saturday between federal officials and top Wall Street executives aimed at resolving the crisis swirling around Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and soothing jittery U.S. financial markets.
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Friday, September 12, 2008
Insolvent Commercial Banks Seek More Emergency Cash / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
"...Can you say Permanent Liquidity Insurance Facility without crying, yawning or laughing like a drain...?"
So U.S. Treasury Secretary HANK PAULSON – if the source gabbing to Reuters this week wasn't fibbing – remains "adamant" that he won't help fund the fire-sale of Lehman Bros.
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Friday, September 12, 2008
Lehman Brothers Dead Bank Walking Seeking Rescue / Companies / Credit Crisis 2008
Following the bust off Bear Stearns back in March 2008, the US investment bank that next topped the list of most likely to follow Bear Stearns into financial oblivion was Lehman Brothers. Lehman Brothers was America's 4th biggest bank that has seen its share price collapse by more than 70% in recent days, and more than 90% over the last 12 months. The bank over the last few weeks has been desperately seeking to sell off many of its assets ahead of this weeks results so as to reinforce its balance sheet, however losses still came in at the worst end of expectations with a further write down of $8 billion of assets resulting in a loss of $4 billion.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, September 12, 2008
The Great Unwinding of the Commodities Carry Trade / Commodities / Credit Crisis 2008
Commodity Bulls Jump The SharkThe GlobeAndMail is reporting on The Real Reason Commodities Are Tumbling .
To hear Donald Coxe tell it, the commodity selloff ripping through Canada's stock market is no accident. It is the result of a deliberate, brilliantly executed plan hatched at the highest levels of the U.S. Federal Reserve and Treasury.
U.S. authorities engineered the collapse in commodities a move he said was necessary to shore up the global financial system to be bitter. My attitude is, goddamn it, they're good it was brilliant.
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Thursday, September 11, 2008
Greenspan Most Responsible for Credit Crisis Should Get Lost / Economics / Credit Crisis 2008
Mr. Greenspan, you have been the individual most responsible for the current crisis; a crisis which commenced only a few years after you tried to minimize the dotcom collapse, which of course you also created. By flooding the banks with ridiculously low interest rates you thought this Ponzi scheme economy could run on worthless money forever. But when you saw the end was coming, you quietly made your exit.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Fannie Mae/ Freddie Mac Takeover to Prevent Bond Market Armageddon / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2008
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the twin giants of the home mortgage industry, own or guarantee assets of $5.3 trillion, almost half of the $12 trillion housing market in the U.S. These assets have been disappearing in value due to the collapse of the housing bubble. Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Globalist Ultimatum: Pay up or Collapse / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
There's going to be no end of controversy over the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.On September 9, 2008, CNBC's popular financial show “ Squawk Box Europe ” interviewed Jim Rogers (CEO of Rogers Holding) on his view of the government takeover of Fannie and Freddie:
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Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Fannie and Freddie Bailout Doomed, Lessons from UK Northern Rock Bust / Housing-Market / Credit Crisis 2008
One of the aims of the take over of the Fannie and Freddie by the US Government is to stabilize the housing market by taking over and providing liquidity to the mortgage market is doomed to fail. In the UK we have the example of the Northern Rock bank bust of Sept 07 and what subsequently transpired over the last 12 months as a possible guide of key assumptions being made now in the US that could prove to be wrong.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
The Bailout Plain Truth and the Silent Economic Depression / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
My 2 cents on the BailoutWithout even looking, I’d be willing to guess that 2 out of 3 articles on most financial blogs are on the bailout of the GSEs. I’m willing to bet it will dominate headlines for months to come. Before I move on to more relevant material, I think Americans need to start asking some critical questions. If they were “too big to fail” as Paulson, Bush, Bernanke and other cronies insist, why were they allowed to operate with exemptions from the SEC Acts of 1933 and 1934? If they were “too big to fail” why didn’t Washington take over the GSEs in 2004 after the accounting fraud was detected. If they were “too big to fail” why were they transformed into shareholder firms with virtually no regulation, no accountability, no transparency and allowed to act irresponsibly? The implied backing by the government made it certain that a bailout was eminent. But doesn’t government backing also come with accountability?
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Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Lehman Brothers Worth A Big Fat ZERO? / Companies / Credit Crisis 2008
Lehman is getting crushed today. It may not be long for this world. Bloomberg is reporting Lehman Shares Fall After Talks With Korean Bank End .Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. fell 35 percent in New York trading after talks about a capital infusion from Korea Development Bank ended. The Wall Street firm is continuing to negotiate with other potential investors, a person briefed on the matter said.
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Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Credit Crisis Phase II - The Economic Crunch / News_Letter / Credit Crisis 2008
September 6th , 2008 Issue #23 Vol. 2Dear Subscriber,
The credit crisis having manifested itself most evidently during the past 12 months through the continuing tightening in the availability of credit to all sectors of the economy despite government and central bank actions of pumping hundreds of billions of dollars if not more than $1 trillion into the financial system so as to prevent a chain reaction of bank failures as the worlds big banks continue to announce ever larger bad debt provisions each and every quarter.
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