This is a very well done piece, presented as a letter from the chairman of GM, that gives an overview of the fall from grace of what was once America’s premier corporation. The real source is Porter Stansberry of Stansberry & Associates Investment Research (via colleague Paul S) . The article ran last year, but […]
Read more...While the amount at issue isn’t large by global finance standards, the fact that one of the UK’s biggest property funds had to stop withdrawals is not a good sign about the damage that falls in real estate prices are inflicting on investors’ psychology and balance sheets. The Guardian and the Financial Times reported on […]
Read more...I for one enjoy it when those well versed in Wall Street lingo and logic go to the trouble of using it to demonstrate that the market for what passes for talent in the securities industry is very inefficient. And the Financial Times is more willing to challenge how the Masters of the Universe are […]
Read more...The report in Financial Times that Saudi Arabia plans to launch a sovereign wealth fund is significant for several reasons. First, it marks a shift in the kingdom’s approach to investing, which heretofore had been conducted via the Saudi Arabia Monetary Authority or privately by members of the royal family. The new entity will be […]
Read more...If this story proves to be valid, Bear has a major mess on its hands. Business Week reports that the SEC and the US attorney’s office in Brooklyn are looking into whether Bear permitted insiders to withdraw their capital in February and March from the two Bear hedge funds that failed later in the year. […]
Read more...It’s rare that I find fault with the the Financial Times, and even more uncommon with Gillian Tett and Paul Davies, who are two of their most seasoned and insightful journalists. Nevertheless, they have bitten off more than they can chew in “Out of the shadows: How banking’s secret system broke down.” The piece isn’t […]
Read more...The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg report that Bank of America will be shuttering a $12 billion enhanced cash fund. Note that this was a fund for institutional investors, and not a money market fund. Note that we had reported on a freeze on redemptions at this fund earlier. Investors who are still in the […]
Read more...As possible financial trouble spots go, this is far from the biggest. UK property funds are a £10 billion industry. But after the Northern Rock debacle, the last thing the UK needs is another panic where investors pull withdraw their balance from vehicles that can’t take large scale redemptions. The problem with UK property trusts […]
Read more...A Bloomberg exclusive story reports that the efforts to clean up the relationship between equity analysts and corporate clients appear have failed to produce more candid ratings. While there is no sign of the overt corruption of the dot-com era, sell ratings are even scarcer than before, despite considerable and obvious signs of stress in […]
Read more...The debacle in Florida, namely a $27 billion short-tern investment fund being frozen after the revelation it held $700 million of defaulted debt (today reported as $900 million) led to $12 billion in withdrawals, is producing a cash crisis at the government entities that hadn’t gotten their money back. Aside from the troubles this impairment […]
Read more...Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that a state-run investment fund in Florida witnessed $8 billion of redemptions out of a total fund size of $27 billion because its investors learned the fund held $700 million of defaulted paper. The fund froze the remaining fund assets today. Apparently withdrawals continued yesterday after the Bloomberg story was released, since […]
Read more...Public funds often make for great stuffees, as this story from Bloomberg (hat tip Ann Beaulieu) recounts. In brief: the Florida State Board of Administration runs roughly $42 billion of short-term investments on behalf of various government entities, including a “short term investment pool” of roughly $27 billion, as well as the state’s $137 billion […]
Read more...While the Financial Times has a wealth of journalistic talent, one of its standouts is capital markets editor Gillian Tett. She reported on the signs of trouble in the credit markets when the world at large thought everything was hunky-dory. One of her many prescient pieces was an article in January that used the fact […]
Read more...A reader chided me for being late to this story, but it appears not to have been widely covered yet. Moreover, I would hazard that it means less than the out-of-character reporting in the Financial Times suggests (this “leak” is a PR plant). First, the FT article: BlackRock, the asset manager 49 per cent owned […]
Read more...Federated Investors has joined Bank of America in investing its own funds in a short-term fund to prevent investors from suffering losses. While BofA’s salvage operation is estimated to have cost as much as $600 million, the damage to Federated has not yet been disclosed. Note that the fund in question is an enhanced cash […]
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