Citigroup’s latest discussion of its business prospects belies the idea that the credit markets are on the mend. From MarketWatch: Citigroup Inc. Chief Financial Officer Gary Crittenden said Thursday that the bank faces continuing credit problems in the second quarter, with credit costs rising, provisions for bad consumer loans growing and “substantial” write-downs for subprime […]
Read more...China had said it would increase fuel prices, which are heavily subsidized, in a statement last month, but had not given any timetable for its actions. Most observers had assumed any change would take place after the Olympics. In a surprise move, perhaps impelled by inflation concerns, the Chinese announced a price hike effective tomorrow. […]
Read more...Let’s start with some admissions: Gretchen Morgenson, one of two authors (the other is Vikas Bajaj) of a takedown piece on MBIA yesterday, has some detractors in the blogsphere because, frankly, her understanding of credit instruments leaves something to be desired. Her critics overlook her solid work on executive comp and corporate malfeasance. When she […]
Read more...Arctic sea ice melt ‘even faster‘ BBC Probe shows kiddie porn rap was bogus Boston Herald. Scary, since a guy lost his job and his reputation thanks to malware. Mixed US messages to Iran Kaveh L Afrasiabi Asia Times. Repeated episodes of “bad faith diplomacy” by the US. Fed’s Bear Stearns Books Look Prime for […]
Read more...I really wish the Bush administration was over, now. Here we have the Treasury secretary calling for the nation’s central bank, which already has internal tensions in its charter (preserving the soundness of the banking system, keeping inflation low and stable, and maintaining full employment) to also be in charge of financial stability: Mr. Paulson […]
Read more...A Bloomberg article shed some light on a story passed to us, namely that some of the Lehman asset sales had been achieved via transfers to 2 funds in which Lehman retained an economic interest. While we indicated that our information fell in the category of a rumor, since it came from a single source […]
Read more...Well, Ambac seems to be resorting to a strategy popular among those in denial:rather than admit you need to lose weight to stave off a heart attack, throw away the scale instead. Ambac has decided to fire Fitch as one of its rating agencies. And why is that? Well, Fitch had the bad taste to […]
Read more...John Paulson, of the eponymous hedge fund Paulson & Co., contends that the credit contraction has run only about 1/3 of its course as far as writedowns are concerned. He anticipates that the total credit losses will reach $1.3 trillion, which exceeds the IMF’s forecast of $845 billion. Paulson, who made a spectacularly successful bet […]
Read more...Today in the Financial Times, John Plender has an apple pie and motherhood column on the importance of central bank independence, It’s a tad ironic, since he fails to recognize that it’s an illusion in the US. But Plender isn’t to be faulted. An entire generation has grown up in the Greenspan/Bernanke era, and thus […]
Read more...This week’s Institutional Risk Analytics has an alarming title: “Is Risk Management Even Possible in an OTC Marketplace?” By all indications, the article points to a strong “no”. As much as I am a harsh critic of so-called financial innovation, the headline goes further than the case the article makes. OTC markets covers a large […]
Read more...‘Oldest’ computer music unveiled BBC Apple’s Engineers: an Unexpected Profit Center Oren Hurvitz Regulators, Genetic Testing Companies Begin Face Off Wired U.S. Tells China Subprime Woes Are No Reason to Keep Markets Closed New York Times. Only Hank Paulson could say that with a straight face. The Confidence Man New York Magazine. On David Einhorn. […]
Read more...Let me tell you, if we have a revolution in the next decade, one of the triggers will have been the flagrant disregard shown by big players like MBIA for regulations, legal commitments, and fair dealing. I’m not surprised to see financially oriented sites calling for mass protests (but not yet against bond guarantors). The […]
Read more...Ah, just when you thought it might be safe to venture into the markets again, RBS sends out a red alert, warning private clients to prepare themselves for a full fledged rout in equities and bond markets in the next three months, with the S&P losing 300 points, or nearly a quarter of its value, […]
Read more...Full disclosure: I’m normally a fan of Mohamed El-Erian, former head of Harvard Management, now co-president of bond giant Pimco. But his current comment in the Financial Times, “How best to manage global imbalances,” struck me as more than a tad disingenuous. Let’s go through the article: Whatever happened to the debate on global payments […]
Read more...The markets responded positively today to Lehman’s announcement of its second quarter results, its provision of a financial supplement that gave more detail on its balance sheet exposures and how they had changed over time, and its investor conference call, The stock was up over 5% of the day, although its closing price of $27.20 […]
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