Category: Credit Crisis 2014
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Wednesday, December 24, 2014
Bank Capital Punishment and Other Nostrums / Economics / Credit Crisis 2014
Bankers — facing a barrage of new capital requirements, regulations and investigations — must feel as if they are targets of a witch hunt. Well, if the truth be told, they are. Indeed, it’s gotten so bad that the Dutch authorities, who were clueless before the crisis, have put the sinners (read: bankers) on public display and forced them to repeat the following: “I swear that I will endeavor to maintain and promote confidence in the financial sector…. so help me God.” So, there you have it, so help me God.
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Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Russian Currency Crisis and Debt Defaults Could Create Contagion in West / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2014
Russia’s currency market witnessed further huge volatility again today. The finance ministry said it would start selling foreign exchange which are primarily in dollars. This appeared to reduce selling pressure on the battered rouble.
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Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Russia Crisis - If You Put Your Money in the Bank Will You Get it Back? / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2014
Howard Marks, co-chairman of Oaktree Capital Management, told Bloomberg Television's Stephanie Ruhle and Matt Miller today that loose rule of law is a major concern for investors who are considering buying assets in Russia. Marks said: "In order to make investments, you have to believe that you will benefit from the rule of law...The underlying question about Russia is whether you will. The question is, if you put your money in the bank will you get it back in the end?"
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Thursday, December 11, 2014
Banking Crisis II - European Mega-Banks in Trouble / Companies / Credit Crisis 2014
I have been saying for years that European banks are in far worse shape than US banks. We can now show that in chart form thanks to Ophir Gottlieb, CEO of Capital Market Labs.
Let's start with a visualization of the day: Worldwide Mega Cap Banks: Is Europe in Crisis?
Read full article... Read full article...If we take all of the banks in the world with market caps larger than $25 billion USD and then plot them with total assets on the x-axis and non-performing loans as a percentage of total loans, ALL of the top eleven are in Europe.
Thursday, October 23, 2014
40% of Eurozone Banks Are in Trouble / Companies / Credit Crisis 2014
Reuters has had a busy day today reporting on Europe’s banks and the stress tests the European Banking Authority is set to unveil on Sunday. And which put the EU and ECB on a see-saw like balancing act between credibility and panic.
The news bureau started off in the early morning citing a report by Spanish news agency Efe, which said 11 banks would fail the tests:
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Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Banks Hold Treasuries and Make Loans / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2014
Ever since the 2008 financial collapse, banks have reduced their lending while accumulating U.S. Treasuries. On the surface placing capital into the safest depositor may seem prudent. On the other hand, Why Big Banks Are Suddenly Interested in Talking to You Again? According to Inc, “After years of turning away small-business borrowers, the country's largest banks are now granting one out of five loan applications they receive. The 20 percent benchmark represents a post-recession high for big banks (assets of $10B+). Further, small banks have been approving more than half of the funding requests they receive.”
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Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Building an Ark: How to Protect Public Revenues From the Next Financial Meltdown / Politics / Credit Crisis 2014
Concerns are growing that we are heading for another banking crisis, one that could be far worse than in 2008. But this time, there will be no government bailouts. Instead, per the Dodd-Frank Act, bankrupt banks will be confiscating (or “bailing in”) their customers’ deposits.
That includes local government deposits. The fact that public funds are secured with collateral may not protect them, as explained earlier here. Derivative claims now get paid first in a bank bankruptcy; and derivative losses could be huge, wiping out the collateral for other claims.
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Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Why Stalling Loans in Our Banking Economy is a Good Thing / Economics / Credit Crisis 2014
Rodney Johnson writes: Part of the story about subprime mortgages during the U.S. banking economy of the 1990s and 2000s centers on the Community Reinvestment Act — through which Congress required lending institutions lend more in poor neighborhoods.
There is a question as to how much this drove lenders to extend credit to people who couldn’t afford it.
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Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Back To Bad Bank Bailouts / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2014
Oh No Its Cyprus Again
Depositors only want their money back – and that is the only thing they can't have. Cypriots were understandably enraged at the so-called Eurogroup Triumvirate’s decision some 18 months ago to resolve “technical insolvency” of the two largest banks in the country with what are now well known and called “bail-ins”. Cypriot banks were at that time more than just “technically” insolvent and the Triumvirate (the ECB, the European Commission and European Financial Stability fund) could dictate taking away depositors' savings to rescue one of Cyprus's two most-troubled large banks.
Sunday, July 27, 2014
Wall Street Shadow Banking: You Can’t Taper a Ponzi Scheme: “Time to Reboot” / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2014
One thing to be said for the women now heading the Federal Reserve and the IMF: compared to some of their predecessors, they are refreshingly honest. The Wall Street Journal reported on July 2nd:
Read full article... Read full article...Two of the world’s most powerful women of finance sat down for a lengthy discussion Wednesday on the future of monetary policy in a post-crisis world: U.S. Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen and International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde. Before a veritable who’s-who in international economics packing the IMF’s largest conference hall, the two covered all the hottest topics in debate among the world’s central bankers, financiers and economists.
Friday, July 25, 2014
The Bond Markets, Black Swans, and the Tiny Spirit of Santo / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2014
When The Bank Espirito Santo catches a cold, watch the world sneeze. If this evolving situation doesn't highlight the tight interconnectedness of the paper financial system, nothing else will.This a direct hit and a potential trigger that could set of a daisy chain of events, ultimately calling into question the only market left large enough to back (unofficially) fiat or debt based currencies.
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Thursday, July 24, 2014
The Rating Agencies Feel Heat – It’s About Time / Companies / Credit Crisis 2014
Shah Gilani writes: Sometimes it’s all about time. Things take time. Time catches up to things.
In the case of the many crimes and misdemeanors that led up to the credit crisis, time seems to be finally catching up with some crooked institutions.
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Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Will Argentina’s Debt Crisis Rock the Global Financial Markets? / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2014
One of the recurring headlines adding to the “wall of worry” is the battle between U.S. hedge funds and the Argentina government over payment of the country’s bond debt stemming from the country’s 1998-2002 economic crisis. Pundits worry that a default is imminent and that the country faces a bleak future if fails to pay hedge fund managers $1.3 billion by a court-mandated July 30 deadline.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Latest Subprime Scandal May Be Sitting in Your Driveway! / Companies / Credit Crisis 2014
Shah Gilani writes: Back in April I wrote about the initial public offering from Ally Financial Inc. (NYSE: ALLY). I told you about how they were loading up the truck with subprime auto loans, and how that lending game was too reminiscent of the subprime mortgage buildup and subsequent crisis to not warrant a déjà vu-all-over-again feeling.
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Sunday, July 20, 2014
Investment Lessons From the Portuguese Bank Panic / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2014
Shah Gilani writes: So what if there was some momentary panic over some bank in Portugal last week?
So what if contagion fears spilled out across the globe and markets tanked?
It's all better now. Everything has been cleared up. Really, it was nothing.
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Wednesday, July 16, 2014
European Financial Crisis 2014 - Vaccinate Against This Fiscal Contagion / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2014
Michael E. Lewitt writes: The European financial crisis is often pushed out of the headlines by crises of a more incendiary variety. That might suggest the problem has diminished. It hasn't.
The saga of Portual's Banco Espirito Santo is a sure sign to investors that the European financial crisis is anything but over.
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Friday, July 11, 2014
Banco Portuguese Bank’s Newfound Clarity Just Makes Things Foggier / Companies / Credit Crisis 2014
Shah Gilani writes: So what there was some momentary panic over some bank in Portugal yesterday?
So what if contagion fears spilled out across the globe and markets tanked?
It’s all better now. Everything has been cleared up. Really, it was nothing.
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Thursday, May 15, 2014
How to Manage a Financial Crisis… Before It Happens / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2014
My wife Jo and I live in Central Florida, and having ridden out a few hurricanes in our lives, we’re as well prepared as we can be for emergencies. We have, among other things, a generator, food, batteries, candles, and a water purification kit.
My wife and I visited Punta Gorda, FL, after the town suffered severe hurricane damage in 2004. After driving one block to the grocery store, we raced out of there with burning eyes and handkerchiefs covering our noses and mouths. We immediately drove back to the motel, changed our clothes, and put what we were wearing in a plastic bag. We’d never seen anything like that before, and it left quite an impression.
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Saturday, April 19, 2014
E.U. Officially Adopts the Bank Depositors Bail-In / Politics / Credit Crisis 2014
It has now been more than a year since that fateful weekend in the Mediterranean when everything changed. However, like most of the big changes we’ve seen lately, there is a subtlety afoot that somehow results in few noticing. This should surprise no one really. How the world can change in such dramatic ways without any type of mass awakening is a topic more for the psychologists who help pull the strings and the evil they represent than for anyone involved in the analysis of economics and events, but I say the above so that you know you’re not kidding anyone.
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Thursday, April 17, 2014
Amazing Story From Japan - Bond Market Liquidity Dries Up / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2014
Here’s something you don’t see very often: For a day and a half this week, the Japanese government’s benchmark 10-year bonds attracted not a single successful private sector bid. At today’s artificially-depressed yields, no one wants this paper — except of course the Bank of Japan, which is buying up the bonds with newly-created yen. As the Gulf Times noted:
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