Category: Credit Crunch
The analysis published under this category are as follows.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
CDO Bad Debt Bank Losses Yet to Be Reported as Stock Markets Form Topping Patterns / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
By: Anthony_Cherniawski
Wall Street is already betting that next week's earnings at the nation's biggest banks will be dismal. What remains to be seen is just how bad they will be. Hundreds of billions of asset-backed paper has had to be disposed of. Yet so far the losses of banks that have already reported this quarter are less than $20 billion. Could they have gotten off so easily? The preponderance of evidence shows that much of the paper, which includes subprime mortgages, auto loans and credit card debt has not yet found buyers. Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Wall Street Stock Market Rally...Credit Crunch Crisis Over? / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
By: Regent_Markets
Last week the ECB (European central bank) and MPC (UK central bank) opted to take a 'wait and see' approach with interest rates. Both announced that they would be leaving interest rates on hold, preferring to see how their respective economies hold up after the summer turmoil. Many economists are expecting both to move to a loosening bias in the future, with the UK predicted to cut rates before the end of the year.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, October 01, 2007
Central Banks, Interest Rates and Stock Market Fluctuations / Interest-Rates / Credit Crunch
By: Gerard_Jackson
The shortage of capital at the end of the boom period is a sign that the credit system has put its last reserves into the firing lines in order to support the wavering front. (Wilhem Röpke Crises and Cycles , William Hodge and Company Limited, 1936, p. 100)Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Did the Fed Interest Rate Cut Fix the Credit Crunch Problem? / Interest-Rates / Credit Crunch
By: Tim_Wood
Or, Are Their Actions a Sign of a Bigger Problem?
I have said before in my newsletters that the Fed's biggest fear is deflation and I believe that the move earlier this week proves that point. As the stock market began to decline in August the Fed began extending the discount window, encouraged banks to come to the discount window, and cut the discount rate. I reported here a couple of weeks ago that based upon the 3-month T-bill rate and my Trend Indicator that we have entered into an environment in which lower short-term rates should prevail. So, the fact that a cut was made came as no surprise. But, the shock was that the Fed cut both the Discount rate and the Fed funds rate by a half point. In my opinion, this was a drastic measure and it serves to show the Fed's true colors and it absolutely confirms that they are scared to death of deflation.
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Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Greenspan Blames Bush for Subprime Credit Crunch / Politics / Credit Crunch
By: Mike_Whitney
Alan Greenspan's appearance on 60 Minutes was preceded with all the pomp and ceremony of a royal wedding. The public relations blitz dragged out for a whole week.
What profound truisms would the elusive former-fed master divulge to the News Magazine's withered-coquette, Leslie Stahl? Would he produce his crystal ball and forecast America's blurry economic future in mangled Fed-speak? Or would he focus on the startling gyrations in the stock market and the “frothy” conditions in the slumping housing market? The suspense was nearly unbearable.
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Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Can the Fed Save You From the Credit Crunch? and What to do to Protect Yourself / Interest-Rates / Credit Crunch
By: EWI
The Federal Reserve's rate cut is dominating the news, as did recent Fed injections into the market. And the media continues to hold its collective breath each time Bernanke meets or prepares for an announcement.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, September 17, 2007
Beating the Credit Crunch Financial Bust / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
By: Andy_Sutton
Of the over 500,000 words in the English language, I am pretty confident at this point that most of them have been used in one way or another to describe the current credit disaster. I am very confident in calling this a disaster since the bobbleheads on TV insist on saying it ain't so. The question that continues to show up in my inbox on a daily basis, and now with more urgency than ever is how to beat this? Is it possible? What can the little guy do? I think that most people are at least aware that this is going to hurt.Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Weekly Financial Markets Analysis - Greenspan Subprime Credit Crunch is Not My Fault / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
By: Anthony_Cherniawski
“ GREENSPAN SAYS HE KNEW ABOUT ABUSES IN SUBPRIME LENDING BUT FAILED TO FORSEE THEIR PARALYZING MARKET EFFECTS UNTIL LATE 2005.”
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan admits he "didn't really get it" that the subprime lending trend was significant enough to hurt the economy until very late 2005, but still defends his lowering of interest rates from 2001 until 2004 that critics say caused the crisis in the first place.
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Friday, September 14, 2007
Northern Rock Bank Seeks Emergency Cash From The Bank of England / Companies / Credit Crunch
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Northern Rock, one of Britian's largest mortgage banks is expected to receive emergency funding from the Bank of England today for possibly more than £4 billion ($8 billions), as the mortgage bank runs out of cash and is unable to obtain credit on the interbank money market due to the ongoing liquidity squeeze and the banks own sizeable subprime mortgage book risks. As with the earlier emergency funding of barclays, the rate charged by the Bank of England is expected to be significantly higher than the 5.75% base rate, possibly around 6.75%. Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Central Banks Reaction to the Credit Crunch - Fraud and Folly / Interest-Rates / Credit Crunch
By: Adrian_Ash
"...Given how the Fed has reacted to the credit crunch so far, a Nobel Prize for Dr. Bernanke now seems out of the question..."
"IT IS A FRAUD to accept what you cannot repay," said Publilius Syrus way back in the first century BC.
But Syrus was merely a Roman hack...and a freed slave to boot. So what would he know about collateralized loan obligations? No more or less than today's Bank of England , perhaps.
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Tuesday, September 11, 2007
US Heads for Recession as Foreign Investors Rush for the Exit from US Dollar Holdings / Interest-Rates / Credit Crunch
By: Mike_Whitney
"Credit booms do not end in inflation as most people believe. Credit booms ARE inflation that end in deflation. This credit boom is not any different. ” Mike Shedlock , “Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis”
The days of the dollar as the world's “reserve currency” may be drawing to a close. In August, foreign central banks and governments dumped a whopping 3.8% of their holdings of US debt. Rising unemployment and the ongoing housing slump have triggered fears of a recession sending wary foreign investors running for the exits. China, Japan and Taiwan have been leading the sell off which has caused the steepest decline since 1992.
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Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Central Banks Panic Buying Toxic Bonds As Credit Crunch Looms / Interest-Rates / Credit Crunch
By: Gerard_Jackson
It appears to be increasingly evident that the recent turmoil in the financial markets was not an aberration. John McFarlane, former ANZ chief executive, noted that 30-day bank bills were rising. Last week the bill rate exceeded 7 per cent as against the cash rate of 6.5 per cent, giving it a premium of 0.5 per cent. It was also reported that the banking system has been importing billions of dollars to cover its exposure. The same thing is apparently happening overseas. Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, September 07, 2007
Financial Aphasia: What happens when Mortgages, Credit and the Economy lose Meaning / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
By: Paul_Petillo
The first time I spoke about the subject of sub-prime mortgages and the potential for this seemingly endless fallout came during a live television show in February of 2006. Granted, the demographic for that medium market audience was not the same as those watching the more affluent Bloomberg network or even the rowdy bunch who tune in to CNBC. Yet it was the very audience that needed to hear what must have seemed at the time like a “sky is falling” report.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Bernanke and Bush on Subprime Credit Crunch / Interest-Rates / Credit Crunch
By: David_Urban
Friday was a big day as the markets expected confirmation of a September rate cut in Bernanke's Jackson Hole speech. What they got was confirmation that the Fed is monitoring the situation and stands ready to act if the housing meltdown spills over into the general economy.
‘It is not the responsibility of the Federal Reserve –nor would it be appropriate – to protect lenders and investors from the consequences of their financial decisions. But developments in financial markets can have broad economic effects felt by many outside the markets, and the Federal Reserve must take those effects into account when determining policy.' Bernanke told the markets that it is not the Federal Reserve's job to bail out speculators but they will act if there is a spillover into the general economy.
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Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Subprime Hedge Fund Credit Crunch Time-line / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
By: Dr_William_R_Swagell
July 18, 2007. Bear Stearns advises investors in two failed hedge funds that they'll get back little if any money. The larger fund (valued at $925 million in March) had borrowed almost $9bn, while the smaller fund (valued at $638 in March) had borrowed $11bn.
July 29, 2007 . “ Germany puts rescue fund in place for IKB… The German government has begun a rescue operation to shore up Europe's first big casualty of the US subprime crisis …German finance minister called leading banking executives to discuss a bailout…a pledge to guarantee obligations of more than €8bn (£5.4bn) – more than five times IKB's stock market value.” ( Financial Times)
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Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Bernanke Blinks on Credit Crunch – But Will It Matter? / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
By: Captain_Hook
Well, Bernanke was wrong , and those pointing out the credit crunch was contagious , including yours truly , were right. Of course it should have been no surprise hearing such an official forecast considering what's at stake, that being the global economy. Oh – and that's not all that's at stake. The Fed's future ability to affect the economy is also at stake, where many are watching to see how Bernanke stacks up in comparison to Greenspan under pressure, this being Bernanke's first big test. Here, if Ben were perceived to fail, where Greenspan is to this day viewed as a winner, there's no telling what to expect in financial markets this fall. A collapsing dollar ($), collapsing bond market, and quite possibly plunging stocks markets in turn certainly come to mind. And unfortunately, even he and the global Working Group on Financial Markets do stave off disaster in the short-term, which they will surely attempt, this would only postpone the inevitable, as already it's largely understood the credit crunch is for real, where no matter what measures are undertaken in defense of the system (including the suppression of gold), the dominos of disaster are already falling. Let's open this line of thinking up further below.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Gold Hits Four-Week High; Credit Crunch "Barely Begun" for German Banks / Commodities / Credit Crunch
By: Adrian_Ash
SPOT GOLD PRICES rose steadily against the US Dollar in early London trade, nearing a four-week high of $675 per ounce as Wall Street got back to work after Labor Day.
The metal also touched new three-week highs against the Euro and British Pound, but it held flat versus the Yen as the Japanese currency – source of $1,050 billion in lending by the end of April according to a new report from Bank for International Settlements – rose in the forex market.
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Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Analysis of Credit Markets Turmoil - Vectors of Credit / Interest-Rates / Credit Crunch
By: John_Mauldin
The credit markets are in turmoil. This week I have asked Michael Lewitt of Harch Capital in Florida to tell us what is going on from his perspective. Michael has been watching the credit markets from the inside for a long time. So, this week we have a sort of insider's Outside the Box.
Michael is one smart guy with a deep understanding of the markets, especially the credit markets, and how they work. I really look forward each month to getting Michael's insights. The firm manages domestic and offshore debt and equity hedge funds and separate accounts. This may get more technical for some readers, but keep reading, as you can get a sense of what we are really facing.
John Mauldin
Editor, Outside the Box
Saturday, September 01, 2007
Macro Musings: Make Way For the Sovereigns / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
By: Justice_Litle
TO EVERYTHING there is a season, the Byrds sang. (And the good book said.)
For leveraged hedge funds, ‘tis now the season for blowing up; the Metamorphosis we spoke of back in June is now on full display.
Stale Prices and Daisy Chains
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Wednesday, August 29, 2007
The Worst of All Policies - Federal Reserve Policy Blunders / Economics / Credit Crunch
By: Adrian_Ash
"To lend a great deal, and yet not give the public confidence...is the worst of all policies." - Walter Bagehot, Lombard Street
"HISTORY PROVES that a smart central bank can protect the economy and the financial sector from the nastier side effects of a stock market collapse," wrote Ben Bernanke in Foreign Policy magazine, way back in October 2000.
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