So there's no credit available, but Fed funds drop fifty basis points. So you can't borrow money you need, but it's cheaper, so if you were paying interest, you would be paying less interest. I suggest you guys go back to April, and see the comments we put up then. This is really seriously bad stuff. At best, they stop the flow of blood, but my bet is the patient dies on the way to the hospital. Not to say there isn't a long side trade here, but we have a corrupt bunch in Washington who cater to psychopathic money barons in NY. Maybe they just want to steal it all, so they can give a little of it back to see how long it'll take to steal it back.
Fixed income is always considered the "less glamorous" area, but when things go wrong, it comes under the microscope. Then everyone says "how the hell did this happen?!?!?!?!" The states and government agencies just did what was allowable. And since you are only as good as your last quarter's performance, they always go for the highest yield attainable under their investment policy guidelines. Now, is it the PM's fault for buying a AAA rated security? This whole debacle was created by greed, and every layer in the mix was greedier than the next. The AAA ratings attached to fixed income securities were a scam from the get-go....origination of the asset pools backing these securities were junk from the minute the mortgages were underwritten....by loaning money to people who could not pay it back, for real estate that was overinflated, and finding every which way imaginable to lend them the money anyways. Think about it - how in the world can a 24 year old making less than $50,000 a year buy a $700,000 house in San Diego? The banks and mortgage companies underwrote s$#t loans based on the concept that real estate's value would go to the moon, and they did it with "creative" mortgages ie interest only, negative am...etc. And who is to blame for this from the beginning? The individual real estate investor that wanted to play the "greater fool" game of RE speculation......the banks and the mortgage companies just enabled them to do it. Then Wall Street took the whole ball of wax, sliced and diced into securities, and laid all of the risk off to the fixed income security purchasers. Its a giant mess of loss, and we the taxpayer will end up paying for it one way or another.
On the one hand I don't understand why things already seem so bad when the housing bubble has barely started deflating. In most places prices are off by 15% and nationally only by a few % and most resets haven't hit yet. You have ETFC selling their portfolio for 27cents on the $, if this is MBS surely those properties are woth more than 27% of what they went for (OK I know that some tranches will be worth 0 as income goes to higher grade tranches but the point is still valid, the underlying assests are not taking a 73% haircut so why is there already so much of a hullabaloo). On the other hand, if what has come out already is the result of the very small housing bubble deflation we have seen thus far what is going to happen if we start to see significant drops in prices, say back to 2000 levels (which would mean a 50% haircut in most regions that participated in the bubble). Too late to short? With the market barely off its highs? Really?
it looks like the poor strawberry picker's cash flow just couldn't handle it.... damn it, don't you just hate this when it happens? http://hollisterfreelance.com/news/contentview.asp?c=213141
I was asking myself the same question. The only answer that I could come up with is too much leverage.
SIV primer http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=214880 Not there yet, more losses at C http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aLt8Zl8fBZCE&refer=home many are saying that the SIV super fund is coming too late http://www.marketwatch.com/news/sto...516-405A-A4FF-3BA0A679DD7A&dist=SecMostMailed Asset backed portions of the ETFC assportfolio went for 11c on the $!!! http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2007/12/impact-of-etrade-portfolio-sale.html No where near a bottom in housing bubble pop http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=ah1avXfvpNak&refer=home http://countrywide-foreclosures.blogspot.com/ and the commercial side hasn't even started to be factored in http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/realestate/commercial/02sqft.html?ref=business Even China starting to see RE downturn http://www.cctv.com/program/bizchina/20071202/101226.shtml wait until it hits Western Europe which so far has been fairly immune despite the very high % of ARMs relative the US (this is a big reason to short the Euro and go long the $, for all our problems with the defalting RE bubble theirs will be far far worse, Russian and Saudi money keeping things propted up so far in the UK but if oil prices fale watch out below).
Just a bit of Sunday morning reading Fly. Your tenacity with the mushrooming naked short/wall street fraud stories is truly impressive and adds real value as you often post things that are not available from media sources or before they are available from media sources, and analysis bourne of years of experience. I for one have appreicated your dogged contribution to ET despite having taken a lot of flack. Seems like people are more receptive to your truth telling theses days doesn't it, wonder why?