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Monthly Archives: November 2007
Why The Safest Banks Saw the Biggest Losses
Jenny Anderson today runs down the list of winners and losers in terms of subprime losses. Winners (or at least banks with relatively small losses): Goldman Sachs; Credit Suisse; Lehman Brothers; JP Morgan. Losers: UBS; Merrill Lynch; Citigroup. Anderson concludes: … Continue reading
Posted in banking, bonds and loans
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What Happens if Freddie Mac Becomes Insolvent?
While most of us were filling our bellies on Thanksgiving, James Hamilton took a dive into the balance sheets of Fannie and Freddie. And he’s found some pretty scary figures: The total "book of business" held by Fannie and Freddie … Continue reading
Posted in housing
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Chart of the Day: Oil Prices
From Stephen Gordon comes this chart: Gordon notes that the Canadian dollar/yen exchange rate today is pretty much the same as it was back on September 4, which means that the price of oil has risen about the same amount … Continue reading
Posted in charts, foreign exchange
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Extra Credit, Thursday Edition
Attention Target Management: Pay No Attention To Analysts Begging for Buybacks On Sub-primeitis (or the sub-prime ate my homework)! Europe Suspends Mortgage Bond Trading Between Banks All about Flowers: ‘He just wants to win’ Overcoming Bias After One Year: Robin … Continue reading
Posted in remainders
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Countrywide Datapoint of the Day
Countrywide is now trading at a price/book ratio of 0.39. The collapsing share price now looks increasingly like a self-fulfilling prophecy: the number of entities willing to lend Countrywide a few billion more, when its entire market cap is now … Continue reading
Will Traders Ever Get News From Websites?
When was the last time you saw a trader using a web browser? I ask because there seems to be some worry that if WSJ.com goes free, that might mean fewer people subscribing to Dow Jones Newswires. I also believe … Continue reading
Posted in Media, publishing
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The Entity Quote of the Day
From an anonymous fund manager, via John Carney: "B of A is the Stupid Bank. Citi is the Incompetent Bank. JP Morgan is Villainous. The super SIV is Stupid, Incompetent and Villainous."
Posted in banking, bonds and loans
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More Crisis Blogging
You thought Roubini was extreme? Check this guy out: RHINEBECK, N.Y., Nov. 19 (UPI) — A financial crisis will likely send the U.S. dollar into a free fall of as much as 90 percent and gold soaring to $2,000 an … Continue reading
Posted in economics
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How Much Can Fannie and Freddie Help the Mortgage Market?
Yesterday I took aim at OFHEO, and I stand by what I wrote: the capital constraints on Fannie and Freddie are counterproductive and they’re damaging the entire mortgage market. But it is also true that the capital that OFHEO requires … Continue reading
Posted in housing
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Sam Jones Explains the Liquidity Put
The FT’s Sam Jones puts two and two together today and finally explains what the notorious liquidity put is. You might recall that a couple of weeks ago he told us about CDOs which issued commercial paper. I noted at … Continue reading
Posted in banking, bonds and loans
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Inflation Targeting and Accountability
When is an inflation target not an inflation target? When there’s no accountability, says Clive Crook. There is no real pressure on the Fed to hit its supposed "target". When the Bank of England overshoots its inflation target, it has … Continue reading
Posted in fiscal and monetary policy
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Extra Credit, Wednesday Edition
Shotgun Wedding: The Epicurean Dealmaker on Cerberus vs United Rentals. Options Narrowing as Britain Tries to Stabilize Bank: Northern Rock really doesn’t look very attractive, despite having quite a few suitors. Mortgages in Bankruptcy 101 Ambulance carrying heart-attack patient delayed … Continue reading
Posted in remainders
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Crisis Blogging
Why blog about something as banal as a US recession when you can blog about a fully-blown financial crisis? Barry Eichengreen stays solidly in the realm of the hypothetical when he explains why any country’s attempt to leave the euro … Continue reading
Posted in economics
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The Fed’s Inflation Target: 1.6% to 1.9%
How’s my formula doing, now that the latest FOMC minutes have been released? If you recall, I said that when it comes to the Fed’s inflation target, I=C=H=c=h Where I is the Fed’s de facto inflation target, C is the … Continue reading
Posted in fiscal and monetary policy
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CDO Datapoint of the Day
Aaron Johnson of Total Securitization reports: The first CDO-squared (a CDO of CDOs) has now defaulted. Lancer Funding II was issued by ACA Capital, an insurance company you’ve never heard of but which still managed to record a $1.7 billion … Continue reading
Posted in bonds and loans
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Meme of the Week: Breaking Up Financials
Financial supermarkets sure are out of favor these days. In the wake of an FT report that both Citigroup and Merrill are considering issuing shares in their brokerage arms, the NYT today says that H&R Block could be broken up, … Continue reading
Posted in stocks
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OFHEO’s Part in the Housing Crisis
According to the WSJ, Freddie Mac has serious capital-adequacy problems, and they’re basically the fault of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight: The losses have left the company with core capital of $34.6 billion as of Sept. 30, only … Continue reading
Posted in housing
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Expensive ARMs: An Answer
On Friday I asked why ARMs were so expensive. I got a few responses, but the best was from an anonymous commenter on Seeking Alpha, "User 122506". His or her comment is worth quoting in full: It seems the lending … Continue reading
Posted in bonds and loans, housing
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The USA’s Ridiculous Border Controls
In order to keep New York attractive as an international financial center, it has to be reasonably easy for foreigners to get in and out. Not that the Department of Homeland Security seems to care. Already taking two fingerprints from … Continue reading
Posted in cities, immigration
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Extra Credit, Tuesday Edition
Fed’s Gary Stern Makes Lame Arguments Against Increased Credit Market Regulation Washington Mutual: What I have told you was true… From a certain point of view: A WaMu bond investor’s lament. Fox Business News’s Apple-AMD flub: Apple? Sounds a bit … Continue reading
Posted in remainders
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The Voluntary Carbon Standard
Today marks the launch of the Voluntary Carbon Standard. The VCS is meant to be a kind of Good Housekeeping seal of approval for carbon offsets: if you want to offset your jet-set lifestyle or your new SUV, look for … Continue reading
Posted in climate change
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Opec and the Denomination Fallacy
Okay, let’s try and make this clear, for the umpteenth time. If countries with large dollar-based foreign-exchange reserves increasingly invest those reserves in euro-denominated assets rather than dollar-denominated assets, that’s bad for the dollar. That’s true whether the country in … Continue reading
Posted in commodities
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Famous Artist + Iconic Painting = High Prices
This morning I spoke to Amy Cappellazzo, co-head of the postwar and contemporary art department at Christie’s, to ask her about Richard Prince’s Nurse paintings. How come one sold in London in October for $2.1 million, and then one sold … Continue reading
Posted in art
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Subprime Datapoint of the Day
The entire market in subprime debt is just 1.4% of the size of global equity markets. Or, to put it another way, a 1.4% downward fluctuation in stocks erases the same amount of value as if all subprime-backed bonds were … Continue reading
Posted in housing
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Corporate Tax Revenue Datapoint of the Day
John Cassidy: From 2004 to 2006, corporate tax receipts grew at an annual rate of more than 25 percent. Last year, they totaled $354 billion, compared with just $132 billion in 2003. By my calculations, an increase from $132 billion … Continue reading
Posted in taxes
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