Category Archives: Credit markets

How the Scammers Behind Virgin Gold Mining Corporation Bit Off More Than They Could Chew (III)

Yet more twists in the tale of the giant pyramid fraud, Virgin Gold Mining Corporation: Plan “C” starts to come unravelled.

Will the Cavalry Ride Over the Hill in Time for Greece?

We’ve cautioned readers that Greece is in a very weak bargaining position relative to its financial overlords in the Troika. As much as Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis is making sound, logical arguments and presenting proposals that if anything are too accommodating, despite initial cool reactions, many of Greece’s soi disant partners are diehard neoliberals and/or are politically constrained. Varoufakis is approaching them as if they can deal in good faith, when their idea of “good faith” comes from a punitive parallel universe.

Three important meetings today will provide a better sense of whether Greece is gaining any political ground in its uphill battle to roll back austerity.

Even If Oil Rally Continues, Lenders Still At Risk

Even with the impressive oil rally of the last two days, it isn’t clear that producers and lenders are out of the woods. While some analysts contend that the bottom is in, others see the rally as technical, driven in large measure by short-covering, and likely to fade.

The uncertainty lies in what is really happening on the production side

The ECB Tightens the Choke Chain on Greece

We said that the ECB held the trump cards in dealing with Greece, via being able to impose conditions on its access to the Emergency Liquidity Authority. We thought the ECB would send an initial signal as to how opposed it was to Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis’ bold proposals in whether it imposed conditions and how severe those were on the Greek Central bank’s request to access ELA funds, which it is sure to approve to tomorrow.

It turns out the ECB isn’t waiting that long to let its views be known.

Tom Adams: Ocwen’s Servicing Meltdown Proves Failure of Obama’s Mortgage Settlements

Rather than listen to thousands of borrower complaints, housing advocates, foreclosure attorneys, market experts and, well…, us, the Obama Administration tried to paper over the many problems in the mortgage servicing market by creating the foreclosure settlement (officially the National Mortgage Settlementof 2012), as well as the earlier OCC enforcement actions against big mortgage servicers.

Now we have the disaster of Ocwen, the fifth largest servicer in the country, imploding as a result of the settlement charade.

Greek Finance Minister Varoufakis Retreats on Debt Writedowns, Public Spending Promises

We’ve said that Greece had a weak negotiating position in trying to get a better deal from its creditors. That is playing out before our eyes. Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has stepped down some of his early proposals even before formal talks have begun. This is a sad but predictable situation, since the Germans and the other members of the northern bloc are not at all willing to cut Greece much if any slack, since that would lead bigger, more powerful countries to try to slip the yoke of austerity.

The tragic thing about this situation is that Varoufakis is simply describing economic reality and has a number of sound ideas for how to make conditions better for Greece, which in the end will also lead to better results for its lenders.

Ed Harrison: Why Quantitative Easing and Negative Interest Rates Will Fail

While most NC readers are skeptical about quantitative easing and negative interest rates, those reactions are often aesthetic: they are so far away from any normal operation of financial markets that something has to be wrong with the idea. The problem is that while that instinct may be (and we’d argue is) correct, policy wonks who have drunk the Fed’s Kool Aid will treat those who have visceral negative reactions as simply having a case of novelty aversion, which means they can be ignored.

Ed Harrison provides comparatively short and accessible explanation of why QE and negative interest rates are bound to bomb. I encourage you to send his post to friends and colleagues who’d like to be able to discuss in a more rigorous manner why these approaches are deeply flawed.

The ECB Ready to Put a Choke Chain on Syriza

Is Syriza’s bold promise of hope for Greeks about to become a false dawn?

Syriza Walks Back Initial Defiance

Victims of austerity and their allies around the world may be placing too much hope in Syriza.

Did Argentina ‘Default’?

A US court ruling has warped the otherwise precise meanings of three key words – “republic”, “sovereign”, and “default” – leading to absurdities like a New York district court holding the Republic of Argentina in “contempt of court”! The entire understanding of sovereign debt and its restructuring is being read through private “contract law” that cannot address the complex questions that are inherently public in nature, à la questions around restructuring Argentina’s debt. It appeared that a misreading of key words could benefit some vulture funds, but so far no one has seen as much as a penny! Maybe they never will.

Who is Still Exposed to Greece?

Please read past the finger-wagging “private lenders are (barely) starting to come back to Greece, better not spook them” talk. This piece provides a useful overview of how the composition of lenders to Greece has changed over time. You can see how significant banks once were and how they were quiet deliberately displaced by various “official” creditors.

Mathew D. Rose: Hope for Greece, and Perhaps for Europe Too

Monday morning I encountered a word in a number of newspapers that I have not read regarding the European Union for years: Hope. The occasion was the election in Greece. I suddenly became aware of how long much of this continent has been living in what appears to be a never ending-crisis.

Wolf Richter: Junk-Bond Bubble Implodes Beyond Energy, Deals Scuttled, Yields Soar, Suddenly “Insufficient Demand”

The year 2015 has just started, and already there have been two junk-bond casualties: the first on Thursday, and the second one yesterday. They weren’t energy companies. Energy companies don’t even try anymore.

Poroshenko Makes Battle of Donetsk Airport Precondition for New $50 Billion Bailout – Ukrainians Repelled in the Battle of Davos

The machinations over the next round of funding in Ukraine are wild. No one, particularly the US, wants to fund Ukraine and debt default looks likely, yet Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is demanding a huge amount of additional funds. Soros is trying to end run the IMF, albeit with not much success so far.

Ilargi: Shadow Boxing and Bogus Crisis Triumphalism

The most that officialdom seems willing to do to deal with the crisis is messaging that it is over. Most people can tell how well that is working.