Archive for April, 2009
Thursday, April 30th, 2009
I've always wondered the location of the national debt "clock." Yesterday, I stumbled upon it totally accidentally, near the southwest corner of 44th Street and 6th Avenue here in NYC. And the figure is pretty close to Treasury's official total (see link below).
But I digress. On to the (good) news: ...
Posted in Fed, treasury | 3 Comments »
Thursday, April 30th, 2009
(Send links, videos, pics to optionarmageddon at gmail with subject “link” ... Thanks to Marshall D.---$20---for the donation!)
Milan Police Seize UBS, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank Funds (Bloomberg) Italian officials think they got punk'd.
Gifted in Nepal (Cafe Hayek) "Why does a spectacularly intelligent and resourceful person in Nepal earn spectacularly less ...
Posted in links | No Comments »
Thursday, April 30th, 2009
Except for references to Stalin and "pinkies" this could be published today....
Posted in BlogArt | 2 Comments »
Thursday, April 30th, 2009
In an odd twist, enough of Chrysler's creditors voted against the administration's reorganization & recapitalization plan to force the automaker into bankruptcy. The filing is expected today. Credit default swaps may be playing a supporting role in this drama, as I'll get to at the bottom...
Yesterday, the reorganization plan seemed ...
Posted in autos, bankruptcy, credit default swaps, politics | 22 Comments »
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009
(Send links, videos, pics to optionarmageddon at gmail with subject “link” ... Thanks to Wei X.---$10---for the donation!)
De-leveraging has only just begun (WSJ) The Citigroup report referenced in this article makes a crucial point: Corporate America faces a bigger debt burden today than before the crisis began. Total debt may ...
Posted in links | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009
According to a report late last night from Bloomberg, six of the nineteen banks that were stress tested by the Fed will need to raise additional capital. Two of the six are known: Citi and BofA.* Both are appealing the ruling. The other four banks aren't known, but SunTrust, KeyCorp ...
Posted in banking, Fed, taxpayer issues, treasury, Wall Street | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009
Another ponzi bites the dust. (WSJ)
California financier Danny Pang was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on charges of structuring cash transactions to keep them under the $10,000 figure that triggers a report to the federal government.
The accusation, though it involves a felony, appears to be a placeholder while ...
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009
(Send links, videos, pics to optionarmageddon at gmail with subject “link” ... Thanks to Kok-Ching L.---$25---for the donation!)
Fed Pushes Citi, BofA to Raise Capital (WSJ) It's well-known that Citi and BofA are in terrible shape and the stress tests appear to have demonstrated as much (a quick glance at OA's ...
Posted in links | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009
This is huge. WaPo:
Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter will switch his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat, according to sources informed of the decision.
Specter's decision would give Democrats a 60 seat filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, assuming Democrat Al Franken is eventually sworn in as the next senator from Minnesota. (Former ...
Posted in politics | 15 Comments »
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009
February Data for the S&P Case-Shiller Index was released today. Prices are still falling, and quickly. Each of the 20 major metro areas measured by the index showed another a month-over-month decline, for the fifth month in a row. The Composite 20 Index is now off 31% from its peak, ...
Posted in housing, Interest Rates | 15 Comments »
Monday, April 27th, 2009
A new addition to the "What-Were-They-Thinking" file. (AP)
An administration official says a presidential Boeing 747 and a fighter jet flew low near ground zero in New York City Monday because the White House Military Office wanted to update its file photo of the president's plane near the Statue of Liberty.
This ...
Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »
Monday, April 27th, 2009
This morning GM made an exchange offer to reduce its debt load. To avoid a bankruptcy filing, it said 90% of the company's unsecured bondholders (measured by the principal value of their holdings) would have to accept stock in exchange for their bonds. But if an "ad hoc committee" of ...
Posted in autos | 3 Comments »
Monday, April 27th, 2009
CBS News is reporting that the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into AIG's downfall:
Sources say investigators are digging into whether Joseph Cassano, the former head of London-based AIG Financial Products, and two of his top deputies - Andrew Forster, an executive vice president, and Thomas Athan, a managing ...
Posted in insurance, prosecutions, Wall Street | 1 Comment »
Monday, April 27th, 2009
(Send links, videos, pics to optionarmageddon at gmail with subject “link” ... Thanks to Dominique R.---$30---for her donation!)
Today's Must Read--Geithner, as Member and Overseer, Forged Ties to Finance Club (NYT) This is the best and most thorough article I've seen detailing Timmy Geithner's close ties to Wall Street. As part ...
Posted in links | 3 Comments »
Monday, April 27th, 2009
To survive, GM needs to shrink itself to a manageable size. It's new viability plan intends to do just that. The key provision of the plan is to reduce debt, swapping 225 shares of equity for each $1,000 outstanding principal of its unsecured public notes. $27 billion of unsecured notes ...
Posted in autos, bailout, bankruptcy, debt, stocks | 6 Comments »
Monday, April 27th, 2009
Kiran Chetry has an interesting interview with Senator Jim Webb of Virginia regarding our overcrowded and broken prison system. A particular section worth highlighting:
Chetry: I want to ask you about the huge percentage of growth in incarceration since the 1980s. A lot of this is the result of non-violent crimes. ...
Posted in politics | 6 Comments »
Sunday, April 26th, 2009
WSJ:
TD Bank Financial Group has entered the fray as a potential suitor for BankUnited Financial Corp.
The BankUnited FSB unit faces a deadline next week from the U.S. government to raise capital or find a buyer. If it fails, the banking unit could be seized by regulators. BankUnited has been crippled ...
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Sunday, April 26th, 2009
The Pew Research Center is out with an interesting report regarding Americans' changing attitudes towards their stuff. Dishwashers, microwaves, dryers, even A/C and TV Sets are decreasingly viewed as "necessities" according to Pew. New tech, however, is holding its own. iPods, Computers, high-speed internet, and "flat screen TVs" are up ...
Posted in Economy | 1 Comment »
Saturday, April 25th, 2009
(Send links, videos, pics to optionarmageddon at gmail with subject “link”)
[Reader Note: I've changed the links so that they open in the same browser window/tab. Would be curious to hear reader feedback on which linking method you prefer: opened in the same window or a new one?}
Bank Failures #26, #27, ...
Posted in links | 7 Comments »
Saturday, April 25th, 2009
Given the odd age cohort being affected, comparisons are being made between Mexico's Pig Flu and the 1918 outbreak that may have killed as many as 100 million people worldwide in a single year. Lucky for us, Mexican officials are being very cautious, closing schools, museums, etc. and warning people ...
Posted in politics | 12 Comments »
Friday, April 24th, 2009
A must-listen radio report from American Public Radio regarding yesterday's revelations that Bernanke and Paulson forced BofA to close its deal for Merrill.
REPORTER: If Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke really told the CEO of Bank of America to keep quiet about losses at Merrill Lynch, they were probably breaking the ...
Posted in Fed, treasury | 14 Comments »
Friday, April 24th, 2009
(Send links, videos, pics to optionarmageddon at gmail with subject “link” ... Thanks to Dinesh---$15---for their donations!)
Subprime Loans, Corporate-Style, Will Fuel Defaults (Floyd Norris) Not a lot of new revelations here, but Norris is great at outlining complex topics in simple language. In a nutshell, corporate lending got every bit ...
Posted in links | No Comments »
Friday, April 24th, 2009
Ahead of official announcements regarding stress test results, OA thought we'd publish our latest update for banks' tangible common equity, a metric that is likely to figure prominently.
A recent Reuters report said "U.S. regulators want the top 19 banks being stress-tested to have at least 3% [TCE]." In other words, ...
Posted in banking, leverage, stocks, Wall Street | 11 Comments »
Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
After slowing earlier this year, the Fed's printing press is again running full speed.
According to its latest balance sheet, average assets increased $70.4 billion to $2.22 trillion. The increase was due primarily to $75 billion of mortgage-backed securities purchases this week and $14.1 billion of Treasury purchases. (Central bank swap ...
Posted in Fed, treasury | 2 Comments »
Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
Below is a letter sent today by NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo that outlines how former Treasury Secretary Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke forced BofA's acquisition of Merrill. Highlights:
BofA knew Merrill's losses were far more substantial than believed prior to closing the merger. It wanted to invoke a "material ...
Posted in banking, treasury, Wall Street | 3 Comments »
