This credit contraction is still young, yet we already have the spectacle of a full blown seize up in the money markets which has central bankers flummoxed. Normally, you expect this sort of panic after a few major financial train wrecks and weakness in the real economy. One can cheerily assume that all is for […]
Read more...The Fed’s move on Friday to lower discount rates and its policy shift towards addressing risks to growth has not brought relief to the sector that was in the most distress, the money markets. Panicked action continued Monday, begging the question of what, if anything, the authorities can do. Institutional are fleeing from counterparty risk […]
Read more...A gut-wrenching two weeks in the credit markets have been capped by unprecedented moves by central bankers. The ECB’s offer of an unlimited infusion to member banks the week before last was followed last Friday’ by the Fed’s discount rate cut, which included stern warnings that those who needed it better use it and a […]
Read more...An article in Wednesday’s Financial Times, Unbound, by Gillian Tett, discusses how trading in credit derivatives generally and in the iTraxx contract in particular has become more important than the bond markets. Because my brain is a bit fried due to jet lag, I will be brief and hopefully won’t oversimplify, although I will probably […]
Read more...The Financial Times’ Paul Davies has written a good short piece on the basics of CDOs, which is useful if you are ever in the unfortunate position of having to explain them to someone new to the concept. He also suggests that subprime-related CDOs going pear shaped is not an indictment of the technology. Nevertheless, […]
Read more...Floyd Norris has an article in today’s New York Times, “Market Shock: AAA Rating May Be Junk,” that is enough off the mark to be annoying. The problem with the article isn’t so much inaccuracy as superficiality. Norris points out correctly that a lot of buyers are waking up to the unpleasant reality that that […]
Read more...Investment News Daily said that a major hedge fund index had to revise its performance results downward due to the losses reported at the failed Bear Stearns hedge funds. Normally, this sort of event wouldn’t be noteworthy. A number of different indices measure hedge fund performance, and they report it by strategy (e.g., global macro, […]
Read more...This bombshell came courtesy Michael Shedlock, in “Fitch Discloses Fatally Flawed Rating Model“: What follows are excerpts from Absence of Fear, an excellent article written by Robert L. Rodriguez at First Pacific Advisors.We were on the March 22 call with Fitch regarding the sub-prime securitization market’s difficulties. In their talk, they were highly confident regarding […]
Read more...I will let you in on a dirty secret. Appearances to the contrary, this blog isn’t about finance and markets. Its real purpose is to encourage critical thinking, but since I know a wee bit about the financial services industry, I tend to use that as the point of departure. In that vein, it’s important […]
Read more...Whether you choose to see it as subprime contagion, repricing of risk, or a temporary correction, prices of debt in various markets are falling, which translates into higher yield requirements. At RGE Monitor, Nouriel Roubini took note (as we did) of a Fitch report warning of overheated lending practices in the commercial real estate lending […]
Read more...Pity the poor sell side analyst. These guys have to be bright, numerate, articulate, and presentable. Yet they have to maintain the pretense that they are objective while acting as shills for stocks, and to add insult to injury, whenever they muster up the nerve to issue a harsh report (usually when the company is […]
Read more...Apologies for the reliance on the Financial Times today, but it happened to have a lot of good material. The CEO of Harvard Management, Mohamed El-Erian, writes the occasional opinion piece, usually for the Financial Times, and I’ve always featured them because they are consistently thoughtful and well-argued. I’m highlighting his latest FT piece, “How […]
Read more...I really didn’t expect “rogue agent” to become a mini-theme, but a mere two days apart, we have stories in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times on rogue agents ripping off the unwary and the unsophisticated. However, as we discussed, the Journal story about rogue mortgage brokers made it sound as if […]
Read more...If you are a public company, the odds say that buying another corporation is a bad idea. Academic studies have consistently found that most deals fail, and the reason most commonly cited it that the buyers overpay. Yet as with second marriages, the continued popularity of corporate M&A is a triumph of hope over experience. […]
Read more...As we noted earlier, a minor casualty in Bear-Stearns-hedge-fund-meltdown-induced repricing of CMOs was a mid-sized, independent-contractor broker-dealer Brookstreet Securities, which blew a hole in its balance sheet when its clearing firm repriced the assets in many of its margin accounts and issued margin calls. Tanta at Calculated Risk found out (via the OC Register) why […]
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