Ambrose Evans-Pritchard appears to be trying to corner the market in apocalyptic financial news. But his sources aren’t evangelicals, survivalists, or even goldbugs. The experts he cites are with respected financial firms, meaning they don’t sound alarms casually. Even more significant, the terms they are using to describe what might be coming are uncharacteristically dire. […]
Read more...Koala bearing up after car ordeal BBC Tumours ‘alter devils’ sex lives’ BBC Study: Americans Expect Business Leaders to Be White PhysOrg D-Day Dakotas Grounded for Aviators by EU Wants of Radar, Masks Bloomberg Horrors Of US Torture Of Children Elaine Meinel Supkis. A Knight Ridder story and other incidents, based on a search of […]
Read more...Has Goldman gone over the line of permitted behavior, particularly now that the SEC has decided to go after firms who may have contributed a bit too actively to share price declines of troubled brokerage firms and banks? The Wall Street Journal, in “Goldman Is Queried About Bear’s Fall,” says that the CEOs of Bear […]
Read more...The boarding house faded from the American landscape over two generations ago. But mortgage payment stress is leading to a modern variant: more homeowners renting out part of their residence. This New York Times story is anecdotal, but if trend grows, we may see attempts to quantify it, particularly since agencies frequently vet prospective tenants. […]
Read more...The link is here. Main elements: Common and preferred equity wiped out Subordinated debt swapped for equity warrants Current senior unsecured debtholders get per each dollar of face 90 cents face amount of new debt and 10 cents face amount of new equity Equity holders can put common to Feds at face value for first […]
Read more...As we indicated, a deterioration in Treasuries was the likely outcome of affirming the implied Federal backing of Fannie and Freddie debt. And as we said, we might have been able to persuade our friendly creditors, meaning foreign central banks who also own a lot of Treasuries, that they’d likely be no worse off from […]
Read more...Erin Callan, the recently demoted CFO of Lehman, may simply have regarded her new post at Credit Suisse as a great opportunity. But let’s fact it, who wants to be getting a bonus consisting significantly of Lehman stock if you have other options? From Bloomberg: Erin Callan, the former chief financial officer of Lehman Brothers […]
Read more...So much for the notion that the not-quite-a-rescue-plan for Fannie and Freddie would calm troubled markets. Equities gave a raspberry yesterday and overnight, the TED spread widened 11 basis points to 133 basis points (a sign interbank funding trouble may be nigh) and today the currency markets, which initially seemed to take the news in […]
Read more...The time has come to announce the formation of the Banana Republic Club. Membership is open, with the sole requirement being that nominees correctly discern behaviors in advanced economies that resemble those of corrupt developing countries, which for sake of convenience are referred to as banana republics. Members are eligible to receive a Carmen Miranda […]
Read more...A bit of cheery news for beleagured airlines: jet fuel, which of late had traded at a considerable premium to heating oil, is set to have that margin fall considerably, perhaps as much as 90%, due to aggressive moves by the industry to cut capacity in the face of skyrocketing (no pun intended) costs and […]
Read more...Recession-Plagued Nation Demands New Bubble To Invest In The Onion (hat tip reader Scott) Australian Court Will Rule on Powers to Fine Pope Protesters Bloomberg Mervyn King rejects £100,000 pay rise Times Online. The Governor of the Bank of England deemed an increase to be “inappropriate”. The GSEs: Even Yoda cannot see their fate Accrued […]
Read more...From John Dizard at the Financial Times: In the case of Henry Paulson, Treasury secretary, it would seem he is distinguished by a profound, possibly intentional, ignorance of what he is talking about, and a central nervous system that would not seem to be capable of abstracting possible outcomes beyond one news cycle.
Read more...The FDIC announced earlier that it will halt foreclosures in IndyMac’s $15 billion loan portfolio. But I found this bit of the Wall Street Journal’s article “IndyMac Reopens, Halts Foreclosures on Its Loans“: In its effort to halt foreclosures, the FDIC has much more flexibility to intervene with the roughly $15 billion of loans that […]
Read more...The UK real estate market started its decline after the US , and some anticipate the eventual downside could be even worse. Consumer debt to income there is at an even higher level than here, which means plummeting real estate values can lead to cascading debt defaults, potentially to a greater degree than in the […]
Read more...As both cynics and boosters anticipated, the Freddie Mac $3 billion sale of short term debt went off well this morning. As of this hours, the stocks of the GSEs have fared less well, as the Wall Street Journal notes: Shares of Freddie were up about 20% soon after the market opened Monday but reversed […]
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