Most Popular
1. It’s a New Macro, the Gold Market Knows It, But Dead Men Walking Do Not (yet)- Gary_Tanashian
2.Stock Market Presidential Election Cycle Seasonal Trend Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
3. Bitcoin S&P Pattern - Nadeem_Walayat
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
4.U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - Raymond_Matison
5. How to Profit from the Global Warming ClImate Change Mega Death Trend - Part1 - Nadeem_Walayat
7.Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - Nadeem_Walayat
9.It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - Stephen_McBride
10.Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - Richard_Mills
Last 7 days
Stock Market Brief in Count Down to US Election Result 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Gold Stocks’ Winter Rally 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Why Countdown to U.S. Recession is Underway - 3rd Nov 24
Stock Market Trend Forecast to Jan 2025 - 2nd Nov 24
President Donald PUMP Forecast to Win US Presidential Election 2024 - 1st Nov 24
At These Levels, Buying Silver Is Like Getting It At $5 In 2003 - 28th Oct 24
Nvidia Numero Uno Selling Shovels in the AI Gold Rush - 28th Oct 24
The Future of Online Casinos - 28th Oct 24
Panic in the Air As Stock Market Correction Delivers Deep Opps in AI Tech Stocks - 27th Oct 24
Stocks, Bitcoin, Crypto's Counting Down to President Donald Pump! - 27th Oct 24
UK Budget 2024 - What to do Before 30th Oct - Pensions and ISA's - 27th Oct 24
7 Days of Crypto Opportunities Starts NOW - 27th Oct 24
The Power Law in Venture Capital: How Visionary Investors Like Yuri Milner Have Shaped the Future - 27th Oct 24
This Points To Significantly Higher Silver Prices - 27th Oct 24
US House Prices Trend Forecast 2024 to 2026 - 11th Oct 24
US Housing Market Analysis - Immigration Drives House Prices Higher - 30th Sep 24
Stock Market October Correction - 30th Sep 24
The Folly of Tariffs and Trade Wars - 30th Sep 24
Gold: 5 principles to help you stay ahead of price turns - 30th Sep 24
The Everything Rally will Spark multi year Bull Market - 30th Sep 24
US FIXED MORTGAGES LIMITING SUPPLY - 23rd Sep 24
US Housing Market Free Equity - 23rd Sep 24
US Rate Cut FOMO In Stock Market Correction Window - 22nd Sep 24
US State Demographics - 22nd Sep 24
Gold and Silver Shine as the Fed Cuts Rates: What’s Next? - 22nd Sep 24
Stock Market Sentiment Speaks:Nothing Can Topple This Market - 22nd Sep 24
US Population Growth Rate - 17th Sep 24
Are Stocks Overheating? - 17th Sep 24
Sentiment Speaks: Silver Is At A Major Turning Point - 17th Sep 24
If The Stock Market Turn Quickly, How Bad Can Things Get? - 17th Sep 24
IMMIGRATION DRIVES HOUSE PRICES HIGHER - 12th Sep 24
Global Debt Bubble - 12th Sep 24
Gold’s Outlook CPI Data - 12th Sep 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Fixing FUBAR: Next Week in Washington D.C.

Stock-Markets / Market Regulation Nov 30, 2010 - 12:07 PM GMT

By: Janet_Tavakoli

Stock-Markets

Next week, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, hosts its Supervision Summit. Attendees comprise 300 "stakeholders," whom I'll address the morning of Wednesday, December 8, 2010 with a presentation titled: Repairing the Damage of "Fraud as a Business Model."


Among other things I'll remind them that wide-spread foreclosure problems have festered for years. In January 2008, I submitted the manuscript for my book, Structured Finance, to my publisher. I explained that the rating agencies should be stripped of their NRSRO designation for structured products. Among a host of other problems, the rating agencies were clueless as to how to account for failures in the way the assets were handled in the creation of the deals they rated:

Executives at Standard & Poor's, Moody's and Fitch said they were waiting until foreclosure sales before recognizing losses, but they did not comment on the rising number of vacant homes on which foreclosures had not occurred, the complaints of trustees who could not foreclose because they could not "find" the required documentation to prove they had the right to foreclose or on the possibility of non-economic mortgage restructuring which would simply delay foreclosure. They also did not comment on the rising delinquencies which most often led to inevitable foreclosure.

NRSRO stands for "Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization." Moody's, Standard and Poor's, and Fitch were the key rating agencies participating in rating collateralized debt obligations, yet they failed to follow basic statistical principles. When the SEC solicited comments for its proposed rules for the Credit Rating Agencies, mine was the first letter it posted on its web site in February 2007. I recommended the SEC revoke the NRSRO designation for the rating agencies with respect to rating structured finance transactions.

By the end of 2007 and through 2008, rating agencies scrambled to keep up. Moody's kept changing its models and "correlation" assumptions. At one point it announced that "new correlation" would equal three times "old correlation." In December 2007, Standard and Poor's announced an increase in capital requirements in order for certain financial guarantors to maintain "triple-A" ratings only to materially increase its loss assumptions in January of 2008. Fitch announced it might issue one notch downgrades for Ambac and MBIA [the two largest municipal bond insurers] in December 2007, only to downgrade Ambac two notches in January 2008 when Ambac announced larger than expected losses in its credit derivatives portfolio. The rating agencies were inconsistent, ill-informed, and floundering.

Structured Finance & Collateralized Debt Obligations, (excerpt from Chapter 17) Wiley, 2008.

MBIA eventually slid from "AAA" to a junk rating. Ambac filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection November 8, 2010.

Of course, I will also give my recommendations on how to fix the rating agencies. The least controversial part of my presentation will be on the rating agencies, but it is worth mentioning this small preview in advance. None of the issues I'll talk about next week is new, and "financial reform" is late to the party and dead on arrival.

By Janet Tavakoli

web site: www.tavakolistructuredfinance.com

Janet Tavakoli is the president of Tavakoli Structured Finance, a Chicago-based firm that provides consulting to financial institutions and institutional investors. Ms. Tavakoli has more than 20 years of experience in senior investment banking positions, trading, structuring and marketing structured financial products. She is a former adjunct associate professor of derivatives at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business. Author of: Credit Derivatives & Synthetic Structures (1998, 2001), Collateralized Debt Obligations & Structured Finance (2003), Structured Finance & Collateralized Debt Obligations (John Wiley & Sons, September 2008). Tavakoli’s book on the causes of the global financial meltdown and how to fix it is: Dear Mr. Buffett: What an Investor Learns 1,269 Miles from Wall Street (Wiley, 2009).

© 2010 Copyright Janet Tavakoli- All Rights Reserved
Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.


© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in