This tidbit from the Wall Street Examiner came via reader Scott: Once upon a time, when faced with a market meltdown the Fed would have pumped a wad of cash nto the market and it would have been good for a rally of a couple or three hundred points. Today the Fed added a whopping […]
Read more...Readers may recall that the Treasury’s rescue plan for the GSEs called for preferred stock dividend to be eliminated and for new investment by the government to come in the form of preferred stock that would be senior to the outstanding preferred. Needless to say, those actions have had a rather deleterious effect on the […]
Read more...Sorry to be thin on posts today. Exhausted, and have to be up early tomorrow (today’s flight cancelled). Please check back tomorrow afternoon for more (and send good links too) Oil Rises After OPEC President Calls for End to Overproduction Bloomberg. Now we know what the target is. Sentiment Is Starting to Turn Michael Panzner […]
Read more...The short answer is yes, but we need to define fail And BTW, it’s very frustrating to be stuck on a plane waiting for the weather on the eastern seaboard to clear while the markets were having such an exciting day. As readers no doubt know, Lehman broke down after word got out that talks […]
Read more...This Guardian article by Kenneth Rogoff (hat tip Mark Thoma) sends a blunt warning: central banks are taking on so much dodgy debt that they will put themselves at risk if they continue extending support to their banking systems. Rogoff argues (as we have) that the banking system needs to shrink (an inevitable consequence of […]
Read more...Exclusive: Widespread cell phone location snooping by NSA? Chris Soghoian, CNet Antitrust Document Exposes Rift New York Times Palin, on the Ongoing Financial Crisis Menzie Chinn, Econbrowser Let’s Give them a Hand Michael Panzner Be on red alert for US market chaos Bill Flecksentein, MSN Bove on WaMu: Problem is Simple, Too Many Bad Loans […]
Read more...We had noted earlier that the price discussions around the possible sale by Lehman of a stake in its asset management operations valued the rest of the firm at close to zero. A story at Bloomberg has taken this line of thinking one step further. From Bloomberg: Lehman’s market capitalization of $11.2 billion is almost […]
Read more...I bet every on-the-ropes corporate borrower would like to get the tax bennie that the Treasury extended to the GSEs today, namely, giving them what amounts to a private waiver for their net operating loss carryforwards. As much as one can argue that the Frannie and Freddie salvage operation is a unique situation, the notion […]
Read more...In a break from “all Fannie, Freddie, all the time,” a couple of readers (Dean and Michael) sent oil market sightings, both which cited proponents of $200 a barrel oil in the not-too-distant future, and are have not changed their price views much. The first, from Reuters, gives the latest forecast from Goldman’s Arjun Murti, […]
Read more...Bloomberg points out what some observers have already mentioned: putting Freddie and Fannie into conservatorship is a credit event as defined in credit default swaps (note defintions are sui generis, but this one was evidently close to universal in these agreements). Due to the Federal assurance that positive net worth will be maintained, this ought […]
Read more...Cloud-seeding ships could combat climate change Physics World China to launch space mission in late September Associated Press Prions jump species barrier Nature Secrecy and Bank Regulators Independent Accountant Some quick analysis of what the Frannie bailout means John Hempton. This is a great analysis, which I hope to discuss later today, but am putting […]
Read more...It will be interesting to see if this dose of cold water from former Fed governor William Poole will take any sizzle out of the forceful equity rally (the Nikkei is up 425 points as of this writing, and US stock futures say the US markets will also show an impressive move up). From Bloomberg: […]
Read more...Sorry to be a bit heavy on Fannie and Freddie, but this is a historic event. These statements came in a five paragraph section in a New York Times article: Mr. Paulson added a mantra of his own: he privately said he didn’t want to “kick the can down the road” and leave the problems […]
Read more...Not only is the commentary in the blogosphere on the Freddie and Fannie bailout program pretty skeptical, but even some normally staid MSM commentators have an eyebrow cocked. There is a comprehensive list of links on Freddie and Fannie from Barry Ritholtz. This post serves a different purpose and serves up some choice bits: Mohamed […]
Read more...Even though the stock markets are over the moon as of this hour (the Nikkei up nearly 440 points, other Asian markets up over 3%, bank stocks up even more), the all-important question is the reaction in the credit markets. It is far less enthusiastic. One might charitably call it underwhelmed. From John Jansen: I […]
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