Der USA Bären-Thread

Hi Malko,

ich schätze Deine Prognosen und Beiträge wirklich sehr hier (das mal grundsätzlich vorweg). Ich zweifle aber derzeit ziemlich an den oft beschriebenen Inflationsgefahren. Insofern sehe ich zumindest auch in den USA "nur" eine Rezession als eine Stagflation.

Wenn man annimmt, dass sich die USA seit Dezember in einer Rezession befinden, die sich erst noch so richtig entfalten wird, wird das die Geld-Umlaufgeschwindigkeit um einiges verringern. Rohstoffpreise werden ebenfalls wegsacken und damit die Preissteigerungen von dieser Seite abmildern. Ich sehe bei dem ganzen Geplatze derzeit nicht, wie sich die inflationären Tendenzen noch verstärken sollten. Robert Rethfeld beschreibt in seiner heutigen Ausgabe, dass die Erzeugerpreise in US-Rezessionen durchschniittlich 2 Monate nach Rezessionsbeginn ihren Höhepunkt erreichen und dann stark abfallen. Ich denke, diesen Punkt haben wir gerade erreicht.

Gruß,
msms

 

hm, mehr Auflösung Carrytrades USD/JPY als EUR/JPY oder bereits erste Verkäufe europäischer Assets durch amerikanische Investoren (insbesondere Großbanken); die können jetzt Cash sehr gut gebrauchen und bei europäischen (insbes. dt. Aktien) verkauft man in USD gesehen nahe den ATHs  

Jan. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Regions Financial Corp., Capital One Financial Corp. and PNC Financial Services Group Inc. may say bad loans spread to auto, consumer and commercial finance from mortgages, resulting in a record earnings decline for regional U.S. banks.

Fourth-quarter earnings per share at the seven biggest regional banks probably dropped an unprecedented 66 percent, according to Sandler O'Neill & Partners research director Mark Fitzgibbon. It may be ``the mother of all kitchen-sink quarters'' as banks pile on as many write-offs as possible to ensure that few or none occur this year, he said.

Regions Financial, Alabama's biggest bank, told shareholders Jan. 3 that $900 million of loans to homebuilders may not be fully repaid. Capital One, based in McLean, Virginia, has said profit will be 44 percent below analysts' estimates as auto and credit- card debt collections slowed. Pittsburgh-based PNC expects to reduce the value of commercial mortgages by $1.5 billion, while Wachovia Corp., SunTrust Inc. and U.S. Bancorp spent more than $2.5 billion combined to bail out money-market funds......Half of the 30 biggest U.S. banks have lowered their fourth- quarter forecasts because of greater credit costs, George said. None of the 10 largest regional banks will report higher profits, according to Bloomberg's survey of analysts.
San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co., the fifth-largest U.S. bank, may say later today that fourth-quarter earnings declined 38 percent, according to the average estimate of 22 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Wachovia, ranked fourth and based in Charlotte, North Carolina, will give results Jan. 22, along with Regions, ranked 10th and based in Birmingham, Alabama. Capital One follows on Jan. 23.

The KBW Bank Index of 24 large U.S. banks and thrifts declined 25 percent in 2007, led by Washington Mutual Inc., the biggest U.S. thrift, which lost 70 percent. PNC's 11 percent decline was the best return among the largest regional banks....
Merrill Lynch & Co. analyst Ed Najarian expects earnings per share of 12 U.S. banks he covers to decline by a median of 45 percent in the fourth quarter from the previous quarter, with National City Corp., the eighth-biggest U.S. bank, and KeyCorp, ranked 14th, likely to post losses......
SunTrust's weaker profit makes it more likely the Atlanta- based bank, seventh-largest in the U.S., will be acquired, Najarian wrote. JPMorgan Chase & Co., the third-biggest bank, held preliminary talks with Washington Mutual, CNBC reported last week. Speculation also swirled around National City, which moved to raise new capital on Jan. 2 and cut its quarterly dividend in half to 21 cents.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/...d=20601103&sid=agVxAwmAlygY&refer=us  

Es ist ein Wettlauf: EUR/JPY fällt schneller bzw. stärker als USD/JPY. Nach Adam Riese wird dann EUR/USD ebenfalls schwächer.  

Inv-Bank-Sparte Ergebnis:
                                         Q4              Q3
Provision for Credit Losses       200       227

also Loan Loss Provisions runtergefahren;

allerdings:

Average loans retained were $68.9 billion, an increase of $7.0 billion, or 11%, from the prior quarter. Average fair value and held-for-sale loans were $25.0 billion, up $7.7 billion, or 44%, from the prior quarter due to leveraged lending activity.

wie man bei dieser massiven Ausweitung des Portfolios (gerade auch im leveraged lending-Bereich) die LLPs runterfahren kann, bleibt mir unklar; das sieht sehr nach weiteren negativen Überraschungen aus; ich denke da gehört auch mal der CEO ausgetauscht; vorher sehen wir da keine Klarheit.

 

The three wealthiest Japanese finance houses are set to step into the worsening sub-prime carnage as the “silent investment partners” of Wall Street and Europe's stricken banking titans.

Senior sources at the “big three” Tokyo megabanks told The Times that they had readied a combined cashpile of as much as $10 billion (£5 billion) and were open to negotiation with any struggling Wall Street bank that approached them for a cash infusion.

Mitsubishi UFJ (MUFJ), Mitsui Sumitomo Financial Group (SMFG) and Mizuho Financial - banks that have been scarred only very lightly by the sub-prime crisis in the United States - are understood to have already opened preliminary talks with several American firms.

One MUFJ insider said that his firm was planning to compete directly with the leading Asian sovereign wealth funds as a long-term investor in the troubled American banks. The Japanese banks, flush with cash and desperate to find ways of raising their return on capital, are keen to become central players in what some predict will be an all-Asian solution to the sub-prime woes contorting America and Europe. ....Merrill Lynch, one of the Wall Street firms hit hardest by sub-prime investment losses, said that it had secured a $6.6 billion cash injection from a consortium that included Mizuho, together with the Kuwait Investment Authority and the Korean Investment Corporation.The Japanese banks' interest in investing in distressed US banking names comes as they are keen to expand their overseas operations after nearly two decades of timid confinement to their domestic market after the bursting of the Japanese bubble.

The ultra-conservatism of the Japanese banks dates from their own financial crisis that came to a head in 2003 with the collapse of several leading players. But by the end of 2006, the banks had mostly paid back the emergency cash with which the Government rescued them. “With the public money repaid, the Japanese banks are under pressure from investors to use their capital more effectively.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/.../article3193341.ece

und dazu hat naked Capitalism einige böse Bemerkungen:Never ones to miss an opportunity to lose money, the top Japanese banks, finally having recovered from lending against wildly overvalued collateral, and then suffering nearly two decades of working out zombie loans (or more accurately, being insolvent but being allowed to operate anyhow, since reviving the crappy banking sector one has is easier than letting it collapse and trying to start afresh), closing foreign operations, and being forced to consolidate, taking and repaying government loans, are now healthy enough to again take unnecessary and probably unwise risks.

And what do they propose to do? Invest in failing US financial services firms, just like the Chinese and Gulf State sovereign wealth funds. Mizuho, Japan's second largest bank, joined in the latest rescue financing for Citigroup, and the other big banks are ready to join the fray.

Now in the abstract, buying distressed assets can be a phenomenal business, but it generally requires considerable analysis and a cast iron stomach, neither of appears operative with the Japanese plans.....http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/01/...to-rescue-too-to-their.html  

aus dem Retail-Bereich:

"Noninterest revenue was $2.1 billion, up $962 million, benefiting from a valuation adjustment of $499 million on the MSR asset. "

MSR assets sind das Recht Gebühren von Drittparteien einzutreiben, dafür daß man die Verwaltung von Mortgages (Eintreiben der Zahlungen, etc.) übernimmt;
der Wert dieser MSRs sinkt mit steigenden Defaults; also würde mich mal interessieren, wie man da im momentanen Umfeld eine halbe Milliarde Plus machen konnte.  

niedrige Zinsen führen zu einer Entspannung am Hausmarkt:

http://www.mortgagebankers.org/NewsandMedia/PressCenter/59349.htm  

Schon ein paar Tage alt, aber in meinen Augen ein grundlegender Artikel, in dem er auch die Themen Inflation, Deflation und Stagflation behandelt. Ich bin ehrlich gesagt noch dabei, das alles vollständig zu verstehen, aber wenn ich es richtig verstanden habe, beschreibt er auch, warum die Geldmenge M3, auf die sich so oft in Pro-Inflations-Statements bezogen wird mit dem Platzen der Kreditblase deutlich zurückgehen wird.

Insgesamt halte ich seine Artikel für ein echtes Muss.

 

Das ist der schlafmangel.
Bin wiederholt seit ca. einer Woche am Stück erst um 05:00 ins Bett.

Jaaaa, heute ist in der Tat erst Mittwoch!
Aus der Erinnerung, meine ich noch zu wissen, dass die Rede an einem Donnerstag sei.

Du hast recht, denke, ich- kanns nur leider gerade nicht nachprüfen!  

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-does-one-invest-for-muddle-through.html  

Als Antizykliker leuchtet daher bei mir jetzt das gelbe Warnlämpchen an. Zudem ist der Dax wie von mir erwartet bis unter 7500 vorgestoßen, dem 1. Haltebereich.

Mal sehen was ich heute mache, das hängt auch von USA ab. Wenn dort nämlich heute Panik angesagt ist senkt Benni morgen die Zinsen. Beruhigt sich die Lage aber, können die Bären zumindest im Dax weiter hoffen und alles geht seinen geregelten Gang -> nach unten.

Also: Bricht der SP heute nach unten durch werde ich zumindest ca. 1/2 Shorts versilbern, da mir proportional zu meiner Posi das Benny-PPT-Risiko zu groß wird.  

wir sind mal wieder 100% einer Meinung.
Wenn ehute Panik angesagt ist, sind die Zinsen morgen eine Stufe tiefer.  

Marc Faber Interview von letzter Woche sinngemäß: Märkte werden in den nächsten Tage Boden finden, dann einige Wochen hoch bevor es richtig runter geht. ;-)

Will dich aber nicht beeinflussen, du hast diesen Zyklus bisher hervorragend "geshortet". Werde dich für den "Großen Bären Orden" vorschlagen. ;-)  

Ich würde jetzt covern und nicht mit SL arbeiten, das verschenkt sonst Performance. Nur meine bescheidene Meinung...  

Ratchet Provisions

Minyan Peter was talking about "Ratchet Provisions" in Citigroup and Merrill Lynch convertibles.

   In the terms for both the Merrill (MER) and Citigroup (C), convertible transactions are "ratchet" provisions. For those not familiar with the term, when an issuer agrees to a ratchet, it gives the security holder the right obtain better terms in the future under certain conditions.

   Specifically, (and in a nutshell) should Merrill issue more than $1.0 of additional convertible equity, or Citigroup $5.0 billion in the next year at a lower conversion price, the holders of the deals announced this morning can get the new price.For existing Citigroup/Merrill shareholders, should such a further capital raise occur at a lower stock price, their dilution will be significantly compounded because of the ratchet.

   At least to me, the inclusion of a "ratchet" for both of these companies suggests that, while still available, the true price for incremental capital has gone up significantly.
Professor Andrew Jeffery is noting that Citi Underpins Consumer Struggles.

   In many ways, Citigroup is representative of the American consumer, lulled to sleep by years of unprecedented prosperity while it ignored a ballooning balance sheet supported by fewer and fewer real dollars of income. Though its subprime losses were certainly the catalyst for the recent management shakeup and capital restructuring, Citigroup and the consumer’s current struggles underpin something much more fundamental about the sustainability of debt-induced expansion.

Citigroup 4th Quarter 2007 Presentation

Following are a few charts from Citigroup's 4th Quarter 2007 Presentation.



The above charts tell a sad story. Citi had losses on Subprime, consumer credit, and headcount reductions. Cost of capital is going up with ratchet provisions.Like it or not, Citigroup is going to have to start selling off business units to raise more capital. By the time all is said and done, Citigroup is likely to be a mere shadow of its former self.  

... oder willst Du ernsthaft short sein, wenn Benny mit seiner "Überraschungs-Zinssenkung" kommt?  

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/  

also soviel Überraschung ist da auch nicht mehr;
 

Aber ich denke, ihr habt auch euren Schnitt gemacht. relaxed eher sporadisch, AS z.B. mit Baidu (werde dort wie mit dir besprochen nach der Erholung ebenfalls short gehen...)

Marc Faber als Permabär hat mich noch nie viel interessiert, aber nun ist wohl die Zeit wo seine kaputte Uhr "richtiggeht". Ein Hoch also auf unseren Teilzeit-Messias, den König der Bären schlechthin!

Es ist nur noch eine Frage der Zeit bis dieser Downmove von einer Bearmarket-Rally abgelöst wird, also nicht zu gierig werden, liebe Mitbären! Und nicht vergessen, long zu gehen, das habe ich zumindest vor wenn die Bodenbildung abgeschlossen ist...  

Hab heut bei 7465 glattgestellt und freu mich jetzt mal ne runde ...
Jetzt heißt´s mal abwarten und beobachten.
Bei einer Stärke bin ich bereit reinzuverkaufen, jedoch nur, wenns eine technische Gegenrektion ist. Gegen Zinssenkungs-Rally stellt ich mich sicher nicht.
metro: auch ich würd zumindest einen Teil in die nächste Tagesschwäche realisieren und nicht alles den Stops überlassen.  

Ich habe auch so ein dummes Gefühl, dass demnächst was in der Richtung passiert, die Stimmung ist so bearisch, dass Benny mehr als 50bp senken muss. Da er sicher nicht am 30. Jan 75 oder mehr bp senkt, wird er vermutlich einen Teil schon vorziehen.  

Ich werde also deinen Rat wohlwollend berücksichtigen *grins* (mehr dann hier im Thread).  

Anleihen von Gebietskörperschaften und kommunalen Einrichtungen galten bislang als fast so sicher wie Bundesanleihen, obwohl sie z.T. deutlich höhere Renditen boten und bieten. Diese Einschätzung ist jedoch im Wandel begriffen:

January 15, 2008

Ambac Now Has a Municipal Bond Issue to Worry About - I´m not going to say I told you so

by Reggie Middleton
 

I'll make this one quick and clean. From the blog post dated Thursday, 29 November 2007 - Ambac is Effectively Insolvent & Will See More than $8 Billion of Losses with Just a $2.26 Billion in Equity!:

"The calculations in this analysis are only estimated losses in 4 insured categories (of many, they are enough to generate significant losses). I am expecting higher losses in Public Finance as well due to the loss of property tax revenues (lower tax base) and income tax revenues led by housing value declines and loss of corporate revenue and jobs, respectively. Many municipalities created huge budgets during bubble times (like everyone else) and failed to prepare for the bubble to burst. Now unfunded services run rampant. The shortfall will have to be covered somewhere, and default on debt service is not out of the question.

In the base case scenario created, we expect the company to report losses to the tune of $8 billion+ in its Structured Finance, Subprime RMBS and the Consumer Finance portfolio. This loss will wipe out the company's remaining equity and it will need to raise an additional $2 billion in order to function as an ongoing concern. Moreover, we think the company will need to reinsure a higher percentage of its portfolio in order to transfer risk and free up capital."

The ironic thing is that this particular post encompassed an awful lot of research and calculation, but was derided by many as being too tabloidal and not credible - despite the fact that this post and the three that followed it on Ambac contained more data and analysis (over 80 pages worth) than any Ambac commentary I have seen freely offered on the web to date, save Ackman's Pershing presentation. Two things of note here: 1) the majority are usually overly optimistic at the onset of a bursting bubble, and 2) nothing takes the place of good 'ole fashion, thorough fundamental analysis. It appears the post is rather prescient in light of the following.

From Bloomberg.com:

Wells Fargo & Co. put out a little notice dated Jan. 2 in its role as trustee on a bond issue sold in 2000 by the director of the state of Nevada, Department of Business and Industry.

"The Bonds are scheduled to pay principal and interest in the aggregate amount of $19,013,846.88 on January 1, 2008," says the Notice, which continues: "However, amounts available in the 1st Tier Debt Service Fund and the 2nd Tier Debt Service Fund are insufficient to pay all amounts of principal and interest coming due on that day."

The trustee goes on to report that, in order to make the Jan. 1 debt service payment, it dipped into the debt service reserve funds, taking $1,620,907.02 from the First Tier fund and $762,896.30 from the Second Tier fund.

Withdrawing money from the reserve funds is never a good sign; depending upon how the issuer defines "default" in its documents, it may even signify a so-called event of default. Not to worry, bondholders -- even if the trustee draws down all of the reserve funds -- the First Tier bonds are insured!

By Ambac Financial Group Inc.

"Will there be an Ambac if or when this particular municipal bond issue taps out? Investors have to hope so...

Perhaps I should mention that the issuer of those bonds guaranteed by Ambac back in 2000 was the "Director of the State of Nevada, Department of Business and Industry," but the state has no obligation to repay them. No, the $451 million in First Tier bonds helped build and are secured by the Las Vegas Monorail...

And, hey, let's face it, Las Vegas! Who ever lost money in Las Vegas, right?..

The high-yield muni market came crashing down just a couple of weeks after the monorail bonds were sold, when Heartland Advisors of Milwaukee told investors that it had decided to cut the value of its High-Yield Municipal Bond Fund by 70 percent, and its High Yield Short Duration Muni Fund by 55 percent...

An internal pricing committee had found that it was almost impossible to determine what a lot of the bonds in the funds were worth. Sound familiar? I'm not sure the high-yield muni market has ever come back.

And when will that be? The First Tier fund began life with almost $21 million, the Second Tier with a little more than $14 million. In lowering the credit rating on the bonds last July 10, to CC from CCC, Fitch Ratings said it expected "internal liquidity" to last "for, at best, three years."

I suspect a taxpayer bailout long before that occurs, but you never know. Ambac, if there is one, may yet be called upon to make those debt service payments."

Of course, after the November blog post, Ambac had to go for additional reinsurance, and of course I didn't like how it went down. See Moody's Affirms Ratings of Ambac and MBIA & Loses any Credibilty They May Have Had Left:

"Ambac buys reinsurance from Assured Guarantee, a company in the same business as Ambac taking very similar losses, and it gets to retain its AAA rating??? Doesn't anyone see concentration risk and an uncomfortable amount of correlation here, or is it just me?

Assured Guaranty reported a net loss of $115.0 million, or $1.70 per diluted share, for the quarter ended September 30, 2007 compared to net income of $37.9 million, or $0.51 per diluted share, for the third quarter of 2006. The decline in net income was primarily due to an after-tax unrealized mark-to-market loss on derivatives (hey, isn't that what Ambac and MBIA said as well?) that was announced by the Company on October 22, 2007 of $162.9 million, or $2.40 per diluted share, on financial guaranties written in credit default swap ("CDS") contract form. As of November 30th (38 days later), it reported that it has after tax mark to market losses of $220 million. They are averaging one and a half million dollars per day in value loss, with this rate bound to accelerate in the very near future (they only had $1.6 million in 9/06 - that's a 200x increase). The macro conditions that brought upon the CDS (paper) loss are getting much worse, not better as the trend clearly indicates. About 70% of the unrealized CDS loss stems from RMBS and CMBS swaps. Well, you know how I feel about the residential market. Here is how I feel about the commercial market. Things are about to get much worse. Despite all of this, AGO now accepts $29 billion of additional ceded risk from one of the most dangerous monoline portfolios in the business. I am appalled!

I hear a lot of people crooning about this being only paper losses, and not actual claims until payment is defaulted or missed or principal is actually and materially impaired before maturity. Well, it is happening now, and in droves. AGO's management laments on how they have minimal exposure and losses to direct subprime liabilities, which appears to be true with a casual glance at their reporting, but the devil is again, in the details. Aside from 75% of AGO's mortgage portfolio being in the most toxic vintages of 2006 and 2007 (which most likely will lead to problems down the line), they have a strong correlation in product mix with Ambac, the company they just reinsured $29 billion of exposure. Ambac's loss exposure is stemming primarily from their structure product and consumer finance guarantees, not their residential mortgages, per se. Structured finance in particular is what got them in trouble. There is no real loss history on this stuff, because it is brand new and the losses that are being witnessed now are tremendous. Well, hazard a guess as to where the majority of Assured's earned premium comes from? That's right, structured finance. As of 9/30/07, it was 58%. Now, with the acquisition of Ambac's risk, and of course depending on exactly what it was that was actually reinsured (we don't really know yet, do we?) it will/can definitely shoot upwards, significantly upwards. No matter which way you look at it, there is a VERY high concentration of risk, especially in an area with no real discernible loss history and the only real discernible losses being significant. Compare and contrast to the actuarial loss histories used in life, vanilla P&C, and health lines - we're talking multiples of decades (like 50 - 60 years+), not just a few years as in CDOs. That is REAL insurance. This new fangled, financially (not so)engineered, structured product guarantee business is gambling with shareholders capital, pure and simple - slot machines - Vegas style!"

Speaking of "Vegas style", isn't that where the allegedely low risk/no loss muni bond insurance book is at risk of taking a haircut. The prophetic pun intended, of course.  

 

also gerade so an der 0,3 vorbeigeschrammt;
3-monats annualised Core hoch von 2,6 auf 2,7