An excellent article by Willem Buiter (Professor of European Political Economy at the London School of Economics and formerly a member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England and Chief Economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) and Anne Sibert (Professor and Head of the School of Economics, Mathematics and […]
Read more...The Financial Times indicated today that European banks were willing to provide commercial paper only on an overnight basis to a relatively lengthy list of names they regarded as under stress. That is a dramatic departure from normal market operations. Accordingly, the European Central Bank has found it necessary to infuse funds for a third […]
Read more...If the Financial Times’ Gillian Tett were hit by a bus, I’d be in a lot of trouble. With all due respect to her colleagues, she is the best source of financial news. Today, in “Structured investment vehicles’ role in crisis,” Tett probes what went wrong in the credit markets last week. As others have […]
Read more...One sign that market conditions are, at least temporarily, on the mend: both the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal have stories on moral hazard. If you have time for sermons, things can’t be all that bad. And in confirmation, Asian markets are up solidly as of this hour. Of the two stories on […]
Read more...I am sticking my neck out in this post, so if any readers disagree, don’t hesitate to speak up. We have seen the following over the last few weeks: concern about whether banks that have exposure to subprime can be trusted as counterparties; reports and rumors of losses at hedge funds (at a minimum, stat […]
Read more...As readers doubtless know, a nasty day in the markets yesterday was followed by distress overnight as the Japanese central bank injected funds into the marketplace and the European Central Bank added liquidity a second day, following an unprecedented, unlimited injection Thursday. The Dow opened down over 100 points, and due to a spike up […]
Read more...The ECB made an unprecedented offer of unlimited funds to member banks as the demand for cash soared as a result of Paribas freezing redemptions of three funds. Mind you, these funds only had $2.2 billion of assets, far less than the troubled Bear hedge funds. The reaction seems disproportionate, unless you factor in that […]
Read more...The UK’s Times, in “The Kimono Traders,” gives a detailed portrayal of the activities of Japan’s army of retail currency traders, who are overwhelmingly female. They also happen to be aggressive and confident speculators, and control enough in the way of financial assets so as to dominate the activities of foreign institutional investors who are […]
Read more...If credit default swaps prices are a valid indicator, the fixed income markets are regrouping. Prices, which spiked up earlier this week on panic buying of risk protection, have eased off. However, while this decline is a good sign, note that it does not equate (yet) to an improvement of liquidity in the riskier sectors […]
Read more...Ah, this is one of those days where there way too many good points for departure for commentary and here I am with a pricey and pokey Internet connection, and competing holiday activities. Finally, the reassessment of Greenspan’s tenure has begun. Not surprisingly, the Brits are more pointed in their critique. From “Greenspan has left […]
Read more...Grim news for the high-tech, health-minded set: office printers can emit micro particles that damage the lungs. From the BBC: The humble office laser printer can damage lungs in much the same way as smoke particles from cigarettes, a team of Australian scientists has found. An investigation of a range of printer models showed that […]
Read more...A draft of a paper, “Innovations in Credit Risk Transfer: Implications for Financial Stability,” by Stanford’s Darrell Duffie, investigates ” the design, prevalence, and effectiveness of credit risk transfer,” with an eye to implications for the financial system. The paper is worth reading for those seriously interested in the CDO/CLO markets, and sets forth a […]
Read more...Yesterday, we commented critically on a remark by JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon in an interview on LBO lending published by Bloomberg, and a reader was kind enough to point us to another Dimon interview, this time in Der Spiegel. “Keeping the Hedge Funds in Check.” It’s a refreshing read, if for no other reason […]
Read more...Although I haven’t followed the debate over New York-London market competitiveness that closely, it was clear when the study on the US’s standing was commissioned, the sponsors already knew what answers they wanted to report, and emasculating Sarbanes-Oxley (Sarbox or SOX) was an idee fixe. It didn’t seem to occur to people like Hank Paulson […]
Read more...I am at a loss as to which allusion better characterizes rating agency behavior: ostriches, as per the headline, or monkeys, as in “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.” But in each case, I think I am being unfair to the animals. I happened to miss skip past an article in Friday’s […]
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