Analysis Topic: Stock & Financial Markets
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Bear Stearns Bailout Proves US Fed is Merely an Extension of the Financial Industry / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Mike_Whitney
One picture tells the whole story. It's a photo of five grim looking men in gray suits staring ahead blankly like they were in the dock with Saddam awaiting sentencing. Every one of them looks downcast and dejected; shoulders rounded and jaws set. This is what desperation looks like, which is why the photo was kept off the front pages of our leading newspapers. Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Gold and the Plunge Protection Teams Virtual Garden / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Alex_Wallenwein
We all knew the world was ending … and then the Fed and the PPT stepped in and made it all okay again.
Bear Stearns, an 80-year investment banking veteran who saw the crash of 1929 and the Great Depression come and go, who weathered the stormy seas of stagflation during the 1970s and the brutal recession under Volcker and Reagan, disintegrates before our eyes, right into the open pockets of JP Morgan Chase - courtesy of the Federal Reserve (which JPM co-owns)..
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Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Stock Market Update: Buying the Bottom, Badda Bing! / Stock-Markets / US Stock Markets
By: Dominick
That was easy!! The markets have given us so much of what we've been expecting lately it's impossible to get it all into a single update, but long story short, badda bing badda boo, the main idea is that we were able to buy the low (again) and took the money at our target, which happened to be the high at the close Tuesday. We haven't been giving away as much lately in these free updates, but that doesn't mean we've stopped taking money from this market.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Fed Facilities Benefiting Financial Institutions Shareholders / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Paul_L_Kasriel
There Should Be a Quid Pro Quo between the Fed and Financial Institutions - The Fed's creation of various facilities in recent months - the Term Auction Facility (TAF) for depository institutions, the Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF) for primary government securities dealers and the Primary Dealers Credit Facility (PDCF) - would be expected to alleviate some institutional liquidity issues that otherwise could metastasize into institutional solvency issues. Commercial and investment banks now can borrow against seemingly credit-worthy collateral with a much smaller "haircut" than otherwise. The Fed has created these new liquidity facilities in order to forestall a systemic failure of the financial system, not to enhance financial institution shareholder value. Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Bear Stearns Bailout- Perhaps the Wrong Science? / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Paul_Petillo
If you have ever taken the time to watch water swirl around a pier, you have seen turbulence. The fixed object creates eddies that are at first large and then, as the turbulence seems to move around and away, they diminish. The late Robert Kraichman, a physicist saw this type of turbulence and wondered if it happened on a larger scale, would the same large to small changes take place. Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Bear Stearns Fire-sale Sends Global Markets and US Dollar Plunging / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Mike_Whitney
“It's a snowball and it keeps getting bigger,” Peggy Furusaka, credit specialist at BNP Paribas SA in Tokyo.
Last night, while America slept, investors and dollar-holders around the world held an impromptu election on US stewardship of the global economy. It was a spontaneous referendum triggered by the sudden collapse of Bear Stearns, but it covered many of the issues that have worried investors for the last seven years: the unfunded Bush tax cuts, the $2 trillion war in Iraq, the Federal Reserves low-interest bubble-making policies, the reckless gutting of US industrial base, the $4 trillion increase to the national debt, the multi-billion dollar “no bid” contracts, the opaque deregulated financial system, and the systematic destruction of the world's reserve currency. The ballots are still being counted, but the outcome is certain.
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Tuesday, March 18, 2008
The Bear Stearns Rescue Fiasco / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Paul_J_Nolte
Eliot Spitzer and Bear Stearns. Not an unlikely couple in a statement in any given week, as Mr. Spitzer was known to take a swing at any financial company that may be doing wrong. However, last week both were bowed low – Eliot by personal demons, Bear Stearns by what may be called an old fashioned run on the bank. Eliot may wind up on the wrong side of prison bars and Bear Stearns may become nothing more than a historical footnote. The Fed and JP Morgan have come to the temporary rescue of Bear Stearns, however given the very intertwined dealings of financial instruments, investors began to wonder how many others might suffer the same fate in the weeks ahead. Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
The Real Bear Stearns Story and the Risks of Systemic Collapse / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
By: John_Mauldin
This week's Outside the Box is going to be a little different. I am going to write about the extraordinary action by the NY Fed to foster the Bear Stearns deal with JP Morgan, and give you three brief notes from Michael Lewitt of Harch Capital Management and Bob Eisenbeis (former executive vice-president of the Federal Reserve of Atlanta) of Cumberland Advisors.
Let's Get Real About Bear Stearns
I already have a slew of emails from people upset about what they see as a bailout of a big bank, decrying the lack of "moral hazard." And I can understand the sentiment, as it appears that tax-payer money may have been used to bail out a big Wall Street bank that acted recklessly in the subprime mortgage markets.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Financial System Crisis Met by Wall of Central Bank Money Leading to Hyperinflation / Stock-Markets / Stagflation
By: Ty_Andros
BEWARE: The Ides of March, aka FIRESTORM! Part II As confidence in US financial institutions and its balance sheets DISSAPEARS so have the investors in them. Liquidity from the private sector has stopped dead in its tracks. As I have outlined in the past, there is no lack of liquidity, only a lack of confidence to deploy as questions of Solvency are now of primary importance. So, now the financial systems' parents at the G10 central banks and the government's fire trucks are on the scene of the 5-alarm blaze pouring liquidity into the fires raging in the financial sector that is Wall Street, Lombard Street and the G7 banking system. Last week's RUN ON THE BANK and the subsequent rescue of Bear Stearns de-marks the latest commitment of Helicopter Ben Bernanke and G10 central bankers to deliver on their recent promises to do “whatever it takes” to combat DEFLATION and protect the banking system within the various nations financial and asset markets.
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Monday, March 17, 2008
US Fed Panic Measures to Avert Financial Meltdown on Bear Stearns Failure / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Money_and_Markets
Martin D. Weiss writes: Last night, when Ben Bernanke cut the discount rate ... made a loan of $30 billion to cement the Bear Stearns buy-out ... and flung open the Fed's coffers to the next major investment banks that may be on the brink of failure ... he must have thought that investors around the world would applaud his actions.
Not quite!
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Monday, March 17, 2008
Bear Stearns Collapses Into Arms of JP Morgan / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The ongoing deleveraging of the $500 trillion derivatives markets claimed its biggest scalp on Sunday - Bear Stearns, formerly one of the worlds top investment banks and now taken over by JP Morgan to prevent a global financial panic, with the aid of funding and guarantees from the US Fed amounting to $30 billion which was reminiscent of the UK Governments bailout of Northern Rock Bank.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, March 17, 2008
Derivatives Dominos Start Falling Threatening Collapse of the Shadow Banking System / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Mike_Whitney
On Friday, Bear Stearns blew up. It was the worst possible news at the worst possible time. A day earlier, the politically-connected Carlyle Capital hedge fund defaulted on $16.6 billion of its debt. Carlyle boasted a $21.7 billion portfolio of AAA-rated residential mortgage-backed securities, but was unable to make a margin call of just $400 million. (Where did the $21.7 billion go?) The news on Bear was the last straw. The stock market started reeling immediately; shedding 300 points in less than an hour. Then, miraculously, the tide shifted and the market began to rebound. If there was ever a time for Paulson's Plunge Protection Team to come to the rescue; this was it.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Bankrupt Bear Stearns Given Away to JP Morgan to Prevent Market Panic / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Chris_Ciovacco
I have been on Wall Street for fifteen years, and fully appreciate how the market will read the "purchase" of Bear Stearns for $2 per share is anybody's guess. As a manager of risk, I see the following:
- It is obvious Bear Stearns was bankrupt and could not have continued as a viable entity.
- Rather than have them declare bankruptcy, the Fed engineered a plan to have JP Morgan "buy" Bear Sterns for $2 per share. A price of $2 per share means the market was too optimistic in the last 14 months when Bear's stock fell from $169.33 in January 2007 to $30 per share as of Friday's close.
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Monday, March 17, 2008
Gold: The Leading Indicator of Systemic Financial Collapse / Stock-Markets / Financial Crash
By: Darryl_R_Schoon
Falling Dominoes Rising Gold - The failure of Windows Vista to improve upon Microsoft's accepted standard is an indication that an era is ending. Another indication—just as obvious and far more significant— US central bank credit is no longer automatically able to create economic expansion. Suddenly, cheap credit does not produce growth. An era is over.Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, March 15, 2008
US Banking System in a Vicious Circle Ending In Systemic Financial Meltdown / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Mike_Whitney
"It's another round of the credit crisis. Some markets are getting worse than January this time. There is fear that something dramatic will happen and that fear is feeding itself," Jesper Fischer-Nielsen, interest rate strategist at Danske Bank, Copenhagen; Reuters
Wednessday's action by the Federal Reserve proves that the banking system is insolvent and the US economy is at the brink of collapse. It also shows that the Fed is willing to intervene directly in the stock market if it keeps equities propped up. This is clearly a violation of its mandate and runs contrary to the basic tenets of a free market. Investors who shorted the market yesterday, got clobbered by the not so invisible hand of the Fed chief.
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Saturday, March 15, 2008
Forward Thinking for the Markets / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Mike_Paulenoff
I am not the only market-watcher who has noticed that although the news seems to get progressively worse for the banks and brokers, and stress to the financial system and the Fed (lender of last resort) gets progressively more intense, the stock indices for the most part have held above their January lows. The Jan. 22 low in the Dow at 11,635, for instance, was tested Monday at 11,732, and perhaps we should consider Friday's low at 11,833 as yet another test -- amidst treacherous news and innuendo about the efficacy of Bear Stearns.Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Over Leveraged Hedge Funds Dancing with the Devil / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Anthony_Cherniawski
Hedge funds are now facing their worst crisis since the 1998 Long Term Capital meltdown. Banks are now raising their collateral requirements even on hedge funds with the best (AAA-rated) assets. Many hedge funds have made money for their wealthy investors by borrowing heavily to buy high quality mortgage securities. Their earnings were made by exploiting the spread between the interest paid on shorter-term loans and the interest earned on the longer-term mortgages. However, they figured if a little debt could magnify returns, then a lot of debt would be that much better. Until, that is, the subprime market caused a hiccup in higher-quality bonds, too. Carlyle Capital , which leveraged its portfolio 32-to-1, collapsed on Thursday after failing to come up with additional capital to protect itself from creditors seizing its assets. One domino after another is falling after the turmoil is forcing other hedge funds to come up with extra capital. The problem is, their assets are also deteriorating, as they cannot find a market, even for their higher-quality debt instruments. Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Asian Emerging Market Stock Market Sell off Excellent Buying Opportunity / Stock-Markets / Chinese Stock Market
By: Yiannis_G_Mostrous
The current market weakness presents an excellent opportunity to buy Asian stocks.
Although the state of the US economy and the global credit crisis is gloomy, and it's on track to remain so for some time, the global financial system won't completely collapse. It seems that the US monetary policy is losing credibility, which will be difficult to restore to previous levels. But the order of the world is changing, and everyone wants to avoid total destruction.
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Friday, March 14, 2008
Big Daily SPX Stock Market Moves Indicative of Bear Markets / Stock-Markets / Stocks Bear Market
By: Zeal_LLC
On Tuesday March 11th, the flagship S&P 500 (SPX) stock index rocketed 3.7% higher in a single trading day! This big rally proved a welcome respite for embattled stock traders. Not only did it nicely boost most sectors, but it temporarily dispelled the oppressive fog of fear billowing out of the mortgage markets.
While it was certainly a profitable day for me as a speculator, I found it far more interesting as a student of the markets. The catalyst for this particular surge as well as the extensive commentary on CNBC about how long it had been since we'd last seen a similar rally led me to ponder big SPX daily moves in general.
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Thursday, March 13, 2008
Financial Stocks Retest of Lows Looks Bullish / Stock-Markets / Banking Stocks
By: Mike_Paulenoff
Deep retest of Monday's low or another tease? Technically I have lots of indicators telling me it is the former and that the Financial Selecct SPDR (AMEX: XLF) is now in the early stages of revisiting Monday's high at 25.91 on the way to 26.50 thereafter.Read full article... Read full article...