The Wall Street Journal tells us that some less-than-nimble-footed hedge funds wound up not moving their prime brokerage accounts quickly enough out of Lehman to avoid having those assets frozen in the bankruptcy. Most readers will probably find it hard to work up much sympathy for these Masters of the Universe. Despite the name “prime […]
Read more...Dilbert Survey of Economists Scott Adams Gut Instinct and Math Ability Mark Thoma Capital inflows conundrums Dani Rodrik Barclays to Buy Lehman U.S. Units for $1.75 Billion Bloomberg Soros: Bank problems to worsen BBC Lending Among Banks Freezes Wall Street Journal The rise and fall of super-finance David Freud, Telegraph Let’s Start by Finding Some […]
Read more...Dunno about you, but I need some levity right now. Enjoy!
Read more...Readers probably know that money market funds seek to maintain a net asset value of $1 a share. The choice of words is precise. There is no guarantee to maintain the $1 value, but industry participants consider it to be so important to the reputation of money market funds that parent companies have upon occasion […]
Read more...The outlines of a deal to prevent the world’s biggest insurer from filing for bankruptcy may be emerging. In concept, the outline of provisions is about as good as the government could likely extract, absent taking control, which runs the risk of loss of talent (and having considerably lost by various “helpers” as Warren Buffet […]
Read more...I guess someone at the Fed figured that letting the financial system blow up on its watch was not such a hot idea. But as far as the Fed’s purview is concerned, lending to AIG is just about as far afield as lending to General Motors. What is surprising (at least based on this report) […]
Read more...Twp readers, Steve and Julian e-mailed us about the Bloomberg story below, that the Fed repaid JP Morgan for an advance made to Lehman after its bankruptcy filing: Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the securities firm that filed the biggest bankruptcy in history yesterday, was advanced $138 billion this week by JPMorgan Chase & Co. to […]
Read more...I received this automated e-mail today from Institutional Investor, and the headline is indeed “Lehman is Tops in Fixed Income,” referring to II’s highly regarded investor research rankings: Lehman Is Tops In Fixed IncomeAdding 12 team positions in High Yield sectors, Lehman Brothers finishes with 47, 11 more than second-place JPMorgan, to lead the All-America […]
Read more...Money market rates doubled overnight, forcing interventions by central banks overseas. and the Fed joined suit this morning. From Bloomberg: The Federal Reserve added $50 billion in temporary reserves to the banking system when it arranged overnight repurchase agreements, or repos. The rate for overnight loans between banks had opened at 3.75 percent, above the […]
Read more...No surprise that brokerage firm results are deteriorating, and at least Goldman is still profitable and idd a tad better than anticipated….although I haven’t dug into the numbers to see how solid those profits are. But bad numbers from Goldman would not have gone over at all well this week. From the Wall Street Journal: […]
Read more...Notice how the articles focuses on CPI, which is the more favorable measure, rather than core CPI, which was highlighted when prices were rising at worrying rates and provided the less troubling picture. From the Wall Street Journal: U.S. consumer prices fell last month for the first time in nearly two years reflecting a rapid […]
Read more...The latest sightings: Money market rates doubled overnight: despite considerable central bank intervention: The cost of borrowing in dollars overnight more than doubled as banks hoarded cash amid speculation more financial institutions will fail. The overnight dollar rate soared 333 basis points to 6.44 percent today, its biggest jump, according to the British Bankers’ Association. […]
Read more...Due to the lateness of the hour, I will be a bit more terse than I perhaps should be. We discussed yesterday that one of the emergency measures implemented by the Fed was the suspension of the rules prohibiting banks from using deposits to fund their investment banking subsidiaries. Reader dh helpfully pointed to background […]
Read more...Oceans are ‘too noisy’ for whales BBC India’s use of brain scans in courts dismays critics International Herald Tribune Lehman’s Bankruptcy Petition Credit Slips Jobs cull begins in London and New York as Lehman Brothers goes to the wall The Guardian Who’s next after Lehman Brothers is fed to the wolves? Ambrose Evan-Pritchard, Telegraph. We […]
Read more...I’ve revised the post since first putting it up, since the point of the two excerpts (assuming the reporting is correct) is that whle the AIG ratings downgrades did trigger the need to post additional collateral, it did not do so for swaps-related exposures. A senior debt downgrade would lead to the need to put […]
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