8/12/07 Commercial Paper
WCI Communities release: "We anticipate reporting total revenues of approximately $241.8 million and a net loss of approximately $16.9 million for the three months ended June 30, 2007 as compared to total revenues of $527.7 million and net income of $22.7 million for the three months ended June 30, 2006. The decreases are a result of the continuing softening in demand for new homes in our markets, as well as recognition of real estate impairment losses. We have not completed our analysis related to real estate impairments; therefore, our actual results of operations could materially differ from our anticipated results. (Quarterly revenue consensus is $244.05 million)."
According to the WSJ, Beazer is delaying its quarterly filing, citing possible problems with how its former accounting chief recorded liabilities.
Goldman Sachs' largest hedge fund is Global Alpha. It is down 26% this year.
On Tuesday, Tribune shareholders vote on the proposed $34 a share going private transaction.
Randall Forsyth of Barron's: "Now, so-called asset-backed commercial paper is backed by all matter of things, from credit cards and auto loans to collateralized debt obligations, and comprises over half the CP outstanding. Moreover, notes MacroMavens' Stephanie Pomboy, money-market funds own 27% of CP outstanding...A Fed rate cut that sends the dollar tumbling could have a perverse effect...If there is an exodus of foreign capital fleeing the a declining dollar, credit could tighten even as the Fed eases. Be careful of what you wish for."
The Financial Times: "The CP market plays a crucial role in the financial system, since it is where banks and other investment vehicles normally raise funds. In recent days, it appears that some CP investors have quietly stopped funding various investment vehicles, such as structured investment vehicles linked to European banks that hold asset-backed securities."
According to the WSJ, asset-backed commercial paper accounts for about half the $2.2 trillion commercial-paper market.
Balestra Capital's James Melcher: "The equity market is just a sideshow to the main event, which is the bursting of the credit-market bubble."
LA Times: "As foreclosures and default warnings pile up across Southern California, thousands of people are losing their homes because they can't pay their mortgages. Thousands more are losing their jobs or seeing their incomes shrink. Realtors, plumbers, loan officers, truck drivers -- the effects of the stumbling housing market are widespread and, by many accounts, growing."
Brett Steenbarger: "Anyway, I went back to 1996 (N = 2891 trading days) and found only four occasions in which we had a prior overnight session down by 1% or more followed by a day session down by 1% or more and a current overnight session down by 1% or more. Interestingly, these short-term waterfall declines tended to occur at key junctures near intermediate lows in bear markets: 9/21/01 (after the 9/11 incident); 10/28/97; 4/17/2000; and 10/1/98. Three of the four occasions rose very sharply during the subsequent day session (over 3%) after dipping very little after the open. The one occasion that was down during the day session (by a little over 1%), recovered to a gain the following day.
I relaxed the criteria to look for occasions in which the prior overnight session, prior day session, and most recent overnight session were each down .50% or more (N = 16). When we look two days out (to the close of the *following* day's trade), the market was up 12 times, down 4 for an average gain of 2.20%--much stronger than the average gain of .01% for the market overall during the remainder of the sample."
The IEA keep its forecast for production and demand unchanged from June report. It expects consumption in 2007 of 86.0m b/d, rising in 2008 to 88.2m b/d. Non-Opec output this year will be at 50.0m b/d and next year will increase to 51.0m b/d.
According to The Financial Times, Citigroup "lost more than $500m in credit business in recent weeks, making it one of the biggest casualties of the crisis." The paper added "the losses were made largely in the structured credit business run by Michael Raynes."
According to Bloomberg, emerging-market stocks fell a second day, sending the benchmark index more than 10 percent below its July 23 peak, on concern a widening credit crunch in the developed world will crimp demand for exports.
Doug Noland: "The longer Credit excesses inflate asset prices, corporate earnings, and household incomes - the more seductive the Myth that the underlying Credit instruments are increasingly safe and liquid...Each near crisis surmounted leads to only greater confidence in the underlying Credit system and the capacity for the authorities to sustain the expansion - each period of greater excess layers more dangerous layers of risk on top of an increasingly fragile pyramid of risk...And, let there be no doubt, the sophisticated leveraged speculating community took complete advantage of this extraordinary liquidity backdrop. I really believe that if there had been no extended GSE boom – there would have been no Mortgage Finance Bubble – no Wall Street "Structured Finance" Bubble – no derivatives Bubble – and no protracted economic consumption-based U.S. economic boom. Unavoidable liquidity crisis would have nipped all in the bud some years ago...de-leveraging these days has quickly incited contagious marketplace illiquidity and a highly disruptive reversal of speculative flows from mortgage-related instruments, along with the very real risk of a mortgage Credit collapse and financial markets liquidity dislocation... Key facets of “contemporary finance” are on the line. The entire process of Wall Street Credit and Risk Intermediation is today in jeopardy...There are literally Trillions of dollars of impaired debt instruments – previously “top-rated” securities that will never live up to their (fallacious) billing...The bottom line is that these securities were misconceived as “money-like” from day one, and the marketplace has shifted to the recognition that they are instead highly risky and inappropriate for most investment vehicles, as well as for leveraged strategies. This radical change in market perceptions is wreaking bloody havoc on the untested Credit derivatives marketplace...As much as I recognize the traditional role of central banks as liquidity providers of last resort, I just sense that being forced to move this early – with global stock markets at near record highs – provides confirmation of the Acute Fragility of the global Credit system. Such moves would appear to risk further destabilizing already highly unstable global markets, especially currency markets. This does look to me as a Run on Wall Street Finance – and an absolute mess."
Mike Shedlock: "And if banks are extremely unwilling to lend money right now, what makes anyone think banks would be willing to lend more money after a measly 25 or 50 basis point cut in an economy that is clearly slowing rapidly?"
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Friday, August 10, 2007
Volatility And Liquidity
8/11/07 Volatility And Liquidity
French insurance giant AXA SA on Thursday reported owning a 13 percent passive stake in private-equity firm Blackstone Group LP through its U.S. subsidiary, according to a regulatory filing. The Paris-based conglomerate, Europe's second-largest by market value, beneficially owns roughly 30.4 million shares of Blackstone, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The RBC Cash Index showed that consumer confidence rose to 89.3 in August. That marked a bounceback from July's 76.1, the worst reading in almost a year. The new reading was the best since March. The index is based on the results of the international polling firm Ipsos.
Brady Willett: "The central bank support that Cramer was crying for last week arrived, and it didn't work. A funny thing happened during today’s central bank bailout attempt: the markets plunged. Is it just me, or when central bankers unite and throw money at a problem isn’t that problem supposed to go away...But what if central bank bailouts fail again and the markets tank?"
The European Central Bank again moved to boost liquidity in markets suffering from the subprime credit crisis Friday by lending banks a further 61 billion euros ($84 billion) in a three-day tender offer. The move comes on top of the roughly 95 billion euros the central bank provided on Thursday. The Bank of Japan infused one trillion yen ($8.48 billion) into the local money market, after the overnight call rate, the interest rate on inter-bank borrowings, rose above the central bank's target rate of 0.5%, according to wire service reports. The Reserve Bank of Australia, on the other hand, injected A$4.95 billion ($4.17 billion) into Australia's financial system, double the A$2.44 billion needed and other foreign central bankers joined in on the thrust of liquidity. Meanwhile, the British Bankers' Association said that the dollar overnight London interbank offered rate -- a measure of the interest rate at which banks lend money to each other -- rose to 5.96% Friday from 5.86% the previous day. Overnight rates had previously jumped from around 5.35% on Wednesday.
In a statement, the Fed said it will provide reserves "as necessary" through open market operations to promote trading in the federal funds market at rates close to 5.25%. Earlier Friday, the New York Federal Reserve said the Fed bought $19 billion in three-day repurchase agreements in mortgage-backed securities. In its statement, the Fed said banks may experience "unusual funding needs because of dislocations in money and credit markets." Then, in a second move, the Fed made a second round of 3-day repurchase agreement, totaling $16 billion. The Federal Reserve added $3 billion of funds to the U.S. financial system, making the third injection of reserves for the day and bringing the Friday total to $38 billion.The Federal Reserve added $3 billion of funds to the U.S. financial system, making the third injection of reserves for the day and bringing the Friday total to $38 billion. By comparison, the Fed added $7.5 billion through 3-day repurchase agreements last Friday. The last time the central bank made a similar statement was after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, when it also said it would do what was necessary to keep markets functioning normally. The Fed had made a similar vow in October 1987 following a precipitous decline in U.S. stock markets.
Stocks in Japan and Hong Kong and Europe fell by more than 2.5 percent.
Nouriel Roubini: "But the current market turmoil is much worse than the liquidity crisis experienced by the US and the global economy in the 1998 LTCM episode. Let me explain why. Economists distinguish between liquidity crises and insolvency/debt crises. An agent (household, firm, financial corporation, country) can experience distress either because it is illiquid or because it is insolvent; of course insolvent agents are – in most cases - also illiquid, i.e. they cannot roll over their debts. Illiquidity occurs when the agent is solvent – i.e. it could pay its debts over time as long as such debts can be refinanced or rolled over - but he/she experiences a sudden liquidity crisis, i.e. its creditors are unwilling to roll over or refinance its claims. An insolvent debtor does not only face a liquidity problem (large amounts of debts coming to maturity, little stock of liquid reserves and no ability to refinance). It is also insolvent as it could not pay its claim over time even if there was no liquidity problem; thus, debt crises are more severe than illiquidity crises as they imply that the debtor is insolvent, i.e. bankrupt, and its debt claims will be defaulted and reduced. In emerging market crises of the last decade, we had liquidity crises (i.e. a solvent but illiquid sovereign) in Mexico, Korea, Brazil, Turkey; we had debt/insolvency crises (a sovereign that was both illiquid and insolvent) in Russia, Ecuador, Argentina...
Today we do not have only a liquidity crisis like in 1998; we also have a insolvency/debt crisis among a variety of borrowers that overborrowed excessively during the boom phase of the latest Minsky credit bubble.
First, you have hundreds of thousands of US households who are insolvent on their mortgages...You also have lots of insolvent mortgage lenders...You will also have – soon enough – plenty of insolvent home builders...Now that we are observing a liquidity and credit crunch and a vast widening of credit spread you will observe a sharp increase in corporate defaults and a further risk in corporate risk spreads.
Insolvent and bankrupt households, mortgage lenders, home builders, leveraged hedge funds and asset managers, and non-financial corporations. This is not just a liquidity crisis like in the 1998 LTCM episode. This is rather a liquidity crisis that signals a more fundamental debt, credit and insolvency crisis among many economic agents in the US and global economy. Liquidity runs can be resolved by the liquidity injections by a lender of last resort: in the cases of the liquidity crises of Mexico, Korea, Turkey, Brazil that international lender of last resort was the IMF; but in the insolvency crises of Russia, Argentina, and Ecudaor the provision of the liquidity by the lender of last resort – the IMF – only postponed the inevitable default and made the eventual crisis deeper and uglier. And provision of liquidity during an insolvency crisis causes moral hazard as it creates expectations of investors’ bailout. Thus, while the Fed and the ECB had no option today but to provide massive liquidity in the presence of a most severe liquidity crunch and run, they should not delude themselves that this liquidity injections can resolve the deep insolvency problems of many overstretched borrowers: households, financial institutions, corporates. Insolvency/credit crises lead to financial and economic distress – hard landing of economies – and cannot be resolved with liquidity injections by a lender of last resort. And now the vicious circle of a weakening US economy – with a housing recession getting worse and a fatigued consumer being at the tipping point - and a generalized credit crunch sharply has increased the probability that the US economy will experience a hard landing. We are indeed at a "Minsky Moment" and this recent financial turmoil is the beginning of a much more serious and protracted US and global credit crunch. The risks of a systemic crisis are rising: liquidity injections and lender of last resort bail out of insolvent borrowers - however necessary and unavoidable during a liquidity panic- will not work; they will only postpone and exacerbate the eventual and unavoidable insolvencies."
Brett Steenbarger: "I went back to 1996 (N = 2891 trading days) and found only four occasions in which we had a prior overnight session down by 1% or more followed by a day session down by 1% or more and a current overnight session down by 1% or more. Interestingly, these short-term waterfall declines tended to occur at key junctures near intermediate lows in bear markets: 9/21/01 (after the 9/11 incident); 10/28/97; 4/17/2000; and 10/1/98. Three of the four occasions rose very sharply during the subsequent day session (over 3%) after dipping very little after the open. The one occasion that was down during the day session (by a little over 1%), recovered to a gain the following day."
U.S. import prices rose 1.5% in July, the sixth straight monthly increase and the biggest gain since March, the Labor Department said Friday. Economists were expecting import prices to rise 1.1%. Imported petroleum prices rose 7.0% in July, also the largest gain since March. Imported natural gas prices fell 7.6%, the largest drop since January. Prices of imported foods rose 1.6% and are up 9.8% year-on-year, the largest yearly increase since May 1995. Prices of imports excluding petroleum rose 0.2%. Import prices excluding all fuels rose 0.3% and are up 2.2% in the past 12 months. Meanwhile, prices of U.S. exports rose 0.2%.
Singapore's economy expanded by 8.6% in the second quarter from a year ago, on robust growth in the financial services and construction sectors, government data showed Friday.
China reported its second biggest monthly trade surplus on record. The surplus in July was $24.36bn, down from June’s record high of $26.91bn, but above forecasts of $22.5bn and dwarfing the July 2006 figure of $14.6bn.
U.S. stocks are at the beginning of a bear market in which benchmark indexes may fall more than 30 percent, Marc Faber said.
Eugene Robinson: "Bush doesn't care what anybody else thinks. He doesn't care that the Iraqi government has failed to meet its political benchmarks. He doesn't care that Maliki is getting so cozy with the mullahs in Tehran. He doesn't care that Republicans in Washington are getting so nervous about having to face an election with the war still raging and no end in sight. Bush laid out his Iraq policy yesterday in plain language, with none of his recent gibberish about al-Qaeda in Pakistan being the same as al-Qaeda in Iraq, only different, but really the same, kind of. This time we heard the classic neocon analysis -- the same grand vision that got us into this mess. If Bush hasn't changed his mind by now, he ain't gonna."
Countrywide Financial Plummets On 'Unprecedented Disruptions' In Secondary Mortgage Market.
Richard Daughty: "With all the losses in mortgage securities, I guess it is surprising that Required Reserves in the banks are still hovering at the same measly $41 billion in Total Reserves that the banks have been reporting since 1999. In short, reported Bank Reserves have not increased by so much as a thin dime in eight years of rampant additions to the levels of deposits, levels of loans, levels of debt, and levels of the money supply created by the banks, mostly because they found that they can get away with it simply because nobody ever tried to stop them!"
Yahoo Inc. President Susan Decker purchased about $1.1 million of the Internet company's shares this week just after the stock hit a three-year low. The buy was Decker's first ever open-market stock purchase.
For the first 10 months of the fiscal year, the federal deficit has totaled $157 billion.
Gold for December delivery rose $8.80 to close at $681.60 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Crude oil for September delivery closed down 12 cents at $71.47 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Natural gas gained 25 cents and closed at $6.84.
James Picerno: "Tactically, Thursday's efforts to ease anxieties by effectively printing more money are really just more of the same policy biases that have been in effect for years. Arguably, the Fed and ECB don't have much choice at the moment. But that raises questions anew: How did we get pushed into a corner where printing money is at once the problem and the solution? More importantly, what does the constraint imply for the future?"
As we enter the weekend, one might consider the problems surrounding the ability to rollover commercial paper. Yields on asset-backed commercial paper rated A1, the second-highest short-term rating by Standard & Poor's, and maturing the next day rose 20 basis points to 5.56 percent, the highest since March 2001, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The increase is the biggest since September 2005. National Australia Bank has told some issuers of promissory notes and other forms of commercial paper that it will not be able to support programs that fail to secure backing from institutional investors. In a letter to clients yesterday, the bank warns that prospective issuers of commercial paper should "expect volume and pricing challenges".
Between the Hedges: "Investor angst is at levels normally associated with meaningful market bottoms. The NYSE Arms hit a very elevated 2.97 this morning. The VIX is at the highest level since early 2003. The ISE Sentiment Index 10-day moving average is at the second lowest reading on record. The CBOE total put/call 10-day moving average is also at the second highest reading on record. Money market funds, this week, saw $36 billion in inflows, the most since 2005."
I continue to ponder how much forced selling has resulted from the unwinding of risk in leveraged products. How much is left? That's a big question mark.
Peter Schiff: "For years, Americans have been able to pay for enormous trade deficits by exchanging IOU's for imported consumer goods. Unfortunately for foreign creditors, a substantial percentage of those IOU's have recently taken the form of mortgaged backed securities. Sporting higher yields than Treasury bonds, investment grade ratings from reputable agencies, and juicy commissions for the investment banks that packaged them, these structured mortgage bonds have quickly become America's greatest export. Ironically, amid all the recent hoopla about defective Chinese exports, America has proved that when it comes to flooding the world with shoddy merchandise, nobody beats the good old USA."
French insurance giant AXA SA on Thursday reported owning a 13 percent passive stake in private-equity firm Blackstone Group LP through its U.S. subsidiary, according to a regulatory filing. The Paris-based conglomerate, Europe's second-largest by market value, beneficially owns roughly 30.4 million shares of Blackstone, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The RBC Cash Index showed that consumer confidence rose to 89.3 in August. That marked a bounceback from July's 76.1, the worst reading in almost a year. The new reading was the best since March. The index is based on the results of the international polling firm Ipsos.
Brady Willett: "The central bank support that Cramer was crying for last week arrived, and it didn't work. A funny thing happened during today’s central bank bailout attempt: the markets plunged. Is it just me, or when central bankers unite and throw money at a problem isn’t that problem supposed to go away...But what if central bank bailouts fail again and the markets tank?"
The European Central Bank again moved to boost liquidity in markets suffering from the subprime credit crisis Friday by lending banks a further 61 billion euros ($84 billion) in a three-day tender offer. The move comes on top of the roughly 95 billion euros the central bank provided on Thursday. The Bank of Japan infused one trillion yen ($8.48 billion) into the local money market, after the overnight call rate, the interest rate on inter-bank borrowings, rose above the central bank's target rate of 0.5%, according to wire service reports. The Reserve Bank of Australia, on the other hand, injected A$4.95 billion ($4.17 billion) into Australia's financial system, double the A$2.44 billion needed and other foreign central bankers joined in on the thrust of liquidity. Meanwhile, the British Bankers' Association said that the dollar overnight London interbank offered rate -- a measure of the interest rate at which banks lend money to each other -- rose to 5.96% Friday from 5.86% the previous day. Overnight rates had previously jumped from around 5.35% on Wednesday.
In a statement, the Fed said it will provide reserves "as necessary" through open market operations to promote trading in the federal funds market at rates close to 5.25%. Earlier Friday, the New York Federal Reserve said the Fed bought $19 billion in three-day repurchase agreements in mortgage-backed securities. In its statement, the Fed said banks may experience "unusual funding needs because of dislocations in money and credit markets." Then, in a second move, the Fed made a second round of 3-day repurchase agreement, totaling $16 billion. The Federal Reserve added $3 billion of funds to the U.S. financial system, making the third injection of reserves for the day and bringing the Friday total to $38 billion.The Federal Reserve added $3 billion of funds to the U.S. financial system, making the third injection of reserves for the day and bringing the Friday total to $38 billion. By comparison, the Fed added $7.5 billion through 3-day repurchase agreements last Friday. The last time the central bank made a similar statement was after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, when it also said it would do what was necessary to keep markets functioning normally. The Fed had made a similar vow in October 1987 following a precipitous decline in U.S. stock markets.
Stocks in Japan and Hong Kong and Europe fell by more than 2.5 percent.
Nouriel Roubini: "But the current market turmoil is much worse than the liquidity crisis experienced by the US and the global economy in the 1998 LTCM episode. Let me explain why. Economists distinguish between liquidity crises and insolvency/debt crises. An agent (household, firm, financial corporation, country) can experience distress either because it is illiquid or because it is insolvent; of course insolvent agents are – in most cases - also illiquid, i.e. they cannot roll over their debts. Illiquidity occurs when the agent is solvent – i.e. it could pay its debts over time as long as such debts can be refinanced or rolled over - but he/she experiences a sudden liquidity crisis, i.e. its creditors are unwilling to roll over or refinance its claims. An insolvent debtor does not only face a liquidity problem (large amounts of debts coming to maturity, little stock of liquid reserves and no ability to refinance). It is also insolvent as it could not pay its claim over time even if there was no liquidity problem; thus, debt crises are more severe than illiquidity crises as they imply that the debtor is insolvent, i.e. bankrupt, and its debt claims will be defaulted and reduced. In emerging market crises of the last decade, we had liquidity crises (i.e. a solvent but illiquid sovereign) in Mexico, Korea, Brazil, Turkey; we had debt/insolvency crises (a sovereign that was both illiquid and insolvent) in Russia, Ecuador, Argentina...
Today we do not have only a liquidity crisis like in 1998; we also have a insolvency/debt crisis among a variety of borrowers that overborrowed excessively during the boom phase of the latest Minsky credit bubble.
First, you have hundreds of thousands of US households who are insolvent on their mortgages...You also have lots of insolvent mortgage lenders...You will also have – soon enough – plenty of insolvent home builders...Now that we are observing a liquidity and credit crunch and a vast widening of credit spread you will observe a sharp increase in corporate defaults and a further risk in corporate risk spreads.
Insolvent and bankrupt households, mortgage lenders, home builders, leveraged hedge funds and asset managers, and non-financial corporations. This is not just a liquidity crisis like in the 1998 LTCM episode. This is rather a liquidity crisis that signals a more fundamental debt, credit and insolvency crisis among many economic agents in the US and global economy. Liquidity runs can be resolved by the liquidity injections by a lender of last resort: in the cases of the liquidity crises of Mexico, Korea, Turkey, Brazil that international lender of last resort was the IMF; but in the insolvency crises of Russia, Argentina, and Ecudaor the provision of the liquidity by the lender of last resort – the IMF – only postponed the inevitable default and made the eventual crisis deeper and uglier. And provision of liquidity during an insolvency crisis causes moral hazard as it creates expectations of investors’ bailout. Thus, while the Fed and the ECB had no option today but to provide massive liquidity in the presence of a most severe liquidity crunch and run, they should not delude themselves that this liquidity injections can resolve the deep insolvency problems of many overstretched borrowers: households, financial institutions, corporates. Insolvency/credit crises lead to financial and economic distress – hard landing of economies – and cannot be resolved with liquidity injections by a lender of last resort. And now the vicious circle of a weakening US economy – with a housing recession getting worse and a fatigued consumer being at the tipping point - and a generalized credit crunch sharply has increased the probability that the US economy will experience a hard landing. We are indeed at a "Minsky Moment" and this recent financial turmoil is the beginning of a much more serious and protracted US and global credit crunch. The risks of a systemic crisis are rising: liquidity injections and lender of last resort bail out of insolvent borrowers - however necessary and unavoidable during a liquidity panic- will not work; they will only postpone and exacerbate the eventual and unavoidable insolvencies."
Brett Steenbarger: "I went back to 1996 (N = 2891 trading days) and found only four occasions in which we had a prior overnight session down by 1% or more followed by a day session down by 1% or more and a current overnight session down by 1% or more. Interestingly, these short-term waterfall declines tended to occur at key junctures near intermediate lows in bear markets: 9/21/01 (after the 9/11 incident); 10/28/97; 4/17/2000; and 10/1/98. Three of the four occasions rose very sharply during the subsequent day session (over 3%) after dipping very little after the open. The one occasion that was down during the day session (by a little over 1%), recovered to a gain the following day."
U.S. import prices rose 1.5% in July, the sixth straight monthly increase and the biggest gain since March, the Labor Department said Friday. Economists were expecting import prices to rise 1.1%. Imported petroleum prices rose 7.0% in July, also the largest gain since March. Imported natural gas prices fell 7.6%, the largest drop since January. Prices of imported foods rose 1.6% and are up 9.8% year-on-year, the largest yearly increase since May 1995. Prices of imports excluding petroleum rose 0.2%. Import prices excluding all fuels rose 0.3% and are up 2.2% in the past 12 months. Meanwhile, prices of U.S. exports rose 0.2%.
Singapore's economy expanded by 8.6% in the second quarter from a year ago, on robust growth in the financial services and construction sectors, government data showed Friday.
China reported its second biggest monthly trade surplus on record. The surplus in July was $24.36bn, down from June’s record high of $26.91bn, but above forecasts of $22.5bn and dwarfing the July 2006 figure of $14.6bn.
U.S. stocks are at the beginning of a bear market in which benchmark indexes may fall more than 30 percent, Marc Faber said.
Eugene Robinson: "Bush doesn't care what anybody else thinks. He doesn't care that the Iraqi government has failed to meet its political benchmarks. He doesn't care that Maliki is getting so cozy with the mullahs in Tehran. He doesn't care that Republicans in Washington are getting so nervous about having to face an election with the war still raging and no end in sight. Bush laid out his Iraq policy yesterday in plain language, with none of his recent gibberish about al-Qaeda in Pakistan being the same as al-Qaeda in Iraq, only different, but really the same, kind of. This time we heard the classic neocon analysis -- the same grand vision that got us into this mess. If Bush hasn't changed his mind by now, he ain't gonna."
Countrywide Financial Plummets On 'Unprecedented Disruptions' In Secondary Mortgage Market.
Richard Daughty: "With all the losses in mortgage securities, I guess it is surprising that Required Reserves in the banks are still hovering at the same measly $41 billion in Total Reserves that the banks have been reporting since 1999. In short, reported Bank Reserves have not increased by so much as a thin dime in eight years of rampant additions to the levels of deposits, levels of loans, levels of debt, and levels of the money supply created by the banks, mostly because they found that they can get away with it simply because nobody ever tried to stop them!"
Yahoo Inc. President Susan Decker purchased about $1.1 million of the Internet company's shares this week just after the stock hit a three-year low. The buy was Decker's first ever open-market stock purchase.
For the first 10 months of the fiscal year, the federal deficit has totaled $157 billion.
Gold for December delivery rose $8.80 to close at $681.60 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Crude oil for September delivery closed down 12 cents at $71.47 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Natural gas gained 25 cents and closed at $6.84.
James Picerno: "Tactically, Thursday's efforts to ease anxieties by effectively printing more money are really just more of the same policy biases that have been in effect for years. Arguably, the Fed and ECB don't have much choice at the moment. But that raises questions anew: How did we get pushed into a corner where printing money is at once the problem and the solution? More importantly, what does the constraint imply for the future?"
As we enter the weekend, one might consider the problems surrounding the ability to rollover commercial paper. Yields on asset-backed commercial paper rated A1, the second-highest short-term rating by Standard & Poor's, and maturing the next day rose 20 basis points to 5.56 percent, the highest since March 2001, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The increase is the biggest since September 2005. National Australia Bank has told some issuers of promissory notes and other forms of commercial paper that it will not be able to support programs that fail to secure backing from institutional investors. In a letter to clients yesterday, the bank warns that prospective issuers of commercial paper should "expect volume and pricing challenges".
Between the Hedges: "Investor angst is at levels normally associated with meaningful market bottoms. The NYSE Arms hit a very elevated 2.97 this morning. The VIX is at the highest level since early 2003. The ISE Sentiment Index 10-day moving average is at the second lowest reading on record. The CBOE total put/call 10-day moving average is also at the second highest reading on record. Money market funds, this week, saw $36 billion in inflows, the most since 2005."
I continue to ponder how much forced selling has resulted from the unwinding of risk in leveraged products. How much is left? That's a big question mark.
Peter Schiff: "For years, Americans have been able to pay for enormous trade deficits by exchanging IOU's for imported consumer goods. Unfortunately for foreign creditors, a substantial percentage of those IOU's have recently taken the form of mortgaged backed securities. Sporting higher yields than Treasury bonds, investment grade ratings from reputable agencies, and juicy commissions for the investment banks that packaged them, these structured mortgage bonds have quickly become America's greatest export. Ironically, amid all the recent hoopla about defective Chinese exports, America has proved that when it comes to flooding the world with shoddy merchandise, nobody beats the good old USA."
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Storm Clouds Remain
8/10/07 Storm Clouds Remain
BNP Paribas said it was freezing three of its asset-backed securities funds that have had struggled to find liquidity in the U.S. subprime mortgage market. BNP Paribas said Thursday that it will temporarily stop valuing three of its funds and won't allow customers to withdraw their investments after U.S. subprime-mortgage woes led to the "complete evaporation of liquidity."
The European Central Bank took emergency action on Thursday to stabilise money markets amid broadening fears of a liquidity crunch. It injected €94.8bn as part of an unlimited cash offer to borrowers at its main lending rate of 4 per cent after overnight rates shot up to 4.7 per cent, their highest in nearly six years.
"Overall, July sales were negatively impacted by soft mall traffic," said Ken Perkins, president of RetailMetrics LLC, a research company in Swampscott, Mass. "The consumer is holding up, but certainly feeling the pinch of the housing market and higher gasoline price."
Wal-Mart's July sales at stores open at least one year rose 1.9%. Analysts, on average, had expected the same-store sales to rise 1.5%.
Nordstrom Inc.'s July sales at stores open at least a year surged 9.4%.
July same-store sales rose 6% in the U.S. and 10% internationally, Costco said.
The high volatility continues with the VIX, the yen, the 10-year Treasury, and the highs and lows in the S&P. We have not nearly found a comfortable equilibrium.
The Bank of Korea unexpectedly raised its benchmark interest rate for a second time in two months to curb lending that may fuel asset-price bubbles.
Governor Lee Seong Tae and his board increased the overnight call rate by a quarter point to 5 percent, the highest since July 2001, the central bank said in Seoul today. None of the 14 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News predicted the move. Central Banks all over the globe continue to raise interest rates. It would be irrational to think our Fed would lower rates in this environment.
Mark Hulbert: "Appel has said that a good entry point to get back into the stock market will be when the 10-day moving average of the NYSE new high new low indicator rises to 20%. Another firm that pays close attention to the new high-new low indicator is Dorsey Wright & Associates of Pasadena, Calif. Unlike Appel, that firm considers the indicator to be bullish just by dropping to as low as it is today, though the firm reports that it is even more bullish when it turns back up from very low levels. In a release sent out Tuesday night by Mike Moody, senior portfolio manager at Dorsey Wright, wrote that "Research conducted by Dorsey, Wright Money Management indicates that the NYSE high-low index is one of the very few highly reliable indications of a general market bottom. It is indicating a very favorable opportunity in the market right now."
Wilbur Ross: "We don't think those problems are over with at all. In the second half of 2007, $170 billion of adjustable rate mortgages will go from teaser rates to normal market rate. Next year $400 billion will go. We're into the storm, but the peak problem period is more likely to be sometime into next year. You have some individual months in 2008 when $40 billion will reset. Now there's no liquidity in the subprime market. No one is making teaser loans. The rate shock is going to become quite severe, and people aren't going to be able to afford the payments. Typically, payments were more than 40% of borrower's income and generally will be going from 45% to 55% or 60% of their income, (so) it's just not going to be possible for people to pay that...The whole loan market is very, very weak right now. At the moment there is still tremendous liquidity in the overall financial market, but really none in subprime. There's a theory I have that there are two kinds of liquidity, one is physical and that continues to be strong. There's a lot of cash sloshing around. The more important is psychological liquidity, people's willingness to take risk, and that is drying up. There's a snap back away from the extremely permissive credit practices."
Speaking before a meeting Thursday with Russia's energy minister Viktor Khristenko, Husayn al-Shahristani suggested that their experience working to tap Iraq's oil wealth might give them an edge.
He referred to leading oil producer OAO Lukoil, which had an agreement with Saddam Hussein's government to drill at the giant West Qurna field.
"Bearing in mind that Russia has developed the field before, it may have a certain advantage and make a more competitive bid than others," al-Shahristani was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. "However, it depends on Lukoil -- whether it offers the best terms to Iraq or not."
Target forecasts August same-store sales to rise 4% to 6%. July same-store sales up 6.1%.
Chevron Corp. made a "significant" oil discovery in Block 14, offshore Angola.
In the week ending Aug. 4, initial jobless claims rose by 7,000 to 316,000, the highest since June 30. The four-week average of initial claims also rose in the latest week, by 1,750, to 307,750. The number of people continuing to collect unemployment benefits continued to rise, increasing by 39,000 to 2.55 million in the week ending July 28. The four-week average of continuing claims rose to 2.54 million, up by 2,000.
Mark Zandi: "The catalyst for the global financial turmoil is investors coming to terms with the reality of the massive losses on their housing and mortgage-related investments. Of the approximately $2.5 trillion in subprime, Alt-A, and jumbo IO and option ARMs outstanding—equal to almost one-fourth of all mortgage debt outstanding—some $1.3 trillion is at serious risk of default (see chart). These at-risk loans were originated between late 2004 and early this year with less than 10% equity at time of origination. House prices are expected to decline 10% from their late 2005 peak to their nadir later next year. Of those at-risk loans, nearly $425 billion worth will actually default, ultimately resulting in losses to investors who purchased securities backed by those mortgages of well over $100 billion."
Justice Litle: "While we grudgingly respect Chairman Bernanke's savvy thus far, we feel there is no way he can win a rigged game... the Austrian End Game, that is, in which the ultimate decision is to "destroy the economy or destroy the currency" as Von Mises put it. For Fed Chairmen and heads of state, the Hobson's choice outlined by Von Mises is really no choice at all. It's a no-brainer for governments to gradually debase their currencies in service to false stability, as they have been doing consistently since Roman times...We've been banging the "long Yen" drum with enthusiasm... not just as a speculative play, but a risk management one. The nature of the carry trade is such that the Yen was bound to go up in a credit crunch, as it has done. If things get really bad, it could skyrocket."
Martin Weiss: "Indeed, the yen has been forcefully depressed for so long, it will have to surge by leaps in bounds just to catch up with the rising euro — not to mention catching up with other major currencies, like the Australian dollar or the Brazilian real, both which have been going up even faster. This is no trivial matter. Nor is it a sideshow to the drama unfolding in the U.S. credit markets. Quite to the contrary, it's of vital importance, and you must not underestimate it."
Brett Steenbarger: "We've moved back into the range from 7/26 - 8/06--a large false breakout."
Home Depot is in discussions with private equity firms Bain Capital, Caylyle, and with Clayton Dubilier & Rice over restructuring its previously agreed to sale of HD SUPPLY. This says the discussions could result in material change to the prior terms and financing of the sale of HD SUPPLY. That includes a reduction in the $10.325 Billion sale price. Obviously these firms are going to have to contribute more of their own capital and the amount of leverage available is ratcheting down drastically. The company is also modifiying its Dutch tender offer announced on July 10. The $39 to $44 price is being lowered to a $37 to $42 price range and is extending the date to August 31, 2007.
The U.S. Federal Reserve on Thursday said it added $12 billion of temporary reserves to the banking system through 14-day repurchase agreements. The amount was more than double the $5 billion of temporary reserves added via 14-day repurchases last Thursday.
Goldman Sachs analysts on Thursday upgraded the oil service and oil drilling sector to attractive from neutral. "We believe we are in the early stages of a multi-year investment period and believe the recent correction provides an attractive entry point," Goldman said in a note to clients. "We are bullish on the outlook for crude oil prices through 2008 and believe exploration and production spending growth estimates are conservative."
The market is now pricing in nearly 100% odds that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates by the end of September, analysts at Action Economics said.
Natural gas supplies rose by 42 billion cubic feet to 2,882 billion cubic feet in the week ending August 3, the Energy Department reported Thursday. After the data, September natural gas rallied 37 cents, or 6%, at $6.60 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Residential mortgage delinquencies and defaults are becoming more common among borrowers in the category just above subprime, American International Group said on Thursday. In a presentation on its subprime exposure, AIG, the world's largest insurer and one of the biggest mortgage lenders, said total delinquencies in its $25.9 billion real estate portfolio were 2.5 percent. It said 10.8 percent of its subprime mortgages were 60 days overdue, compared with 4.6 percent in the category with credit scores just above subprime, indicating that the threat to the mortgage market may be spreading.
Robert McHugh: "We sit Wednesday with nine Hindenburg Omen observations since mid-June, getting another one Wednesday."
President Bush said Thursday that he's against letting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy more home loans in an effort to prop up the sagging mortgage market, commenting that he prefers to reform the two entities first.
The Dow was down 387 points, or 2.8%, at 13,270 at the unofficial 4 p.m. close. The S&P 500 index fell 44 points, or 3%, to 1,453, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 56 points, or 2.2%, to 2,556. I guess Bush's talk on the economy didn't calm the markets. Maybe the markets realize he, by his own admission, only has enough knowledge to make generalizations about the economy. Here is a non-generalization:
In the past two weeks, another 13 corporate loan or bond deals have been postponed or reduced, representing just under $43 billion, in new research released Thursday by Baring Asset Management. The total number of deals pulled since June 22nd now stands at 46, analysts at the firm said, valued at more than $60 billion. That compares to last year where there were no pulled deals counted.
Kate Incontrera: "Don't worry about the housing market, Bush said in this speech. It's just a reaction to 'a flood of liquidity that came into the market in the past couple years.' Gee - really?" His familiarity with a "flood of liquidity" may be going back to his days in Texas.
Crude for September delivery closed down 56 cents at $71.59 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Also on Nymex, September reformulated gasoline closed down 0.37 cent at $1.9340 a gallon, while September heating oil gained 2.24 cents at $1.9892 a gallon. September natural gas rose 36.60 cents, or 6%, at $6.586 per million British thermal units, boosted by bullish supply data from the Energy Department.
Gold for December delivery closed down $13.50, or 2%, at $672.80 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Also on Nymex, September palladium fell $1.75 to $362.20 an ounce, October platinum dropped $15.80 to $1,275.30 an ounce, and September copper fell 7.80 cents to $3.3610 a pound.
Black Mesa Capital, a hedge fund firm that uses computer models to track down arbitrage opportunities, has told investors that at least one very large hedge fund or investment bank is liquidating "massive" trading portfolios, according to a letter the Santa Fe, NM-based firm sent to investors on Wednesday.
Although Asia has achieved unprecedented economic growth in the last three decades, hunger and poverty persist, with 600 million people living on less than $1 a day, the Asian Development Bank said Thursday.
Bill Bonner: "The symmetry of the system is simple: the East makes; the West takes. The East saves; the West spends. The East lends; the West borrows. The boom in the East is real; in the West it is a fraud."
Between The Hedges: " This is one of the most bifrucated days I have ever seen: I have literally hundreds of stocks on my monitor pages higher or barely down today with the DJIA down 300. This is highly unusual and indicates underlying strength, in my opinion. As well, Nasdaq breadth is -929, which is mild considering the headline losses. I still believe longer-term investors should use pullbacks to add to high-quality growth stocks at current levels and use strength to cut back on the most economically sensitive and emerging-market stocks."
The yen surged Thursday as investors bailed out of risky trades financed with the Japanese currency after one of Europe's biggest banks froze funds with links to the troubled U.S. subprime mortgage market.
The VIX closed up over 5 points at 26.48. Fear is alive in the trading arenas.
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bear Stearns Cos., the fourth- and fifth-biggest U.S. securities firms, had their 2007 and 2008 profit estimates cut 7 percent by Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst Brad Hintz.
Hintz expects Lehman, the largest underwriter of U.S. mortgage bonds, to earn $7.37 a share this year and $7.63 in 2008. That's down from his previous prediction of $7.87 a share and $8.20, respectively.
Bear Stearns may earn $12.99 a share in 2007 and $13.97 in 2008, Hintz said, down from his previous estimate of $14.10 and $15.10, respectively. He cut his estimates for Goldman Sachs by 5 percent and for Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley by between 3 and 4 percent.
BNP Paribas said it was freezing three of its asset-backed securities funds that have had struggled to find liquidity in the U.S. subprime mortgage market. BNP Paribas said Thursday that it will temporarily stop valuing three of its funds and won't allow customers to withdraw their investments after U.S. subprime-mortgage woes led to the "complete evaporation of liquidity."
The European Central Bank took emergency action on Thursday to stabilise money markets amid broadening fears of a liquidity crunch. It injected €94.8bn as part of an unlimited cash offer to borrowers at its main lending rate of 4 per cent after overnight rates shot up to 4.7 per cent, their highest in nearly six years.
"Overall, July sales were negatively impacted by soft mall traffic," said Ken Perkins, president of RetailMetrics LLC, a research company in Swampscott, Mass. "The consumer is holding up, but certainly feeling the pinch of the housing market and higher gasoline price."
Wal-Mart's July sales at stores open at least one year rose 1.9%. Analysts, on average, had expected the same-store sales to rise 1.5%.
Nordstrom Inc.'s July sales at stores open at least a year surged 9.4%.
July same-store sales rose 6% in the U.S. and 10% internationally, Costco said.
The high volatility continues with the VIX, the yen, the 10-year Treasury, and the highs and lows in the S&P. We have not nearly found a comfortable equilibrium.
The Bank of Korea unexpectedly raised its benchmark interest rate for a second time in two months to curb lending that may fuel asset-price bubbles.
Governor Lee Seong Tae and his board increased the overnight call rate by a quarter point to 5 percent, the highest since July 2001, the central bank said in Seoul today. None of the 14 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News predicted the move. Central Banks all over the globe continue to raise interest rates. It would be irrational to think our Fed would lower rates in this environment.
Mark Hulbert: "Appel has said that a good entry point to get back into the stock market will be when the 10-day moving average of the NYSE new high new low indicator rises to 20%. Another firm that pays close attention to the new high-new low indicator is Dorsey Wright & Associates of Pasadena, Calif. Unlike Appel, that firm considers the indicator to be bullish just by dropping to as low as it is today, though the firm reports that it is even more bullish when it turns back up from very low levels. In a release sent out Tuesday night by Mike Moody, senior portfolio manager at Dorsey Wright, wrote that "Research conducted by Dorsey, Wright Money Management indicates that the NYSE high-low index is one of the very few highly reliable indications of a general market bottom. It is indicating a very favorable opportunity in the market right now."
Wilbur Ross: "We don't think those problems are over with at all. In the second half of 2007, $170 billion of adjustable rate mortgages will go from teaser rates to normal market rate. Next year $400 billion will go. We're into the storm, but the peak problem period is more likely to be sometime into next year. You have some individual months in 2008 when $40 billion will reset. Now there's no liquidity in the subprime market. No one is making teaser loans. The rate shock is going to become quite severe, and people aren't going to be able to afford the payments. Typically, payments were more than 40% of borrower's income and generally will be going from 45% to 55% or 60% of their income, (so) it's just not going to be possible for people to pay that...The whole loan market is very, very weak right now. At the moment there is still tremendous liquidity in the overall financial market, but really none in subprime. There's a theory I have that there are two kinds of liquidity, one is physical and that continues to be strong. There's a lot of cash sloshing around. The more important is psychological liquidity, people's willingness to take risk, and that is drying up. There's a snap back away from the extremely permissive credit practices."
Speaking before a meeting Thursday with Russia's energy minister Viktor Khristenko, Husayn al-Shahristani suggested that their experience working to tap Iraq's oil wealth might give them an edge.
He referred to leading oil producer OAO Lukoil, which had an agreement with Saddam Hussein's government to drill at the giant West Qurna field.
"Bearing in mind that Russia has developed the field before, it may have a certain advantage and make a more competitive bid than others," al-Shahristani was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. "However, it depends on Lukoil -- whether it offers the best terms to Iraq or not."
Target forecasts August same-store sales to rise 4% to 6%. July same-store sales up 6.1%.
Chevron Corp. made a "significant" oil discovery in Block 14, offshore Angola.
In the week ending Aug. 4, initial jobless claims rose by 7,000 to 316,000, the highest since June 30. The four-week average of initial claims also rose in the latest week, by 1,750, to 307,750. The number of people continuing to collect unemployment benefits continued to rise, increasing by 39,000 to 2.55 million in the week ending July 28. The four-week average of continuing claims rose to 2.54 million, up by 2,000.
Mark Zandi: "The catalyst for the global financial turmoil is investors coming to terms with the reality of the massive losses on their housing and mortgage-related investments. Of the approximately $2.5 trillion in subprime, Alt-A, and jumbo IO and option ARMs outstanding—equal to almost one-fourth of all mortgage debt outstanding—some $1.3 trillion is at serious risk of default (see chart). These at-risk loans were originated between late 2004 and early this year with less than 10% equity at time of origination. House prices are expected to decline 10% from their late 2005 peak to their nadir later next year. Of those at-risk loans, nearly $425 billion worth will actually default, ultimately resulting in losses to investors who purchased securities backed by those mortgages of well over $100 billion."
Justice Litle: "While we grudgingly respect Chairman Bernanke's savvy thus far, we feel there is no way he can win a rigged game... the Austrian End Game, that is, in which the ultimate decision is to "destroy the economy or destroy the currency" as Von Mises put it. For Fed Chairmen and heads of state, the Hobson's choice outlined by Von Mises is really no choice at all. It's a no-brainer for governments to gradually debase their currencies in service to false stability, as they have been doing consistently since Roman times...We've been banging the "long Yen" drum with enthusiasm... not just as a speculative play, but a risk management one. The nature of the carry trade is such that the Yen was bound to go up in a credit crunch, as it has done. If things get really bad, it could skyrocket."
Martin Weiss: "Indeed, the yen has been forcefully depressed for so long, it will have to surge by leaps in bounds just to catch up with the rising euro — not to mention catching up with other major currencies, like the Australian dollar or the Brazilian real, both which have been going up even faster. This is no trivial matter. Nor is it a sideshow to the drama unfolding in the U.S. credit markets. Quite to the contrary, it's of vital importance, and you must not underestimate it."
Brett Steenbarger: "We've moved back into the range from 7/26 - 8/06--a large false breakout."
Home Depot is in discussions with private equity firms Bain Capital, Caylyle, and with Clayton Dubilier & Rice over restructuring its previously agreed to sale of HD SUPPLY. This says the discussions could result in material change to the prior terms and financing of the sale of HD SUPPLY. That includes a reduction in the $10.325 Billion sale price. Obviously these firms are going to have to contribute more of their own capital and the amount of leverage available is ratcheting down drastically. The company is also modifiying its Dutch tender offer announced on July 10. The $39 to $44 price is being lowered to a $37 to $42 price range and is extending the date to August 31, 2007.
The U.S. Federal Reserve on Thursday said it added $12 billion of temporary reserves to the banking system through 14-day repurchase agreements. The amount was more than double the $5 billion of temporary reserves added via 14-day repurchases last Thursday.
Goldman Sachs analysts on Thursday upgraded the oil service and oil drilling sector to attractive from neutral. "We believe we are in the early stages of a multi-year investment period and believe the recent correction provides an attractive entry point," Goldman said in a note to clients. "We are bullish on the outlook for crude oil prices through 2008 and believe exploration and production spending growth estimates are conservative."
The market is now pricing in nearly 100% odds that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates by the end of September, analysts at Action Economics said.
Natural gas supplies rose by 42 billion cubic feet to 2,882 billion cubic feet in the week ending August 3, the Energy Department reported Thursday. After the data, September natural gas rallied 37 cents, or 6%, at $6.60 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Residential mortgage delinquencies and defaults are becoming more common among borrowers in the category just above subprime, American International Group said on Thursday. In a presentation on its subprime exposure, AIG, the world's largest insurer and one of the biggest mortgage lenders, said total delinquencies in its $25.9 billion real estate portfolio were 2.5 percent. It said 10.8 percent of its subprime mortgages were 60 days overdue, compared with 4.6 percent in the category with credit scores just above subprime, indicating that the threat to the mortgage market may be spreading.
Robert McHugh: "We sit Wednesday with nine Hindenburg Omen observations since mid-June, getting another one Wednesday."
President Bush said Thursday that he's against letting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy more home loans in an effort to prop up the sagging mortgage market, commenting that he prefers to reform the two entities first.
The Dow was down 387 points, or 2.8%, at 13,270 at the unofficial 4 p.m. close. The S&P 500 index fell 44 points, or 3%, to 1,453, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 56 points, or 2.2%, to 2,556. I guess Bush's talk on the economy didn't calm the markets. Maybe the markets realize he, by his own admission, only has enough knowledge to make generalizations about the economy. Here is a non-generalization:
In the past two weeks, another 13 corporate loan or bond deals have been postponed or reduced, representing just under $43 billion, in new research released Thursday by Baring Asset Management. The total number of deals pulled since June 22nd now stands at 46, analysts at the firm said, valued at more than $60 billion. That compares to last year where there were no pulled deals counted.
Kate Incontrera: "Don't worry about the housing market, Bush said in this speech. It's just a reaction to 'a flood of liquidity that came into the market in the past couple years.' Gee - really?" His familiarity with a "flood of liquidity" may be going back to his days in Texas.
Crude for September delivery closed down 56 cents at $71.59 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Also on Nymex, September reformulated gasoline closed down 0.37 cent at $1.9340 a gallon, while September heating oil gained 2.24 cents at $1.9892 a gallon. September natural gas rose 36.60 cents, or 6%, at $6.586 per million British thermal units, boosted by bullish supply data from the Energy Department.
Gold for December delivery closed down $13.50, or 2%, at $672.80 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Also on Nymex, September palladium fell $1.75 to $362.20 an ounce, October platinum dropped $15.80 to $1,275.30 an ounce, and September copper fell 7.80 cents to $3.3610 a pound.
Black Mesa Capital, a hedge fund firm that uses computer models to track down arbitrage opportunities, has told investors that at least one very large hedge fund or investment bank is liquidating "massive" trading portfolios, according to a letter the Santa Fe, NM-based firm sent to investors on Wednesday.
Although Asia has achieved unprecedented economic growth in the last three decades, hunger and poverty persist, with 600 million people living on less than $1 a day, the Asian Development Bank said Thursday.
Bill Bonner: "The symmetry of the system is simple: the East makes; the West takes. The East saves; the West spends. The East lends; the West borrows. The boom in the East is real; in the West it is a fraud."
Between The Hedges: " This is one of the most bifrucated days I have ever seen: I have literally hundreds of stocks on my monitor pages higher or barely down today with the DJIA down 300. This is highly unusual and indicates underlying strength, in my opinion. As well, Nasdaq breadth is -929, which is mild considering the headline losses. I still believe longer-term investors should use pullbacks to add to high-quality growth stocks at current levels and use strength to cut back on the most economically sensitive and emerging-market stocks."
The yen surged Thursday as investors bailed out of risky trades financed with the Japanese currency after one of Europe's biggest banks froze funds with links to the troubled U.S. subprime mortgage market.
The VIX closed up over 5 points at 26.48. Fear is alive in the trading arenas.
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bear Stearns Cos., the fourth- and fifth-biggest U.S. securities firms, had their 2007 and 2008 profit estimates cut 7 percent by Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst Brad Hintz.
Hintz expects Lehman, the largest underwriter of U.S. mortgage bonds, to earn $7.37 a share this year and $7.63 in 2008. That's down from his previous prediction of $7.87 a share and $8.20, respectively.
Bear Stearns may earn $12.99 a share in 2007 and $13.97 in 2008, Hintz said, down from his previous estimate of $14.10 and $15.10, respectively. He cut his estimates for Goldman Sachs by 5 percent and for Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley by between 3 and 4 percent.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
The Turnaround
8/9/07 The Turnaround
The prime minister of Kazakhstan -- Karim Masimov -- stepped up rhetoric about cost overruns at the Kashagan oil field, saying "we are very disappointed with the execution of this project," the Wall Street Journal reported. However, many observers believe the most likely outcome will be that ENI will stay as operator of the field -- one of the largest in the world -- but that Kazakhstan will demand more of the field's revenue, according to the paper.
The Oil Drum: "More than a quarter of America's oil flows through southern Louisiana. Too bad the land is slowly sinking into the sea....Some 25 square miles of Louisiana have been collapsing into the gulf each year for three-quarters of a century. A total of 1,900 square miles, roughly the area of Delaware, disappeared between the 1930s and 2005, and another 217 square miles were pulverized into liquid by Katrina and Rita. And that land loss, says Ted Falgout, who has run Port Fourchon for 28 years, poses a growing threat not only to the people who live here but also to the U.S. energy supply. "We're on a train wreck here," says Falgout. "We have not designed the energy infrastructure - or any infrastructure - [to handle land loss]." The problem afflicts all of southern Louisiana. As land turns to water, it is exposing thousands of miles of oil and gas pipelines that were built underground and were not designed to withstand water or waves. "There are places where a pipeline that was laid in marsh, well protected, is now in five or six feet of water - in an open bay that is subject to a vessel coming across and hitting it," says Falgout. "That's the thing that [oil companies] are spending their money on right now. It's so huge that they're just putting out fires."
Home builder Toll Brothers Inc.'s fiscal third-quarter home building revenues fell 21% to $1.21 billion from $1.53 billion a year ago. The backlog at the end of the third quarter was $3.67 billion, down from $5.59 billion. Third quarter net signed contracts were approximately $727.1 million. "We are now in the twenty-third month of a down housing market. Hesitant customers remain on the sidelines, unsure of whether home prices have bottomed," said CEO Robert Toll. "We believe significant pent-up demand is building, based on solid demographics, a decent economy and still-strong employment. However, we caution that, with the uncertainties roiling the mortgage markets right now, the pace of home sales could slow further until the credit markets settle down," he added.
Core machinery orders from Japan's private sector fell 10.4% in June from the previous month, showing signs of a slowdown in corporate investment, according to data released by the country's Cabinet office Wednesday.
The Reserve Bank of Australia Wednesday raised a key interest rate by 0.25 percentage points to its highest level since November 1996, to contain inflation. The central bank said the decision to increase the cash rate to 6.5% was taken after its board judged that "a somewhat more restrictive monetary policy setting was required in order to keep inflation consistent with the target in the medium term". The decision comes after data showed that the country's core inflation rose to 2.8% in the second quarter from a year ago, well above the RBA's 2.5% forecast in May, according to reports.
Andrew Kramer of the NY Times: "After gaining 20 percent in value against the dollar in the last few years, the ruble is even starting to displace the greenback as Russians’ currency of choice for both saving and spending...Russia is salting away oil money in a rainy day fund, called the Stabilization Fund, which holds more than $120 billion. In January, Moscow will split it into two funds: the Reserve Fund and the Fund of National Prosperity, the latter intended for state investments. Together with the Central Bank of Russia’s foreign reserves, Russian authorities have a currency reserve of $413 billion, the largest per capita foreign currency reserve of any major economy, including China’s. In an oil downturn, authorities could spend that reserve to protect the ruble."
Brad Setser: "At least to people like me, the argument that the dollar’s exchange rate – against all currencies, mind you, not just against the major currencies – is a market exchange rate simply isn’t credible.The US dollar’s value against most emerging currencies just isn’t determined in the market. Or rather it is determined in a market shaped by massive central bank intervention. And with emerging market central banks on track to sell $200b of dollars for euros and pounds (and probably substantially more; $400b isn’t out of the question if global reserve growth comes it at close to $1.2 trillion) to keep their portfolios balanced, I suspect that they are exercising some influence over a range of other exchange rates as well."
The Oil Drum: "In 2006, the production and use of ethanol in the U.S. reduced oil imports by 170 million barrels, saving $11 billion from being sent to foreign and often hostile countries...In 2006, the production and use of ethanol in the U.S. reduced oil imports by 170 million barrels, saving $11 billion from being sent to foreign and often hostile countries."
Japanese automakers widened their profit-making gap over the Detroit Three last year by 32 percent, according to a study released Tuesday. The profit gap, which already was significant in 2005 at $2,899 per vehicle sold in North America, widened by $915 to $3,814, according to a study of industry costs and profits by Laurie Harbour-Felax, managing director of Stout Risius Ross, a Chicago-based financial and operational advisory firm.
Nickel prices have plunged 44% since May 4.
China had a $120.9 billion increase in foreign reserves in the first half of 2007.
McDonald's same-store sales rose 6.5% in July.
The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage applications, which includes both purchase and refinance loans, for the week ended Aug. 3 increased 8.1% to 656.5, its highest level since early June. The four-week moving average of mortgage applications, which smooths the volatile weekly figures, was up 1.2% to 626.0.
Wheat prices surged to a fresh 11 year highs on Tuesday amid concerns about further production losses after extreme weather damaged the Australian and European cereals crops.
Middle East and North African countries, such as Morocco, have rushed into the market to secure wheat supplies, underpinning prices, according to traders.
Chicago CBOT September wheat pushed above the $6.70 a bushel level for the first time since 1996 and later was trading up 5¼ cents to $6.69 ¼ a bushel.
Puru Saxena: "It is clear to me that over the coming years, the over-leveraged American society will have to undergo some sort of adjustment. Moreover, I suspect that this adjustment will not be easy. In other words, I expect the standard of living in the US to gradually decline in the years ahead."
Bank of England Signals That Interest Rate Needs to Increase to 6 Percent.
UK Telegraph: "Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress."
The National Association of Realtors trimmed its sales forecast for the sixth straight month but pared back its predicted drop in existing home values. Existing-home sales should hit a pace of 6.04 million units this year, down from the 6.11 million units it predicted last month. The national median sales price for existing homes should ease by 1.2 percent to $219,300 this year. Last month the trade group said prices should slip 1.4 percent. The median new-home price will probably fall 2.3 percent to $240,800 this year, the NAR said in its monthly economic outlook.
Sales of petroleum at the wholesale level have climbed 9.4% in the past year, but inventories haven't kept pace, rising only 2.4% in the past 12 months.
Business Week reports India's government has installed new curbs on overseas borrowing by local companies in a bid to counter inflation from a surge of foreign money into the country. The federal finance ministry has set a US$20 million (euro14.5 million) cap on the amount an Indian company can bring into the country in a full financial year from loans raised overseas. Companies bringing in less than that amount must satisfy the country's central bank that the money is needed to fund imports or other expenditures involving foreign exchange transactions, the ministry said in orders released late Tuesday. The new rules will not apply to companies that have already signed overseas loan agreements, it said.
Refineries operated at 91.3% of their operable capacity last week.
Crude-oil stocks fell by 3.6 million barrels to 336.4 million barrels in the week ending August 3, the American Petroleum Institute said Wednesday. Distillate stocks rose by 1.4 million barrels to 128.2 million barrels, while gasoline supplies fell by 5.4 million barrels to 203.1 million barrels, API said.
General Motors Corp. on Wednesday lowered its forecast for industry-wide U.S. sales in 2007 and said it would be "challenging" to achieve its target of selling 3 million vehicles at showrooms.
Bush said he opposed a proposal by Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York to create a $1 billion fund to help those at risk of foreclosure.
American Eagle Outfitters reported Wednesday that July sales at stores open at least a year decreased 6%.
Crude oil for September delivery closed down 27 cents at $72.15 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Gold for December delivery closed up $4 at $686.30 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. September silver rose 7.50 cents at $13.170 an ounce and September palladium gained 40 cents at $363.95 an ounce. In contrast, October platinum fell 20 cents to $1,291.10 an ounce and September copper fell 6.75 cents at $3.4390 a pound.
The prime minister of Kazakhstan -- Karim Masimov -- stepped up rhetoric about cost overruns at the Kashagan oil field, saying "we are very disappointed with the execution of this project," the Wall Street Journal reported. However, many observers believe the most likely outcome will be that ENI will stay as operator of the field -- one of the largest in the world -- but that Kazakhstan will demand more of the field's revenue, according to the paper.
The Oil Drum: "More than a quarter of America's oil flows through southern Louisiana. Too bad the land is slowly sinking into the sea....Some 25 square miles of Louisiana have been collapsing into the gulf each year for three-quarters of a century. A total of 1,900 square miles, roughly the area of Delaware, disappeared between the 1930s and 2005, and another 217 square miles were pulverized into liquid by Katrina and Rita. And that land loss, says Ted Falgout, who has run Port Fourchon for 28 years, poses a growing threat not only to the people who live here but also to the U.S. energy supply. "We're on a train wreck here," says Falgout. "We have not designed the energy infrastructure - or any infrastructure - [to handle land loss]." The problem afflicts all of southern Louisiana. As land turns to water, it is exposing thousands of miles of oil and gas pipelines that were built underground and were not designed to withstand water or waves. "There are places where a pipeline that was laid in marsh, well protected, is now in five or six feet of water - in an open bay that is subject to a vessel coming across and hitting it," says Falgout. "That's the thing that [oil companies] are spending their money on right now. It's so huge that they're just putting out fires."
Home builder Toll Brothers Inc.'s fiscal third-quarter home building revenues fell 21% to $1.21 billion from $1.53 billion a year ago. The backlog at the end of the third quarter was $3.67 billion, down from $5.59 billion. Third quarter net signed contracts were approximately $727.1 million. "We are now in the twenty-third month of a down housing market. Hesitant customers remain on the sidelines, unsure of whether home prices have bottomed," said CEO Robert Toll. "We believe significant pent-up demand is building, based on solid demographics, a decent economy and still-strong employment. However, we caution that, with the uncertainties roiling the mortgage markets right now, the pace of home sales could slow further until the credit markets settle down," he added.
Core machinery orders from Japan's private sector fell 10.4% in June from the previous month, showing signs of a slowdown in corporate investment, according to data released by the country's Cabinet office Wednesday.
The Reserve Bank of Australia Wednesday raised a key interest rate by 0.25 percentage points to its highest level since November 1996, to contain inflation. The central bank said the decision to increase the cash rate to 6.5% was taken after its board judged that "a somewhat more restrictive monetary policy setting was required in order to keep inflation consistent with the target in the medium term". The decision comes after data showed that the country's core inflation rose to 2.8% in the second quarter from a year ago, well above the RBA's 2.5% forecast in May, according to reports.
Andrew Kramer of the NY Times: "After gaining 20 percent in value against the dollar in the last few years, the ruble is even starting to displace the greenback as Russians’ currency of choice for both saving and spending...Russia is salting away oil money in a rainy day fund, called the Stabilization Fund, which holds more than $120 billion. In January, Moscow will split it into two funds: the Reserve Fund and the Fund of National Prosperity, the latter intended for state investments. Together with the Central Bank of Russia’s foreign reserves, Russian authorities have a currency reserve of $413 billion, the largest per capita foreign currency reserve of any major economy, including China’s. In an oil downturn, authorities could spend that reserve to protect the ruble."
Brad Setser: "At least to people like me, the argument that the dollar’s exchange rate – against all currencies, mind you, not just against the major currencies – is a market exchange rate simply isn’t credible.The US dollar’s value against most emerging currencies just isn’t determined in the market. Or rather it is determined in a market shaped by massive central bank intervention. And with emerging market central banks on track to sell $200b of dollars for euros and pounds (and probably substantially more; $400b isn’t out of the question if global reserve growth comes it at close to $1.2 trillion) to keep their portfolios balanced, I suspect that they are exercising some influence over a range of other exchange rates as well."
The Oil Drum: "In 2006, the production and use of ethanol in the U.S. reduced oil imports by 170 million barrels, saving $11 billion from being sent to foreign and often hostile countries...In 2006, the production and use of ethanol in the U.S. reduced oil imports by 170 million barrels, saving $11 billion from being sent to foreign and often hostile countries."
Japanese automakers widened their profit-making gap over the Detroit Three last year by 32 percent, according to a study released Tuesday. The profit gap, which already was significant in 2005 at $2,899 per vehicle sold in North America, widened by $915 to $3,814, according to a study of industry costs and profits by Laurie Harbour-Felax, managing director of Stout Risius Ross, a Chicago-based financial and operational advisory firm.
Nickel prices have plunged 44% since May 4.
China had a $120.9 billion increase in foreign reserves in the first half of 2007.
McDonald's same-store sales rose 6.5% in July.
The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage applications, which includes both purchase and refinance loans, for the week ended Aug. 3 increased 8.1% to 656.5, its highest level since early June. The four-week moving average of mortgage applications, which smooths the volatile weekly figures, was up 1.2% to 626.0.
Wheat prices surged to a fresh 11 year highs on Tuesday amid concerns about further production losses after extreme weather damaged the Australian and European cereals crops.
Middle East and North African countries, such as Morocco, have rushed into the market to secure wheat supplies, underpinning prices, according to traders.
Chicago CBOT September wheat pushed above the $6.70 a bushel level for the first time since 1996 and later was trading up 5¼ cents to $6.69 ¼ a bushel.
Puru Saxena: "It is clear to me that over the coming years, the over-leveraged American society will have to undergo some sort of adjustment. Moreover, I suspect that this adjustment will not be easy. In other words, I expect the standard of living in the US to gradually decline in the years ahead."
Bank of England Signals That Interest Rate Needs to Increase to 6 Percent.
UK Telegraph: "Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress."
The National Association of Realtors trimmed its sales forecast for the sixth straight month but pared back its predicted drop in existing home values. Existing-home sales should hit a pace of 6.04 million units this year, down from the 6.11 million units it predicted last month. The national median sales price for existing homes should ease by 1.2 percent to $219,300 this year. Last month the trade group said prices should slip 1.4 percent. The median new-home price will probably fall 2.3 percent to $240,800 this year, the NAR said in its monthly economic outlook.
Sales of petroleum at the wholesale level have climbed 9.4% in the past year, but inventories haven't kept pace, rising only 2.4% in the past 12 months.
Business Week reports India's government has installed new curbs on overseas borrowing by local companies in a bid to counter inflation from a surge of foreign money into the country. The federal finance ministry has set a US$20 million (euro14.5 million) cap on the amount an Indian company can bring into the country in a full financial year from loans raised overseas. Companies bringing in less than that amount must satisfy the country's central bank that the money is needed to fund imports or other expenditures involving foreign exchange transactions, the ministry said in orders released late Tuesday. The new rules will not apply to companies that have already signed overseas loan agreements, it said.
Refineries operated at 91.3% of their operable capacity last week.
Crude-oil stocks fell by 3.6 million barrels to 336.4 million barrels in the week ending August 3, the American Petroleum Institute said Wednesday. Distillate stocks rose by 1.4 million barrels to 128.2 million barrels, while gasoline supplies fell by 5.4 million barrels to 203.1 million barrels, API said.
General Motors Corp. on Wednesday lowered its forecast for industry-wide U.S. sales in 2007 and said it would be "challenging" to achieve its target of selling 3 million vehicles at showrooms.
Bush said he opposed a proposal by Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York to create a $1 billion fund to help those at risk of foreclosure.
American Eagle Outfitters reported Wednesday that July sales at stores open at least a year decreased 6%.
Crude oil for September delivery closed down 27 cents at $72.15 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Gold for December delivery closed up $4 at $686.30 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. September silver rose 7.50 cents at $13.170 an ounce and September palladium gained 40 cents at $363.95 an ounce. In contrast, October platinum fell 20 cents to $1,291.10 an ounce and September copper fell 6.75 cents at $3.4390 a pound.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Inflation?
8/8/07 Inflation?
Marsoft: "Dry bulk shipowners had reason to celebrate in the second quarter of 2007, as rates and prices zoomed to new heights. The Cape sector led the way during most of the quarter, but by June and July, Panamaxes and Handymaxes were also setting new records. The Cape rally gained momentum in the second quarter of 2007, as freight rates rose significantly for the fourth consecutive quarter. After averaging $77,000 per day in the first quarter, the Cape Baltic TC Index surged to a record-high above $110,000 per day in May. For the second quarter as a whole, rates averaged $98,000 per day and remained near this level during July."
Business Week blog: "When Wipro announced today that it has a deal to buy U.S. outsourcer Infocrossing for about $600 million, it signaled a major step up for India. This was the largest acquisition ever for the entire Indian IT industry."
Prices for milk and other dairy products have skyrocketed lately in Germany. Cream, cheese, curd, butter and ice cream have suddenly become up to 50 percent more expensive.
Christopher Hancock: "Last week we reported the inconvenient truth that M3 is increasing at 12% a year. M3 is the fullest measure of the U.S. money supply… and it is going up three to four times faster than the GDP itself."
Brad Setser: "China has stopped buying US mortgage-backed securities...A shift from PBoC buying of MBS toward PBoC buying of T-bills could explain the unusual surge in T-bill prices (and resulting fall in yields) in early June."
According to the WSJ, MORTGAGE-MARKET TURMOIL IS starting to hit buyers of high-end homes, as interest rates surge on jumbo loans. Archstone's acquisition by Tishman Speyer and Lehman will be delayed.
Nearly one-quarter of all U.S. flights arrived late to their destinations, the industry's worst on-time performance since the Bureau of Transportation Statistics began tracking such data in 1995.
Xstrata Plc met forecasts with a 47 percent rise in first-half profit on Tuesday and unveiled a $1 billion offer for South Africa's Eland Platinum in a bid to tap booming demand for the metal from Asia. The Swiss-based miner, which has failed to close two deals this year after a string of previous acquisitions, said it had secured the support of shareholders owning 51 percent of Eland.
Xstrata's six month net profit reached $3 billion, up 47% from a pro forma $2.04 billion a year earlier. Revenue was $14.23 billion, up 20% from the pro forma $11.89 billion and more than double the statutory result of $5.18 billion a year ago after integrating three major acquisitions during the period. The group said higher base metal prices and robust bulk commodity prices contributed to its increased profitability, with increased production volumes across the majority of its commodity business partially offset by lower production volumes from Xstrata Copper. The group said global demand for commodities remains strong and the operational issues which impacted volumes in the first half are now behind it.
China's inflation is likely to be kept under 4% this year, because rising food prices will be restrained in the second half, Chinese state media reported late Monday, citing a National Bureau of Statistics official.
Productivity in the U.S. non-farm business sector rose at a 1.8% annual rate in the second quarter, below economist expectations for an increase of 2.1%. Unit labor costs - a key inflationary signal - rose at an annual rate of 2.1%, above expectations for a 1.6% gain. Real hourly compensation fell 2.0%. In the first quarter, productivity was revised to a 0.7% increase from 1.0% previously. First quarter unit labor costs rose 3.0% rather than the 1.8% increase originally reported.Compared with the same quarter a year ago, productivity was up 0.6% while unit labor costs rose 4.5, the fastest pace since the third quarter of 2000.
What would it be like if public companies revised their numbers every quarter?
Brett Steenbarger: "Interestingly, Monday--the day of hitting a new price low for the S&P index--we had more stocks closing at 10 day highs than at 10 day lows... When you see stocks from different sectors closing at fresh highs and fewer closing at new lows on a day where you've made new lows in the overall index, it makes you wonder about how much steam the decline has left."
Impac Mortgage Holdings Inc. said Tuesday it will stop originating alt-A mortgages and is cutting staff in the wake of the deteriorating mortgage market, but added it has been able to meet all margin calls to date.
Sun Microsystems plans to cut its work force as part of a new restructuring plan. However, in a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the server and software maker does not detail the job cuts.
Prevention Magazine Sept Issue Page 197: " First in a new class of drugs called melanocortin agonists, this nasal spray- just click once and breathe through a small inhaler, 15 to 30 minutes before sex- increases blood flow to the genitals. Unlike Viagra,it has no effect on the cardiovascular system (it works on the central Nervous System). In clinical trials of both pre-menopausal and post menopausal women with sexual dysfunction, it significantly increased desire and genital arousal. Expect FDA approval for women in 2011." This is Palatin's product.
Cisco reported fourth quarter net sales of $9.4 billion, net income on a generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) basis of $1.9 billion or $0.31 per share, and non-GAAP net income of $2.3 billion or $0.36 per share. Revenue grew 18% to $9.43 billion.
Crude oil futures for September delivery finished up 36 cents at $72.42 a barrel. "[The Fed] acknowledged the credit concerns out there, but said that predominant risk remains inflation," said Owen Fitzpatrick, head of U.S. equities at Deutsche Bank.
An increase in credit-card debt pushed outstanding U.S. consumer debt up at a 6.5% annual rate, or $13.2 billion, to $2.46 trillion in June, the Federal Reserve said Tuesday. In June, credit-card and other forms of revolving debt rose at an 8.4% annual rate, or by $6.3 billion. May's revolving credit gain was revised upward, to 12.2%.
Gold for December delivery closed down $1 at $682.30 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. September silver gained 6.20 cents at $13.095 an ounce, October platinum fell $7.70 at $1,291.30 an ounce and September palladium fell $3.05 at $363.55 an ounce. September copper gained 3.30 cents at $3.5065 a pound.
Marsoft: "Dry bulk shipowners had reason to celebrate in the second quarter of 2007, as rates and prices zoomed to new heights. The Cape sector led the way during most of the quarter, but by June and July, Panamaxes and Handymaxes were also setting new records. The Cape rally gained momentum in the second quarter of 2007, as freight rates rose significantly for the fourth consecutive quarter. After averaging $77,000 per day in the first quarter, the Cape Baltic TC Index surged to a record-high above $110,000 per day in May. For the second quarter as a whole, rates averaged $98,000 per day and remained near this level during July."
Business Week blog: "When Wipro announced today that it has a deal to buy U.S. outsourcer Infocrossing for about $600 million, it signaled a major step up for India. This was the largest acquisition ever for the entire Indian IT industry."
Prices for milk and other dairy products have skyrocketed lately in Germany. Cream, cheese, curd, butter and ice cream have suddenly become up to 50 percent more expensive.
Christopher Hancock: "Last week we reported the inconvenient truth that M3 is increasing at 12% a year. M3 is the fullest measure of the U.S. money supply… and it is going up three to four times faster than the GDP itself."
Brad Setser: "China has stopped buying US mortgage-backed securities...A shift from PBoC buying of MBS toward PBoC buying of T-bills could explain the unusual surge in T-bill prices (and resulting fall in yields) in early June."
According to the WSJ, MORTGAGE-MARKET TURMOIL IS starting to hit buyers of high-end homes, as interest rates surge on jumbo loans. Archstone's acquisition by Tishman Speyer and Lehman will be delayed.
Nearly one-quarter of all U.S. flights arrived late to their destinations, the industry's worst on-time performance since the Bureau of Transportation Statistics began tracking such data in 1995.
Xstrata Plc met forecasts with a 47 percent rise in first-half profit on Tuesday and unveiled a $1 billion offer for South Africa's Eland Platinum in a bid to tap booming demand for the metal from Asia. The Swiss-based miner, which has failed to close two deals this year after a string of previous acquisitions, said it had secured the support of shareholders owning 51 percent of Eland.
Xstrata's six month net profit reached $3 billion, up 47% from a pro forma $2.04 billion a year earlier. Revenue was $14.23 billion, up 20% from the pro forma $11.89 billion and more than double the statutory result of $5.18 billion a year ago after integrating three major acquisitions during the period. The group said higher base metal prices and robust bulk commodity prices contributed to its increased profitability, with increased production volumes across the majority of its commodity business partially offset by lower production volumes from Xstrata Copper. The group said global demand for commodities remains strong and the operational issues which impacted volumes in the first half are now behind it.
China's inflation is likely to be kept under 4% this year, because rising food prices will be restrained in the second half, Chinese state media reported late Monday, citing a National Bureau of Statistics official.
Productivity in the U.S. non-farm business sector rose at a 1.8% annual rate in the second quarter, below economist expectations for an increase of 2.1%. Unit labor costs - a key inflationary signal - rose at an annual rate of 2.1%, above expectations for a 1.6% gain. Real hourly compensation fell 2.0%. In the first quarter, productivity was revised to a 0.7% increase from 1.0% previously. First quarter unit labor costs rose 3.0% rather than the 1.8% increase originally reported.Compared with the same quarter a year ago, productivity was up 0.6% while unit labor costs rose 4.5, the fastest pace since the third quarter of 2000.
What would it be like if public companies revised their numbers every quarter?
Brett Steenbarger: "Interestingly, Monday--the day of hitting a new price low for the S&P index--we had more stocks closing at 10 day highs than at 10 day lows... When you see stocks from different sectors closing at fresh highs and fewer closing at new lows on a day where you've made new lows in the overall index, it makes you wonder about how much steam the decline has left."
Impac Mortgage Holdings Inc. said Tuesday it will stop originating alt-A mortgages and is cutting staff in the wake of the deteriorating mortgage market, but added it has been able to meet all margin calls to date.
Sun Microsystems plans to cut its work force as part of a new restructuring plan. However, in a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the server and software maker does not detail the job cuts.
Prevention Magazine Sept Issue Page 197: " First in a new class of drugs called melanocortin agonists, this nasal spray- just click once and breathe through a small inhaler, 15 to 30 minutes before sex- increases blood flow to the genitals. Unlike Viagra,it has no effect on the cardiovascular system (it works on the central Nervous System). In clinical trials of both pre-menopausal and post menopausal women with sexual dysfunction, it significantly increased desire and genital arousal. Expect FDA approval for women in 2011." This is Palatin's product.
Cisco reported fourth quarter net sales of $9.4 billion, net income on a generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) basis of $1.9 billion or $0.31 per share, and non-GAAP net income of $2.3 billion or $0.36 per share. Revenue grew 18% to $9.43 billion.
Crude oil futures for September delivery finished up 36 cents at $72.42 a barrel. "[The Fed] acknowledged the credit concerns out there, but said that predominant risk remains inflation," said Owen Fitzpatrick, head of U.S. equities at Deutsche Bank.
An increase in credit-card debt pushed outstanding U.S. consumer debt up at a 6.5% annual rate, or $13.2 billion, to $2.46 trillion in June, the Federal Reserve said Tuesday. In June, credit-card and other forms of revolving debt rose at an 8.4% annual rate, or by $6.3 billion. May's revolving credit gain was revised upward, to 12.2%.
Gold for December delivery closed down $1 at $682.30 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. September silver gained 6.20 cents at $13.095 an ounce, October platinum fell $7.70 at $1,291.30 an ounce and September palladium fell $3.05 at $363.55 an ounce. September copper gained 3.30 cents at $3.5065 a pound.
Monday, August 06, 2007
The Monday Rebound
8/7/07 The Monday Rebound
John Hussman: "As usual, I have no forecast of what the market will do in the coming weeks. Suffice it to say that both valuations and market internals are unfavorable, which demands a largely hedged position at present, but that short-term conditions are oversold, which invites the potential for a “fast, furious, prone-to-failure” advance to partially correct the recent market weakness. These “clearing rallies” are more vulnerable when they are on lighter trading volume (which we only observe as they unfold), and are typically more exploitable when interest rates and credit spreads are trending lower (which is unfortunately not the case at the moment). Again, we remain largely hedged at present...Overvalued, overbought, overbullish periods have historically left nothing on the table for speculative investors, on average, so I certainly don't believe the attempt to capture returns in such conditions is worth the risk. In any event, my impression is that little of the market's gain over-and-above Treasury bill yields since 2003 will make it through the next bear market, whenever it occurs."
The Pentagon has lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to a new government report. If the Pentagon were a public company, would the CEO be ousted? Don't American citizens "own" the Pentagon?
Brett Steenbarger: "Over the past three weeks, we've seen the S&P 500 Index (SPY) shed more than 7% of its value. At the same time, we've seen 10-year Treasury yields drop more than 7% in a flight to quality. I went back to 1997 (N = 509 trading weeks) and found 15 occasions in which both SPY and 10-year yields had dropped more than 5% in a three-week period. These periods included late August/early September, 1998; December, 2000; March, 2001; June-July, 2002; September, 2002; and December, 2002. Interestingly, when we look 20 weeks forward, SPY was up on 11 of the 15 occasions, by an average of 5.95%. That compares quite favorably to the average 20-week gain of 2.18% for the remainder of the sample. The June, 2002 occasions were the most dangerous, showing a further double-digit drop during the next twenty trading weeks. Eight of the 15 occasions were up more than 5% twenty weeks later. Clearly there has been opportunity as well as crisis when investors flee risk."
Akzo Nobel has won access to Imperial Chemical Industries' books after raising its indicative bid for the British maker of Dulux paints to 8.0 billion pounds ($16.3 billion). The two firms said on Monday that Akzo, which has teamed up with German consumer goods firm Henkel for the bid proposal, was now offering 670 pence a share in cash, up 3 percent from the 650 pence a share rejected by ICI last week.
Countrywide Financial Corp. on Monday said it has immediate access to $46.2 billion through a variety of cash, credit lines and investments the mortgage lender can sell.
The NY Times will shrink the width of its newspaper by 1 ½ inches tomorrow to cut newsprint expenses, almost eight months ahead of schedule, according to a note to its readers.
The New York Times reports that Wal-Mart (WMT) and India's Bharti Enterprises will launch a joint venture in the country to build stores.
The dollar weakened across the board on Monday, hitting a 15-year low against a basket of currencies as investors speculated rising credit market risk and softening U.S. data could force a cut in U.S. interest rates.The dollar index fell below the psychologically key 80.0 level.
Tom Au: "But the real problem is that the Fed’s policies are now hostage to those of the Administration."
The Baltic Dry Index, the best gauge of the world’s dry bulk shipping costs, last week rose above 7,000 points for the first time – an increase of 103 per cent in the past year. The index, which closed at 7,007 on Friday, has jumped almost fivefold since 2000. The sharp increase threatens to add to already rising prices for agriculture, base metals and ore commodities.
``Despite the continued weakness in the homebuilding marketplace, WCI has received approximately $130 million of positive free cash flow already this year, including $25 million to $30 million in the second quarter,'' said Jerry Starkey, President and CEO of WCI Communities. ``And the company expects to generate an additional $400 million to $600 million of free cash flow during the remainder of the year.'' Free cash flow is net cash flow from operations plus or minus net cash flow from investments in property and equipment.
Temple-Inland Inc. agreed to sell 1.55 million acres of timberland to privately-held The Campbell Group Inc. for $2.38 billion. Net proceeds from the transaction are expected to be about $1.8 billion, the majority of which will be paid to shareholders in the form of a special dividend of about $10.25 a share, the company said. About another $700 million will be used to pay down debt. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter.
Mid-morning the VIX trading at a new high of 26.45. As the Dow rallied, the VIX weakened and closed near the day's low at 22.94.
Crude for September delivery ended down $3.42, or nearly 5%, at $72.06 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. September reformulated gasoline fell 10.31 cents, or nearly 5%, at $1.9259 a gallon. September heating oil closed down 9.47 cents, or more than 4%, at $1.9393 a gallon. Bucking the trend in energy futures, September natural gas rose 11.80 cents, or about 2%, at $6.208 per million British thermal units.
National City Home Equity unit has suspended approvals of addition loans or lines of credit in response to market conditions.
Gold for December delivery closed down $1.10 at $683.30 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. September silver fell 12.50 cents to $13.033 an ounce, October platinum gained $1 at $1,299 an ounce and September palladium fell 45 cents to $366.60 an ounce. September copper edged down 0.55 cent to $3.4735 a pound.
Fannie Mae’s chairman said the company was “prepared to step up and help the industry”.
John Hussman: "As usual, I have no forecast of what the market will do in the coming weeks. Suffice it to say that both valuations and market internals are unfavorable, which demands a largely hedged position at present, but that short-term conditions are oversold, which invites the potential for a “fast, furious, prone-to-failure” advance to partially correct the recent market weakness. These “clearing rallies” are more vulnerable when they are on lighter trading volume (which we only observe as they unfold), and are typically more exploitable when interest rates and credit spreads are trending lower (which is unfortunately not the case at the moment). Again, we remain largely hedged at present...Overvalued, overbought, overbullish periods have historically left nothing on the table for speculative investors, on average, so I certainly don't believe the attempt to capture returns in such conditions is worth the risk. In any event, my impression is that little of the market's gain over-and-above Treasury bill yields since 2003 will make it through the next bear market, whenever it occurs."
The Pentagon has lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to a new government report. If the Pentagon were a public company, would the CEO be ousted? Don't American citizens "own" the Pentagon?
Brett Steenbarger: "Over the past three weeks, we've seen the S&P 500 Index (SPY) shed more than 7% of its value. At the same time, we've seen 10-year Treasury yields drop more than 7% in a flight to quality. I went back to 1997 (N = 509 trading weeks) and found 15 occasions in which both SPY and 10-year yields had dropped more than 5% in a three-week period. These periods included late August/early September, 1998; December, 2000; March, 2001; June-July, 2002; September, 2002; and December, 2002. Interestingly, when we look 20 weeks forward, SPY was up on 11 of the 15 occasions, by an average of 5.95%. That compares quite favorably to the average 20-week gain of 2.18% for the remainder of the sample. The June, 2002 occasions were the most dangerous, showing a further double-digit drop during the next twenty trading weeks. Eight of the 15 occasions were up more than 5% twenty weeks later. Clearly there has been opportunity as well as crisis when investors flee risk."
Akzo Nobel has won access to Imperial Chemical Industries' books after raising its indicative bid for the British maker of Dulux paints to 8.0 billion pounds ($16.3 billion). The two firms said on Monday that Akzo, which has teamed up with German consumer goods firm Henkel for the bid proposal, was now offering 670 pence a share in cash, up 3 percent from the 650 pence a share rejected by ICI last week.
Countrywide Financial Corp. on Monday said it has immediate access to $46.2 billion through a variety of cash, credit lines and investments the mortgage lender can sell.
The NY Times will shrink the width of its newspaper by 1 ½ inches tomorrow to cut newsprint expenses, almost eight months ahead of schedule, according to a note to its readers.
The New York Times reports that Wal-Mart (WMT) and India's Bharti Enterprises will launch a joint venture in the country to build stores.
The dollar weakened across the board on Monday, hitting a 15-year low against a basket of currencies as investors speculated rising credit market risk and softening U.S. data could force a cut in U.S. interest rates.The dollar index fell below the psychologically key 80.0 level.
Tom Au: "But the real problem is that the Fed’s policies are now hostage to those of the Administration."
The Baltic Dry Index, the best gauge of the world’s dry bulk shipping costs, last week rose above 7,000 points for the first time – an increase of 103 per cent in the past year. The index, which closed at 7,007 on Friday, has jumped almost fivefold since 2000. The sharp increase threatens to add to already rising prices for agriculture, base metals and ore commodities.
``Despite the continued weakness in the homebuilding marketplace, WCI has received approximately $130 million of positive free cash flow already this year, including $25 million to $30 million in the second quarter,'' said Jerry Starkey, President and CEO of WCI Communities. ``And the company expects to generate an additional $400 million to $600 million of free cash flow during the remainder of the year.'' Free cash flow is net cash flow from operations plus or minus net cash flow from investments in property and equipment.
Temple-Inland Inc. agreed to sell 1.55 million acres of timberland to privately-held The Campbell Group Inc. for $2.38 billion. Net proceeds from the transaction are expected to be about $1.8 billion, the majority of which will be paid to shareholders in the form of a special dividend of about $10.25 a share, the company said. About another $700 million will be used to pay down debt. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter.
Mid-morning the VIX trading at a new high of 26.45. As the Dow rallied, the VIX weakened and closed near the day's low at 22.94.
Crude for September delivery ended down $3.42, or nearly 5%, at $72.06 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. September reformulated gasoline fell 10.31 cents, or nearly 5%, at $1.9259 a gallon. September heating oil closed down 9.47 cents, or more than 4%, at $1.9393 a gallon. Bucking the trend in energy futures, September natural gas rose 11.80 cents, or about 2%, at $6.208 per million British thermal units.
National City Home Equity unit has suspended approvals of addition loans or lines of credit in response to market conditions.
Gold for December delivery closed down $1.10 at $683.30 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. September silver fell 12.50 cents to $13.033 an ounce, October platinum gained $1 at $1,299 an ounce and September palladium fell 45 cents to $366.60 an ounce. September copper edged down 0.55 cent to $3.4735 a pound.
Fannie Mae’s chairman said the company was “prepared to step up and help the industry”.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
The Truth And Observations
8/6/07 The Truth And Observations
Brett Steenbarger: "Stocks making new lows did not expand on Fri despite the drop. 16% of NYSE stocks trading above their 50-day MA."
Marcus Aurelius: “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”
Mike Burk: "1987 was the last time a Presidential Cycle low was realized in the 3rd year...1987 stands out because it was the last time the 4 year Presidential Cycle was extended for a year. However, the conditions leading to the 1987 crash were different. The blue chips had been outperforming for quite a while prior to the 1987 crash while the small caps have been the leaders in recent years. The manic nature of the market recently has been reminiscent of late 1999 and early 2000, but there has not been the prolonged concentration in a single sector like there was in 1999. The high number of new lows and high value of the new low indicators suggests this bottom will take a little while to develop...During the 3rd year of the Presidential Cycle the OTC has been up 73% of the time during the coming week, but the SPX only 46% of the time. Average returns during the 3rd year of the Presidential Cycle have been ok, while the average over all years has been modest...I expect the major indices to be higher on Friday August 10 than they were on Friday August 3."
“Thirty-seven new high-rise condos and 20,000 new units are being built in Miami's 1,040-acre downtown, where sales fell almost 50 percent in May, according to the Florida Association of Realtors. The new units will join the 22,924 existing condos in Miami-Dade County that were for sale in April, according to Jack McCabe, chief executive officer of McCabe Research & Consulting LLC in Deerfield Beach, Florida.”
“The peak month for resetting of mortgages will come this October, according to Credit Suisse, when more than $50 billion in mortgages will switch to a new rate for the first time. The level will remain above $30 billion a month through September 2008. In all, the interest rates on about $1 trillion worth of mortgages, or 12 percent of the nation’s total will reset for the first time this year or next. A couple of years ago, by comparison, only a marginal amount of mortgage debt—a few billion dollars—was resetting each month.”
A senior Iranian diplomat said on Saturday that Tehran would hold meeting with the United States over the Iraq security issue in Baghdad on Monday, the state media reported. "Based on the agreement, the two sides would exchange ideas over details of a trilateral security committee on Monday," Iran's Ambassador to Iraq Hassan Kazemi Qomi, was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Iraq's power grid is near collapse because of insurgent sabotage of infrastructure, rising demand, fuel shortages and provinces that are unplugging local power stations from the national grid, officials said Saturday. Electricity Ministry spokesman Aziz al-Shimari said there had been four nationwide blackouts over the past two days and the shortages are the worst since 2003.
Brett Steenbarger: "Stocks making new lows did not expand on Fri despite the drop. 16% of NYSE stocks trading above their 50-day MA."
Marcus Aurelius: “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”
Mike Burk: "1987 was the last time a Presidential Cycle low was realized in the 3rd year...1987 stands out because it was the last time the 4 year Presidential Cycle was extended for a year. However, the conditions leading to the 1987 crash were different. The blue chips had been outperforming for quite a while prior to the 1987 crash while the small caps have been the leaders in recent years. The manic nature of the market recently has been reminiscent of late 1999 and early 2000, but there has not been the prolonged concentration in a single sector like there was in 1999. The high number of new lows and high value of the new low indicators suggests this bottom will take a little while to develop...During the 3rd year of the Presidential Cycle the OTC has been up 73% of the time during the coming week, but the SPX only 46% of the time. Average returns during the 3rd year of the Presidential Cycle have been ok, while the average over all years has been modest...I expect the major indices to be higher on Friday August 10 than they were on Friday August 3."
“Thirty-seven new high-rise condos and 20,000 new units are being built in Miami's 1,040-acre downtown, where sales fell almost 50 percent in May, according to the Florida Association of Realtors. The new units will join the 22,924 existing condos in Miami-Dade County that were for sale in April, according to Jack McCabe, chief executive officer of McCabe Research & Consulting LLC in Deerfield Beach, Florida.”
“The peak month for resetting of mortgages will come this October, according to Credit Suisse, when more than $50 billion in mortgages will switch to a new rate for the first time. The level will remain above $30 billion a month through September 2008. In all, the interest rates on about $1 trillion worth of mortgages, or 12 percent of the nation’s total will reset for the first time this year or next. A couple of years ago, by comparison, only a marginal amount of mortgage debt—a few billion dollars—was resetting each month.”
A senior Iranian diplomat said on Saturday that Tehran would hold meeting with the United States over the Iraq security issue in Baghdad on Monday, the state media reported. "Based on the agreement, the two sides would exchange ideas over details of a trilateral security committee on Monday," Iran's Ambassador to Iraq Hassan Kazemi Qomi, was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Iraq's power grid is near collapse because of insurgent sabotage of infrastructure, rising demand, fuel shortages and provinces that are unplugging local power stations from the national grid, officials said Saturday. Electricity Ministry spokesman Aziz al-Shimari said there had been four nationwide blackouts over the past two days and the shortages are the worst since 2003.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Risk Adjustment or Train Wreck?
8/5/07 Risk Adjustment or Train Wreck?
Jeremy Grantham: "The feeling have today is that of watching a very slow motion train wreck."
Doug Noland: "Today, we are in the throes of a dramatic, broad-based and momentous tightening of mortgage Credit. Importantly, key players and sectors throughout the mortgage risk intermediation process are increasingly impaired and now in full retreat. This includes entities such as the mortgage insurers, MGIC’s and Radian’s faltering C-BASS securitization unit, REITs such as failed American Home Mortgage and others, hedge funds such those that failed at Bears Stearns and many more, the broker/dealer community and the expansive mortgage derivatives market generally. There is also the issue of exposed mutual funds, money market funds, pension funds and the banking system in general. Just like NASDAQ went to unimaginable extremes than then doubled during a fateful “blow-off” – total mortgage Credit doubled subsequent to the Greenspan Fed’s reckless post-tech Bubble “reflation.” Risky mortgage exposure now permeates the (global) system and is highly susceptible to “Ponzi Finance” dynamics... The marketplace is now experiencing forced de-leveraging and a liquidity Dislocation - with major systemic ramifications."
The VIX is trading at a 4-year high and has risen 110% in 2007.
Business Week blog: "Have you checked out Tudou.com, the Chinese video-sharing site? Yeah, yeah, the "Chinese YouTube." It's been around since 2005, but is gaining steam. Currently, 40 million Chinese Internet users are watching more than 1.2 billion videos each month on Tudou (according to Nielsen//NetRatings). And Tudou recently announced that it will also air ads—a future source of revenue."
Brian Pretti: "For those who have read our work over the years, you know that one of the primary macro themes is that the US economy is not running on a traditional business cycle, but rather on a credit cycle. These days that thought can, in a sense, be extended to the global economy in that the growth rate in monetary aggregates among the major industrialized countries across the planet has been running double digits."
Doug Noland: "The currency markets are a derivative accident in waiting. Fed rates cuts risk a dollar dislocation and/or a further destabilizing (for spreads) Treasury melt-up."
Monica Day: "There's a fundamental rule about investing - you've probably heard it before: Be brave when others are fearful, and fearful when others are brave."
Doug Noland: "And, let there be no doubt, the prospective Credit tightening will hit grossly inflated and highly susceptible “Golden State” housing prices hard – a scenario that will force lenders to incorporate significantly higher Credit losses into their loan pricing terms... Furthermore, I expect the pricing and availability of Credit required to refinance millions of rate-reset mortgages in California and elsewhere to turn prohibitive for many. And the home equity well is about to run dry – from a combination of sharply tightened Credit conditions and accelerating home price declines."
Brett Steenbarger: "Writers blithely quote statistics that 80% or more of traders lose money, but rarely do we stop to consider that trading is creating pain for 80% or more of its participants."
Proctor and Gamble warned that rising commodity prices would hit its profit margins in the next quarter. “We expect raw material and energy costs to increase again in fiscal 2008,” said Clayton Daley, chief financial officer. The company said it would raise prices to try to cover increased costs. In the last quarter, coffee sales were up by double digits as the company passed on higher prices to consumers. The impact of higher commodity prices is expected to be 6-7.5 per cent on gross margins, about double the impact the company originally forecast. As a result, operating margins would only improve “modestly”, the company said." Who should we believe- P&G or the Fed's benign core inflation numbers?
First NLC Financial Services LLC, a subprime mortgage lender being sold by Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group Inc , said on Friday it has laid off nearly half of its 1,350 employees as it combats a slumping housing market.
The current Atlantic hurricane season will show above normal activity, but with two fewer storms and one less hurricane than earlier predicted, widely-watched forecasters at Colorado State University said in a report Friday.
Between The Hedges: "The CBOE total put/call ratio soared to a very elevated 1.76. It has been higher only nine other times in the last decade. The last time it was this high was March 15, a day after the market had already bottomed. Moreover, the 10-day moving average of the CBOE total put/call is a very elevated 1.25. It has only exceeded this level once in history, which was during the March decline. Only time will tell, but I sense that the market has once again priced in the worst-case scenario rather than the most realistic one with regards to the U.S. economy and stocks."
Ford is recalling 3.6 million passenger cars, trucks, sport utility vehicles and vans to address concerns about a cruise control switch that has led to previous recalls based on reports of fires. Ford said the recall covered more than a dozen vehicle models built from 1992-2004.
The U.S. dollar index fell this past week to 80.12.
Doug Noland: "liquidity is evaporating from numerous corners of the financial world, as both investors in hedge funds and the banks that lend to them try to cut and run from recent losses… ‘In many ways, this episode is similar to the LTCM crisis in 1998, as margin calls on leveraged investors are forcing them to sell illiquid assets into unreceptive markets at ever-lower prices,’ says Larry Cantor of Barclays Capital.”
Peter Schiff: "So in effect, any attempt by the Fed to reduce interest rates to bolster housing will backfire, as rising long-term yields will only put additional nails in the housing coffin... When reality sets in, housing prices will collapse...When real estate prices collapse, trillions of dollars of home equity will be wiped out, with disastrous repercussions for an American economy addicted to consumer spending. Though many consumers will see their home equity vanish, their mortgage debt, much of which will become more burdensome once adjustable rates reset much higher, will remain. Flat broke and facing rising mortgage payments, as well as higher gas and food prices, consumers will severely pull back on discretionary spending. As millions lose their jobs as a result of this retrenchment, the recession will kick into high gear, causing even greater damage to the real estate market, the dollar, bonds, and the economy, resulting in even more safe haven flows moving into gold."
John Mauldin: "We have just seen $197 billion of mortgage resets so far this year. That is less than we will see in two months (February and March) of next year. The first six months of next year will see more than the total for 2007 or $521 billion. This suggests to me that the number of foreclosures is due to rise dramatically from the already high current levels, putting more homes into a weak housing environment. These homes that are going to see reset prices are for the most part not going to be able to be rolled over into a traditional 30 year mortgage because there is not going to be enough equity to get a traditional mortgage. While the total increase in payments is an estimated $42 billion, which is not all that large in the grand scheme of things, to the individuals who are paying the increase it is a large increase in their housing costs. My estimate is that this is about one-half of 1% of total consumer spending. Along with inflationary rises in food and energy, this is going to continue to put pressure on consumer spending."
Win Borden: “If you wait to do everything until you're sure it's right, you'll probably never do much of anything.”
Jeremy Grantham: "The feeling have today is that of watching a very slow motion train wreck."
Doug Noland: "Today, we are in the throes of a dramatic, broad-based and momentous tightening of mortgage Credit. Importantly, key players and sectors throughout the mortgage risk intermediation process are increasingly impaired and now in full retreat. This includes entities such as the mortgage insurers, MGIC’s and Radian’s faltering C-BASS securitization unit, REITs such as failed American Home Mortgage and others, hedge funds such those that failed at Bears Stearns and many more, the broker/dealer community and the expansive mortgage derivatives market generally. There is also the issue of exposed mutual funds, money market funds, pension funds and the banking system in general. Just like NASDAQ went to unimaginable extremes than then doubled during a fateful “blow-off” – total mortgage Credit doubled subsequent to the Greenspan Fed’s reckless post-tech Bubble “reflation.” Risky mortgage exposure now permeates the (global) system and is highly susceptible to “Ponzi Finance” dynamics... The marketplace is now experiencing forced de-leveraging and a liquidity Dislocation - with major systemic ramifications."
The VIX is trading at a 4-year high and has risen 110% in 2007.
Business Week blog: "Have you checked out Tudou.com, the Chinese video-sharing site? Yeah, yeah, the "Chinese YouTube." It's been around since 2005, but is gaining steam. Currently, 40 million Chinese Internet users are watching more than 1.2 billion videos each month on Tudou (according to Nielsen//NetRatings). And Tudou recently announced that it will also air ads—a future source of revenue."
Brian Pretti: "For those who have read our work over the years, you know that one of the primary macro themes is that the US economy is not running on a traditional business cycle, but rather on a credit cycle. These days that thought can, in a sense, be extended to the global economy in that the growth rate in monetary aggregates among the major industrialized countries across the planet has been running double digits."
Doug Noland: "The currency markets are a derivative accident in waiting. Fed rates cuts risk a dollar dislocation and/or a further destabilizing (for spreads) Treasury melt-up."
Monica Day: "There's a fundamental rule about investing - you've probably heard it before: Be brave when others are fearful, and fearful when others are brave."
Doug Noland: "And, let there be no doubt, the prospective Credit tightening will hit grossly inflated and highly susceptible “Golden State” housing prices hard – a scenario that will force lenders to incorporate significantly higher Credit losses into their loan pricing terms... Furthermore, I expect the pricing and availability of Credit required to refinance millions of rate-reset mortgages in California and elsewhere to turn prohibitive for many. And the home equity well is about to run dry – from a combination of sharply tightened Credit conditions and accelerating home price declines."
Brett Steenbarger: "Writers blithely quote statistics that 80% or more of traders lose money, but rarely do we stop to consider that trading is creating pain for 80% or more of its participants."
Proctor and Gamble warned that rising commodity prices would hit its profit margins in the next quarter. “We expect raw material and energy costs to increase again in fiscal 2008,” said Clayton Daley, chief financial officer. The company said it would raise prices to try to cover increased costs. In the last quarter, coffee sales were up by double digits as the company passed on higher prices to consumers. The impact of higher commodity prices is expected to be 6-7.5 per cent on gross margins, about double the impact the company originally forecast. As a result, operating margins would only improve “modestly”, the company said." Who should we believe- P&G or the Fed's benign core inflation numbers?
First NLC Financial Services LLC, a subprime mortgage lender being sold by Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group Inc , said on Friday it has laid off nearly half of its 1,350 employees as it combats a slumping housing market.
The current Atlantic hurricane season will show above normal activity, but with two fewer storms and one less hurricane than earlier predicted, widely-watched forecasters at Colorado State University said in a report Friday.
Between The Hedges: "The CBOE total put/call ratio soared to a very elevated 1.76. It has been higher only nine other times in the last decade. The last time it was this high was March 15, a day after the market had already bottomed. Moreover, the 10-day moving average of the CBOE total put/call is a very elevated 1.25. It has only exceeded this level once in history, which was during the March decline. Only time will tell, but I sense that the market has once again priced in the worst-case scenario rather than the most realistic one with regards to the U.S. economy and stocks."
Ford is recalling 3.6 million passenger cars, trucks, sport utility vehicles and vans to address concerns about a cruise control switch that has led to previous recalls based on reports of fires. Ford said the recall covered more than a dozen vehicle models built from 1992-2004.
The U.S. dollar index fell this past week to 80.12.
Doug Noland: "liquidity is evaporating from numerous corners of the financial world, as both investors in hedge funds and the banks that lend to them try to cut and run from recent losses… ‘In many ways, this episode is similar to the LTCM crisis in 1998, as margin calls on leveraged investors are forcing them to sell illiquid assets into unreceptive markets at ever-lower prices,’ says Larry Cantor of Barclays Capital.”
Peter Schiff: "So in effect, any attempt by the Fed to reduce interest rates to bolster housing will backfire, as rising long-term yields will only put additional nails in the housing coffin... When reality sets in, housing prices will collapse...When real estate prices collapse, trillions of dollars of home equity will be wiped out, with disastrous repercussions for an American economy addicted to consumer spending. Though many consumers will see their home equity vanish, their mortgage debt, much of which will become more burdensome once adjustable rates reset much higher, will remain. Flat broke and facing rising mortgage payments, as well as higher gas and food prices, consumers will severely pull back on discretionary spending. As millions lose their jobs as a result of this retrenchment, the recession will kick into high gear, causing even greater damage to the real estate market, the dollar, bonds, and the economy, resulting in even more safe haven flows moving into gold."
John Mauldin: "We have just seen $197 billion of mortgage resets so far this year. That is less than we will see in two months (February and March) of next year. The first six months of next year will see more than the total for 2007 or $521 billion. This suggests to me that the number of foreclosures is due to rise dramatically from the already high current levels, putting more homes into a weak housing environment. These homes that are going to see reset prices are for the most part not going to be able to be rolled over into a traditional 30 year mortgage because there is not going to be enough equity to get a traditional mortgage. While the total increase in payments is an estimated $42 billion, which is not all that large in the grand scheme of things, to the individuals who are paying the increase it is a large increase in their housing costs. My estimate is that this is about one-half of 1% of total consumer spending. Along with inflationary rises in food and energy, this is going to continue to put pressure on consumer spending."
Win Borden: “If you wait to do everything until you're sure it's right, you'll probably never do much of anything.”
Friday, August 03, 2007
Expectations And Fear
8/4/07 Expectations And Fear
Silver Wheaton's second-quarter net profit slipped to $22.9 million, or 10 cents a share, from $25.2 million, or 12 cents a share, after lower silver sales. Analysts had been expecting earnings of 13 cents a share, according to data compiled by Thomson Financial. The firm said that, although second quarter earnings were affected by a shortfall in production at its Luismin mines in Mexico, it's confident that this shortfall is only temporary and production will be back to normal by the end of the year.
Worldwide sales of semiconductors slipped 1.7% to $20 billion in June against May, the Semiconductor Industry Association said Friday. First-half sales were up 2% to $121 billion, it said.
Hercules Offshore stated a recent deterioration in the outlook for U.S. natural gas prices could delay expected recovery in jackup demand.
Komatsu Ltd. plans to open an assembly plant in Russia around 2010, according to the Nikkei News. Komatsu will open an assembly plant producing hydraulic excavation equipment with an annual capacity of 1,000 units, the Nikkei reported in its Friday edition with citing sources.
Procter & Gamble Co. posted a higher quarterly profit on Friday, driven by cost controls, and also announced an acceleration of its share repurchase plans. Profit was $2.27 billion, or 67 cents per share, in the fiscal fourth quarter ended in June, up from $1.9 billion, or 55 cents per share, a year earlier.
Justice Litle: "Sovereign Wealth Funds, or SWFs for short, are essentially state-owned and state-controlled investment vehicles. They are the blue whales of global finance; in terms of sheer size, Sovereign Wealth Funds are the biggest animals on the planet. For example, the Blackstone Group towers over its private equity peers with $88 billion under management -- and yet the Abu Dhabi Investment authority, the oldest and largest of the SWFs, is reckoned to manage nearly ten times that much ($875 billion). The top five Sovereign Wealth Funds -- run by Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Norway, China, and Kuwait respectively -- collectively manage more than $2 trillion, according to Morgan Stanley and WSJ estimates. That sum alone, representing just five countries, is bigger than the entire hedge fund industry (in terms of assets under management). Many more countries, like Russia, Qatar, Botswana, and so on, have their own SWFs. (Russia has more than $100 billion.) Japan, oddly, does not have a Sovereign Wealth Fund; but could reasonably set aside $500-$700 billion if it did."
Toyota's net profit also soared 32 percent to 491.54 billion yen while revenue grew 15.7 percent to 6.52 trillion yen. Currency gains added 100 billion yen to the growth in operating profit, but Toyota said its own efforts had also contributed to a record quarter for revenue and profits."We have increased our sales volume in all regions excluding Japan," Senior Managing Director Takeshi Suzuki told a news conference. "Our core earnings are growing solidly."
Pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk A/S, the world's largest producer of insulin, said Friday that second-quarter net profit more than doubled and raised its guidance for the full year. Its shares rose more than 4 percent.
Justice Litle: "As a recent issue of Grant's explains, global commercial banks are only required to set aside 56 cents ($0.56) for every $100 worth of triple-A rated securities they hold. That's roughly 178-to-1 leverage. If that same chunk of securities is downgraded to triple-B, the set-aside requirements jump from $0.56 to $4.80... a margin increase of more than 750 percent. Drop all the way down to double-B-minus, and the requirement skyrockets to $52 per $100 worth of securities held... a margin increase of more than nine thousand percent. The commodity trading equivalent would be buying corn futures at $540 per contract, and receiving notice one day that margins have gone to $49,140 per contract. Think you might sell? There are multiple stops along the way, of course -- it's not a straight shot from the penthouse to the basement -- but each lowered notch requires another hefty whack of the bank's available capital."
American Home Mortgage said that that it would lay off all but 750 of its 7,000 employees "in light of liquidity issues resulting from disruptions" in the secondary mortgage market.
According to the WSJ, jittery home-mortgage lenders are cutting off credit or raising interest rates for a growing portion of Americans, extending well beyond the market for subprime loans for people with the weakest credit records. This worsening credit crunch threatens to put further pressure on the housing market, where prices are flat to declining in much of the country. The market for mortgage-backed securities is "very panicked," Michael Perry, chief executive of IndyMac Bancorp Inc., another big lender, said in a message on the lender's Web site yesterday.
Microsoft Corp. slashed the price on its Windows Vista operating system in China by more than half, in a bid to lure buyers away from pirated versions of the software.
Nouriel Roubini: "Specifically, hundreds of thousands of subprime and near prime households will default on their mortgage and their homes will end up in foreclosure; the ability of the financial and legal system to manage such a surge in bankruptcies is severely limited. Also, over fifty subprime lenders have now gone out of business and now some of the larger lenders – see AHM and Accredited Home Lenders Holdings Co. - are also in trouble and near bankrupt; the mortgage rot is spreading from subprime to near prime and Alt-A (see Countrywide, IndyMac, etc.). Now, there are news of massive losses among major US home builders and rumors that some may be near bankruptcies. There are already half a dozen mid-sized hedge funds – between US, Australia and Europe – that have gone belly up; and every day financial institutions across the world are reporting large subprime-related losses as a lot of the RMBS and CDO were bought by foreign investors. And in a world where most investors in these illiquid instruments (RMBS, CDOs, CLOs, etc.) are marking to model rather than marking to market the extent of the eventual losses is unknown and the number of financial institutions that will go belly up is also unknown and likely to surprise on the upside. Systemic risk episodes often occur with a death through 1000 cuts rather than one single major – a’ la LTCM – blow."
In the face of a growing crisis of confidence in Chinese goods, Bo Xilai, commerce minister, said that “over 99 per cent of China’s export products are good and safe”. In comments published on Thursday on the ministry’s website, he added: “We hope that all parties can treat Chinese products objectively, fairly and rationally. Don’t let this damage the normal development of trade.”
OPEC's daily shipments of crude oil will probably fall 0.4 percent in the four weeks to Aug. 18 from the previous month, Oil Movements predicted.
Nonfarm payrolls expanded by 92,000 in July, lower than the 133,000 expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch. The unemployment rate ticked higher to 4.6% in July from 4.5% in the previous month. This is the highest unemployment rate since January. Economists forecast the unemployment rate to remain steady at 4.5%. Average hourly earnings increased 6 cents, or 0.3% to $17.45. The increase was in line with expectations. Earnings are up 3.9% in the past year. The average workweek slipped 6 minutes to 33.8 hours. Economists were expecting the workweek to remain steady at 33.9 hours in July.
China's shares rose to a new record high Friday the third time in a week.
IndyMac Bancorp Inc. is joining rival lenders in making ``very major changes'' to home-loan standards and charging higher rates because of a slump in mortgage securities, the company's chief executive officer said. IndyMac Bancorp is the holding company for IndyMac Bank, F.S.B., which bills itself as the seventh largest savings and loan and the second largest independent mortgage lender in the nation.
South Korea's Finance Minister Kwon Okyu said the yen's weakness isn't justified and that carry trades based on the Japanese currency threaten to destabilize global markets.
George Ure: "Only 26,000 of the 92,000 new jobs were from the CES Birth-Death Model, although 537,000 jobs 'created' this year are attributable to the CES model. The U-6 report (a proxy for unemployed engineers flipping burgers) index moved up a tad to 8.6%."
Weyerhaeuser Co. said on Friday its second-quarter earnings fell due to higher costs and a weak U.S. housing market. Excluding items, the company earned 48 cents a share in the latest quarter down from $1.19 a year earlier.
A decision not to renew a major nuclear arms reduction treaty may have dire consequences for U.S. foreign policy and the entire world, Russian experts said Thursday. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START-I) was signed by the United States and the Soviet Union on July 31, 1991, five months before the union collapsed, and remains in force between the U.S., Russia, and three other ex-Soviet states.
Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine have since disposed of all their nuclear weapons or transferred them to Russia, and the U.S. and Russia have reduced the number of delivery vehicles to 1,600, with no more than 6,000 warheads. The treaty is set to expire on December 5, 2009.
General James E. Cartwright, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, said Wednesday that the refusal to prolong the START-I Treaty would allow the United States to conduct quick and pinpointed strikes anywhere in the world, which is crucial for an effective fight against global terrorism. I wonder whether this will be reported on the front page to Americans? The story was printed in Moscow.
Yahoo! was the most popular property, with 41.5 million unique visitors, and Yahoo! now reaches 77 percent of the total Japanese online population.
GAO Report: "Despite 4 years of effort and $2.7 billion in U.S. reconstruction funds, Iraqi oil output has consistently fallen below U.S. program goals. In addition, the State Department's data on Iraq's oil production may be overstated since data from the U.S. Department of Energy show lower production levels -- between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels less per day. Inadequate metering, re-injection, corruption, theft and sabotage account for the discrepancy, which amounts to about $1.8 to $5.5 billion per year. Comprehensive metering of Iraq's oil production has been a long-standing problem and continuing need."
Countrywide's credit default swap spreads widened by almost 100 basis points, reaching more than 300 basis points, or $300,000 per year for five years to insure $10 million in debt, from 215 basis points at Thursday's close.
The cost to insure Bear's debt with credit default swaps rose to around 163 basis points, or $163,000 per year for five years to insure $10 million in debt, from about 115 basis points at Thursday's close.
Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs credit default swap spreads each widened by around 30 basis points to 130 basis points and 100 basis points, respectively.
Merrill Lynch's swaps were also around 30 basis points wider at around 100 basis points and Morgan Stanley's swaps widened around 20 basis points to the high 90 basis point area.
DaimlerChrysler AG has completed the sale of its majority interest in the Chrysler Group to a subsidiary of private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management L.P. Cerberus now has an 80.1% stake in the Chrysler Holding LLC, while Daimler retains a 19.9% interest, the automaker said. Both companies will subscribe $2 billion of second lien debt for Chrysler's automotive business, to be drawn within 12 months, the company said. Daimler's portion will be $1.5 billion.
December gold climbed $7.80 to close at a more than one-week high of $684.40 an ounce. September silver rose 1.3% to close at $13.158 an ounce, up 3.5% for the week. September copper fell 2.6% to close at $3.479 a pound, down 2% for the week.
Bear Stearns: "Our franchise is profitable and healthy and our balance sheet is strong and liquid." Bond market turmoil sending investors fleeing from risk may be a worse predicament than the 1980s stock market fall and Internet bubble burst, Bear Stearns Chief Financial Officer Sam Molinaro said on Friday.
"These times are pretty significant in the fixed income market," Molinaro said on a conference call with analysts. "It's as been as bad as I've seen it in 22 years. The fixed income market environment we've seen in the last eight weeks has been pretty extreme."
September crude closed at $75.48 a barrel, down $1.38 for Friday's session and down 2% for the week. September natural gas fell 1.6 cents to close at $6.09 per million British thermal units. It lost 1.9% for the week.
"Banks want to see higher credit scores and more money in the bank and larger down payments," says Melissa Cohn, chief executive of Manhattan Mortgage, a New York mortgage broker. "If lenders can't sell loans they have, there is no choice but to offer mortgages at a higher rate to homeowners," Cohn says. "It has nothing to do with bond market yields right now". As an example, Cohn says that even someone with a high credit score could pay as much as 8.25% for a jumbo 30-year loan. That's well above the conventional 30-year fixed mortgage rate, which currently average 6.26%, according to Bankrate.com.
Wells Fargo, the second-largest U.S. mortgage lender, said it is curtailing issuance of "Alt-A" home loans through brokers, while Wachovia has stopped entirely. Wachovia also said one lending unit has temporarily halted its Alt-A production.
Lenders are making fewer home loans once thought to be safe because investors now perceive those loans to be risky. The changes could worsen the U.S. housing slump by putting home ownership beyond the reach of a larger number of Americans.
Alt-A loans, short for Alternative-A, fall between prime and subprime in quality. One Alt-A specialist, American Home Mortgage Investment Corp , is closing on Friday.
8/4/07 Expectations And Fear
Silver Wheaton's second-quarter net profit slipped to $22.9 million, or 10 cents a share, from $25.2 million, or 12 cents a share, after lower silver sales. Analysts had been expecting earnings of 13 cents a share, according to data compiled by Thomson Financial. The firm said that, although second quarter earnings were affected by a shortfall in production at its Luismin mines in Mexico, it's confident that this shortfall is only temporary and production will be back to normal by the end of the year.
Worldwide sales of semiconductors slipped 1.7% to $20 billion in June against May, the Semiconductor Industry Association said Friday. First-half sales were up 2% to $121 billion, it said.
Hercules Offshore stated a recent deterioration in the outlook for U.S. natural gas prices could delay expected recovery in jackup demand.
Komatsu Ltd. plans to open an assembly plant in Russia around 2010, according to the Nikkei News. Komatsu will open an assembly plant producing hydraulic excavation equipment with an annual capacity of 1,000 units, the Nikkei reported in its Friday edition with citing sources.
Procter & Gamble Co. posted a higher quarterly profit on Friday, driven by cost controls, and also announced an acceleration of its share repurchase plans. Profit was $2.27 billion, or 67 cents per share, in the fiscal fourth quarter ended in June, up from $1.9 billion, or 55 cents per share, a year earlier.
Justice Litle: "Sovereign Wealth Funds, or SWFs for short, are essentially state-owned and state-controlled investment vehicles. They are the blue whales of global finance; in terms of sheer size, Sovereign Wealth Funds are the biggest animals on the planet. For example, the Blackstone Group towers over its private equity peers with $88 billion under management -- and yet the Abu Dhabi Investment authority, the oldest and largest of the SWFs, is reckoned to manage nearly ten times that much ($875 billion). The top five Sovereign Wealth Funds -- run by Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Norway, China, and Kuwait respectively -- collectively manage more than $2 trillion, according to Morgan Stanley and WSJ estimates. That sum alone, representing just five countries, is bigger than the entire hedge fund industry (in terms of assets under management). Many more countries, like Russia, Qatar, Botswana, and so on, have their own SWFs. (Russia has more than $100 billion.) Japan, oddly, does not have a Sovereign Wealth Fund; but could reasonably set aside $500-$700 billion if it did."
Toyota's net profit also soared 32 percent to 491.54 billion yen while revenue grew 15.7 percent to 6.52 trillion yen. Currency gains added 100 billion yen to the growth in operating profit, but Toyota said its own efforts had also contributed to a record quarter for revenue and profits."We have increased our sales volume in all regions excluding Japan," Senior Managing Director Takeshi Suzuki told a news conference. "Our core earnings are growing solidly."
Pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk A/S, the world's largest producer of insulin, said Friday that second-quarter net profit more than doubled and raised its guidance for the full year. Its shares rose more than 4 percent.
Justice Litle: "As a recent issue of Grant's explains, global commercial banks are only required to set aside 56 cents ($0.56) for every $100 worth of triple-A rated securities they hold. That's roughly 178-to-1 leverage. If that same chunk of securities is downgraded to triple-B, the set-aside requirements jump from $0.56 to $4.80... a margin increase of more than 750 percent. Drop all the way down to double-B-minus, and the requirement skyrockets to $52 per $100 worth of securities held... a margin increase of more than nine thousand percent. The commodity trading equivalent would be buying corn futures at $540 per contract, and receiving notice one day that margins have gone to $49,140 per contract. Think you might sell? There are multiple stops along the way, of course -- it's not a straight shot from the penthouse to the basement -- but each lowered notch requires another hefty whack of the bank's available capital."
American Home Mortgage said that that it would lay off all but 750 of its 7,000 employees “in light of liquidity issues resulting from disruptions” in the secondary mortgage market.
According to the WSJ, jittery home-mortgage lenders are cutting off credit or raising interest rates for a growing portion of Americans, extending well beyond the market for subprime loans for people with the weakest credit records. This worsening credit crunch threatens to put further pressure on the housing market, where prices are flat to declining in much of the country. The market for mortgage-backed securities is "very panicked," Michael Perry, chief executive of IndyMac Bancorp Inc., another big lender, said in a message on the lender's Web site yesterday.
Microsoft Corp. slashed the price on its Windows Vista operating system in China by more than half, in a bid to lure buyers away from pirated versions of the software.
Nouriel Roubini: "Specifically, hundreds of thousands of subprime and near prime households will default on their mortgage and their homes will end up in foreclosure; the ability of the financial and legal system to manage such a surge in bankruptcies is severely limited. Also, over fifty subprime lenders have now gone out of business and now some of the larger lenders – see AHM and Accredited Home Lenders Holdings Co. - are also in trouble and near bankrupt; the mortgage rot is spreading from subprime to near prime and Alt-A (see Countrywide, IndyMac, etc.). Now, there are news of massive losses among major US home builders and rumors that some may be near bankruptcies. There are already half a dozen mid-sized hedge funds – between US, Australia and Europe – that have gone belly up; and every day financial institutions across the world are reporting large subprime-related losses as a lot of the RMBS and CDO were bought by foreign investors. And in a world where most investors in these illiquid instruments (RMBS, CDOs, CLOs, etc.) are marking to model rather than marking to market the extent of the eventual losses is unknown and the number of financial institutions that will go belly up is also unknown and likely to surprise on the upside. Systemic risk episodes often occur with a death through 1000 cuts rather than one single major – a’ la LTCM – blow."
In the face of a growing crisis of confidence in Chinese goods, Bo Xilai, commerce minister, said that “over 99 per cent of China’s export products are good and safe”. In comments published on Thursday on the ministry’s website, he added: “We hope that all parties can treat Chinese products objectively, fairly and rationally. Don’t let this damage the normal development of trade.”
OPEC's daily shipments of crude oil will probably fall 0.4 percent in the four weeks to Aug. 18 from the previous month, Oil Movements predicted.
Nonfarm payrolls expanded by 92,000 in July, lower than the 133,000 expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch. The unemployment rate ticked higher to 4.6% in July from 4.5% in the previous month. This is the highest unemployment rate since January. Economists forecast the unemployment rate to remain steady at 4.5%. Average hourly earnings increased 6 cents, or 0.3% to $17.45. The increase was in line with expectations. Earnings are up 3.9% in the past year. The average workweek slipped 6 minutes to 33.8 hours. Economists were expecting the workweek to remain steady at 33.9 hours in July.
China's shares rose to a new record high Friday the third time in a week.
IndyMac Bancorp Inc. is joining rival lenders in making ``very major changes'' to home-loan standards and charging higher rates because of a slump in mortgage securities, the company's chief executive officer said. IndyMac Bancorp is the holding company for IndyMac Bank, F.S.B., which bills itself as the seventh largest savings and loan and the second largest independent mortgage lender in the nation.
South Korea's Finance Minister Kwon Okyu said the yen's weakness isn't justified and that carry trades based on the Japanese currency threaten to destabilize global markets.
George Ure: "Only 26,000 of the 92,000 new jobs were from the CES Birth-Death Model, although 537,000 jobs 'created' this year are attributable to the CES model. The U-6 report (a proxy for unemployed engineers flipping burgers) index moved up a tad to 8.6%."
Weyerhaeuser Co. said on Friday its second-quarter earnings fell due to higher costs and a weak U.S. housing market. Excluding items, the company earned 48 cents a share in the latest quarter down from $1.19 a year earlier.
A decision not to renew a major nuclear arms reduction treaty may have dire consequences for U.S. foreign policy and the entire world, Russian experts said Thursday.
The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START-I) was signed by the United States and the Soviet Union on July 31, 1991, five months before the union collapsed, and remains in force between the U.S., Russia, and three other ex-Soviet states.
Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine have since disposed of all their nuclear weapons or transferred them to Russia, and the U.S. and Russia have reduced the number of delivery vehicles to 1,600, with no more than 6,000 warheads. The treaty is set to expire on December 5, 2009.
General James E. Cartwright, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, said Wednesday that the refusal to prolong the START-I Treaty would allow the United States to conduct quick and pinpointed strikes anywhere in the world, which is crucial for an effective fight against global terrorism. I wonder whether this will be reported on the front page to Americans? The story was printed in Moscow.
Yahoo! was the most popular property, with 41.5 million unique visitors, and Yahoo! now reaches 77 percent of the total Japanese online population.
GAO Report: "Despite 4 years of effort and $2.7 billion in U.S. reconstruction funds, Iraqi oil output has consistently fallen below U.S. program goals. In addition, the State Department's data on Iraq's oil production may be overstated since data from the U.S. Department of Energy show lower production levels -- between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels less per day. Inadequate metering, re-injection, corruption, theft and sabotage account for the discrepancy, which amounts to about $1.8 to $5.5 billion per year. Comprehensive metering of Iraq's oil production has been a long-standing problem and continuing need."
Countrywide's credit default swap spreads widened by almost 100 basis points, reaching more than 300 basis points, or $300,000 per year for five years to insure $10 million in debt, from 215 basis points at Thursday's close.
The cost to insure Bear's debt with credit default swaps rose to around 163 basis points, or $163,000 per year for five years to insure $10 million in debt, from about 115 basis points at Thursday's close.
Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs credit default swap spreads each widened by around 30 basis points to 130 basis points and 100 basis points, respectively.
Merrill Lynch's swaps were also around 30 basis points wider at around 100 basis points and Morgan Stanley's swaps widened around 20 basis points to the high 90 basis point area.
DaimlerChrysler AG has completed the sale of its majority interest in the Chrysler Group to a subsidiary of private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management L.P. Cerberus now has an 80.1% stake in the Chrysler Holding LLC, while Daimler retains a 19.9% interest, the automaker said. Both companies will subscribe $2 billion of second lien debt for Chrysler's automotive business, to be drawn within 12 months, the company said. Daimler's portion will be $1.5 billion.
December gold climbed $7.80 to close at a more than one-week high of $684.40 an ounce. September silver rose 1.3% to close at $13.158 an ounce, up 3.5% for the week. September copper fell 2.6% to close at $3.479 a pound, down 2% for the week.
Bear Stearns: "Our franchise is profitable and healthy and our balance sheet is strong and liquid." Bond market turmoil sending investors fleeing from risk may be a worse predicament than the 1980s stock market fall and Internet bubble burst, Bear Stearns Chief Financial Officer Sam Molinaro said on Friday.
"These times are pretty significant in the fixed income market," Molinaro said on a conference call with analysts. "It's as been as bad as I've seen it in 22 years. The fixed income market environment we've seen in the last eight weeks has been pretty extreme."
September crude closed at $75.48 a barrel, down $1.38 for Friday's session and down 2% for the week. September natural gas fell 1.6 cents to close at $6.09 per million British thermal units. It lost 1.9% for the week.
"Banks want to see higher credit scores and more money in the bank and larger down payments," says Melissa Cohn, chief executive of Manhattan Mortgage, a New York mortgage broker. "If lenders can't sell loans they have, there is no choice but to offer mortgages at a higher rate to homeowners," Cohn says. "It has nothing to do with bond market yields right now". As an example, Cohn says that even someone with a high credit score could pay as much as 8.25% for a jumbo 30-year loan. That's well above the conventional 30-year fixed mortgage rate, which currently average 6.26%, according to Bankrate.com.
Wells Fargo, the second-largest U.S. mortgage lender, said it is curtailing issuance of "Alt-A" home loans through brokers, while Wachovia has stopped entirely. Wachovia also said one lending unit has temporarily halted its Alt-A production.
Lenders are making fewer home loans once thought to be safe because investors now perceive those loans to be risky. The changes could worsen the U.S. housing slump by putting home ownership beyond the reach of a larger number of Americans.
Alt-A loans, short for Alternative-A, fall between prime and subprime in quality. One Alt-A specialist, American Home Mortgage Investment Corp , is closing on Friday.
Silver Wheaton's second-quarter net profit slipped to $22.9 million, or 10 cents a share, from $25.2 million, or 12 cents a share, after lower silver sales. Analysts had been expecting earnings of 13 cents a share, according to data compiled by Thomson Financial. The firm said that, although second quarter earnings were affected by a shortfall in production at its Luismin mines in Mexico, it's confident that this shortfall is only temporary and production will be back to normal by the end of the year.
Worldwide sales of semiconductors slipped 1.7% to $20 billion in June against May, the Semiconductor Industry Association said Friday. First-half sales were up 2% to $121 billion, it said.
Hercules Offshore stated a recent deterioration in the outlook for U.S. natural gas prices could delay expected recovery in jackup demand.
Komatsu Ltd. plans to open an assembly plant in Russia around 2010, according to the Nikkei News. Komatsu will open an assembly plant producing hydraulic excavation equipment with an annual capacity of 1,000 units, the Nikkei reported in its Friday edition with citing sources.
Procter & Gamble Co. posted a higher quarterly profit on Friday, driven by cost controls, and also announced an acceleration of its share repurchase plans. Profit was $2.27 billion, or 67 cents per share, in the fiscal fourth quarter ended in June, up from $1.9 billion, or 55 cents per share, a year earlier.
Justice Litle: "Sovereign Wealth Funds, or SWFs for short, are essentially state-owned and state-controlled investment vehicles. They are the blue whales of global finance; in terms of sheer size, Sovereign Wealth Funds are the biggest animals on the planet. For example, the Blackstone Group towers over its private equity peers with $88 billion under management -- and yet the Abu Dhabi Investment authority, the oldest and largest of the SWFs, is reckoned to manage nearly ten times that much ($875 billion). The top five Sovereign Wealth Funds -- run by Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Norway, China, and Kuwait respectively -- collectively manage more than $2 trillion, according to Morgan Stanley and WSJ estimates. That sum alone, representing just five countries, is bigger than the entire hedge fund industry (in terms of assets under management). Many more countries, like Russia, Qatar, Botswana, and so on, have their own SWFs. (Russia has more than $100 billion.) Japan, oddly, does not have a Sovereign Wealth Fund; but could reasonably set aside $500-$700 billion if it did."
Toyota's net profit also soared 32 percent to 491.54 billion yen while revenue grew 15.7 percent to 6.52 trillion yen. Currency gains added 100 billion yen to the growth in operating profit, but Toyota said its own efforts had also contributed to a record quarter for revenue and profits."We have increased our sales volume in all regions excluding Japan," Senior Managing Director Takeshi Suzuki told a news conference. "Our core earnings are growing solidly."
Pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk A/S, the world's largest producer of insulin, said Friday that second-quarter net profit more than doubled and raised its guidance for the full year. Its shares rose more than 4 percent.
Justice Litle: "As a recent issue of Grant's explains, global commercial banks are only required to set aside 56 cents ($0.56) for every $100 worth of triple-A rated securities they hold. That's roughly 178-to-1 leverage. If that same chunk of securities is downgraded to triple-B, the set-aside requirements jump from $0.56 to $4.80... a margin increase of more than 750 percent. Drop all the way down to double-B-minus, and the requirement skyrockets to $52 per $100 worth of securities held... a margin increase of more than nine thousand percent. The commodity trading equivalent would be buying corn futures at $540 per contract, and receiving notice one day that margins have gone to $49,140 per contract. Think you might sell? There are multiple stops along the way, of course -- it's not a straight shot from the penthouse to the basement -- but each lowered notch requires another hefty whack of the bank's available capital."
American Home Mortgage said that that it would lay off all but 750 of its 7,000 employees "in light of liquidity issues resulting from disruptions" in the secondary mortgage market.
According to the WSJ, jittery home-mortgage lenders are cutting off credit or raising interest rates for a growing portion of Americans, extending well beyond the market for subprime loans for people with the weakest credit records. This worsening credit crunch threatens to put further pressure on the housing market, where prices are flat to declining in much of the country. The market for mortgage-backed securities is "very panicked," Michael Perry, chief executive of IndyMac Bancorp Inc., another big lender, said in a message on the lender's Web site yesterday.
Microsoft Corp. slashed the price on its Windows Vista operating system in China by more than half, in a bid to lure buyers away from pirated versions of the software.
Nouriel Roubini: "Specifically, hundreds of thousands of subprime and near prime households will default on their mortgage and their homes will end up in foreclosure; the ability of the financial and legal system to manage such a surge in bankruptcies is severely limited. Also, over fifty subprime lenders have now gone out of business and now some of the larger lenders – see AHM and Accredited Home Lenders Holdings Co. - are also in trouble and near bankrupt; the mortgage rot is spreading from subprime to near prime and Alt-A (see Countrywide, IndyMac, etc.). Now, there are news of massive losses among major US home builders and rumors that some may be near bankruptcies. There are already half a dozen mid-sized hedge funds – between US, Australia and Europe – that have gone belly up; and every day financial institutions across the world are reporting large subprime-related losses as a lot of the RMBS and CDO were bought by foreign investors. And in a world where most investors in these illiquid instruments (RMBS, CDOs, CLOs, etc.) are marking to model rather than marking to market the extent of the eventual losses is unknown and the number of financial institutions that will go belly up is also unknown and likely to surprise on the upside. Systemic risk episodes often occur with a death through 1000 cuts rather than one single major – a’ la LTCM – blow."
In the face of a growing crisis of confidence in Chinese goods, Bo Xilai, commerce minister, said that “over 99 per cent of China’s export products are good and safe”. In comments published on Thursday on the ministry’s website, he added: “We hope that all parties can treat Chinese products objectively, fairly and rationally. Don’t let this damage the normal development of trade.”
OPEC's daily shipments of crude oil will probably fall 0.4 percent in the four weeks to Aug. 18 from the previous month, Oil Movements predicted.
Nonfarm payrolls expanded by 92,000 in July, lower than the 133,000 expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch. The unemployment rate ticked higher to 4.6% in July from 4.5% in the previous month. This is the highest unemployment rate since January. Economists forecast the unemployment rate to remain steady at 4.5%. Average hourly earnings increased 6 cents, or 0.3% to $17.45. The increase was in line with expectations. Earnings are up 3.9% in the past year. The average workweek slipped 6 minutes to 33.8 hours. Economists were expecting the workweek to remain steady at 33.9 hours in July.
China's shares rose to a new record high Friday the third time in a week.
IndyMac Bancorp Inc. is joining rival lenders in making ``very major changes'' to home-loan standards and charging higher rates because of a slump in mortgage securities, the company's chief executive officer said. IndyMac Bancorp is the holding company for IndyMac Bank, F.S.B., which bills itself as the seventh largest savings and loan and the second largest independent mortgage lender in the nation.
South Korea's Finance Minister Kwon Okyu said the yen's weakness isn't justified and that carry trades based on the Japanese currency threaten to destabilize global markets.
George Ure: "Only 26,000 of the 92,000 new jobs were from the CES Birth-Death Model, although 537,000 jobs 'created' this year are attributable to the CES model. The U-6 report (a proxy for unemployed engineers flipping burgers) index moved up a tad to 8.6%."
Weyerhaeuser Co. said on Friday its second-quarter earnings fell due to higher costs and a weak U.S. housing market. Excluding items, the company earned 48 cents a share in the latest quarter down from $1.19 a year earlier.
A decision not to renew a major nuclear arms reduction treaty may have dire consequences for U.S. foreign policy and the entire world, Russian experts said Thursday. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START-I) was signed by the United States and the Soviet Union on July 31, 1991, five months before the union collapsed, and remains in force between the U.S., Russia, and three other ex-Soviet states.
Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine have since disposed of all their nuclear weapons or transferred them to Russia, and the U.S. and Russia have reduced the number of delivery vehicles to 1,600, with no more than 6,000 warheads. The treaty is set to expire on December 5, 2009.
General James E. Cartwright, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, said Wednesday that the refusal to prolong the START-I Treaty would allow the United States to conduct quick and pinpointed strikes anywhere in the world, which is crucial for an effective fight against global terrorism. I wonder whether this will be reported on the front page to Americans? The story was printed in Moscow.
Yahoo! was the most popular property, with 41.5 million unique visitors, and Yahoo! now reaches 77 percent of the total Japanese online population.
GAO Report: "Despite 4 years of effort and $2.7 billion in U.S. reconstruction funds, Iraqi oil output has consistently fallen below U.S. program goals. In addition, the State Department's data on Iraq's oil production may be overstated since data from the U.S. Department of Energy show lower production levels -- between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels less per day. Inadequate metering, re-injection, corruption, theft and sabotage account for the discrepancy, which amounts to about $1.8 to $5.5 billion per year. Comprehensive metering of Iraq's oil production has been a long-standing problem and continuing need."
Countrywide's credit default swap spreads widened by almost 100 basis points, reaching more than 300 basis points, or $300,000 per year for five years to insure $10 million in debt, from 215 basis points at Thursday's close.
The cost to insure Bear's debt with credit default swaps rose to around 163 basis points, or $163,000 per year for five years to insure $10 million in debt, from about 115 basis points at Thursday's close.
Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs credit default swap spreads each widened by around 30 basis points to 130 basis points and 100 basis points, respectively.
Merrill Lynch's swaps were also around 30 basis points wider at around 100 basis points and Morgan Stanley's swaps widened around 20 basis points to the high 90 basis point area.
DaimlerChrysler AG has completed the sale of its majority interest in the Chrysler Group to a subsidiary of private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management L.P. Cerberus now has an 80.1% stake in the Chrysler Holding LLC, while Daimler retains a 19.9% interest, the automaker said. Both companies will subscribe $2 billion of second lien debt for Chrysler's automotive business, to be drawn within 12 months, the company said. Daimler's portion will be $1.5 billion.
December gold climbed $7.80 to close at a more than one-week high of $684.40 an ounce. September silver rose 1.3% to close at $13.158 an ounce, up 3.5% for the week. September copper fell 2.6% to close at $3.479 a pound, down 2% for the week.
Bear Stearns: "Our franchise is profitable and healthy and our balance sheet is strong and liquid." Bond market turmoil sending investors fleeing from risk may be a worse predicament than the 1980s stock market fall and Internet bubble burst, Bear Stearns Chief Financial Officer Sam Molinaro said on Friday.
"These times are pretty significant in the fixed income market," Molinaro said on a conference call with analysts. "It's as been as bad as I've seen it in 22 years. The fixed income market environment we've seen in the last eight weeks has been pretty extreme."
September crude closed at $75.48 a barrel, down $1.38 for Friday's session and down 2% for the week. September natural gas fell 1.6 cents to close at $6.09 per million British thermal units. It lost 1.9% for the week.
"Banks want to see higher credit scores and more money in the bank and larger down payments," says Melissa Cohn, chief executive of Manhattan Mortgage, a New York mortgage broker. "If lenders can't sell loans they have, there is no choice but to offer mortgages at a higher rate to homeowners," Cohn says. "It has nothing to do with bond market yields right now". As an example, Cohn says that even someone with a high credit score could pay as much as 8.25% for a jumbo 30-year loan. That's well above the conventional 30-year fixed mortgage rate, which currently average 6.26%, according to Bankrate.com.
Wells Fargo, the second-largest U.S. mortgage lender, said it is curtailing issuance of "Alt-A" home loans through brokers, while Wachovia has stopped entirely. Wachovia also said one lending unit has temporarily halted its Alt-A production.
Lenders are making fewer home loans once thought to be safe because investors now perceive those loans to be risky. The changes could worsen the U.S. housing slump by putting home ownership beyond the reach of a larger number of Americans.
Alt-A loans, short for Alternative-A, fall between prime and subprime in quality. One Alt-A specialist, American Home Mortgage Investment Corp , is closing on Friday.
8/4/07 Expectations And Fear
Silver Wheaton's second-quarter net profit slipped to $22.9 million, or 10 cents a share, from $25.2 million, or 12 cents a share, after lower silver sales. Analysts had been expecting earnings of 13 cents a share, according to data compiled by Thomson Financial. The firm said that, although second quarter earnings were affected by a shortfall in production at its Luismin mines in Mexico, it's confident that this shortfall is only temporary and production will be back to normal by the end of the year.
Worldwide sales of semiconductors slipped 1.7% to $20 billion in June against May, the Semiconductor Industry Association said Friday. First-half sales were up 2% to $121 billion, it said.
Hercules Offshore stated a recent deterioration in the outlook for U.S. natural gas prices could delay expected recovery in jackup demand.
Komatsu Ltd. plans to open an assembly plant in Russia around 2010, according to the Nikkei News. Komatsu will open an assembly plant producing hydraulic excavation equipment with an annual capacity of 1,000 units, the Nikkei reported in its Friday edition with citing sources.
Procter & Gamble Co. posted a higher quarterly profit on Friday, driven by cost controls, and also announced an acceleration of its share repurchase plans. Profit was $2.27 billion, or 67 cents per share, in the fiscal fourth quarter ended in June, up from $1.9 billion, or 55 cents per share, a year earlier.
Justice Litle: "Sovereign Wealth Funds, or SWFs for short, are essentially state-owned and state-controlled investment vehicles. They are the blue whales of global finance; in terms of sheer size, Sovereign Wealth Funds are the biggest animals on the planet. For example, the Blackstone Group towers over its private equity peers with $88 billion under management -- and yet the Abu Dhabi Investment authority, the oldest and largest of the SWFs, is reckoned to manage nearly ten times that much ($875 billion). The top five Sovereign Wealth Funds -- run by Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Norway, China, and Kuwait respectively -- collectively manage more than $2 trillion, according to Morgan Stanley and WSJ estimates. That sum alone, representing just five countries, is bigger than the entire hedge fund industry (in terms of assets under management). Many more countries, like Russia, Qatar, Botswana, and so on, have their own SWFs. (Russia has more than $100 billion.) Japan, oddly, does not have a Sovereign Wealth Fund; but could reasonably set aside $500-$700 billion if it did."
Toyota's net profit also soared 32 percent to 491.54 billion yen while revenue grew 15.7 percent to 6.52 trillion yen. Currency gains added 100 billion yen to the growth in operating profit, but Toyota said its own efforts had also contributed to a record quarter for revenue and profits."We have increased our sales volume in all regions excluding Japan," Senior Managing Director Takeshi Suzuki told a news conference. "Our core earnings are growing solidly."
Pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk A/S, the world's largest producer of insulin, said Friday that second-quarter net profit more than doubled and raised its guidance for the full year. Its shares rose more than 4 percent.
Justice Litle: "As a recent issue of Grant's explains, global commercial banks are only required to set aside 56 cents ($0.56) for every $100 worth of triple-A rated securities they hold. That's roughly 178-to-1 leverage. If that same chunk of securities is downgraded to triple-B, the set-aside requirements jump from $0.56 to $4.80... a margin increase of more than 750 percent. Drop all the way down to double-B-minus, and the requirement skyrockets to $52 per $100 worth of securities held... a margin increase of more than nine thousand percent. The commodity trading equivalent would be buying corn futures at $540 per contract, and receiving notice one day that margins have gone to $49,140 per contract. Think you might sell? There are multiple stops along the way, of course -- it's not a straight shot from the penthouse to the basement -- but each lowered notch requires another hefty whack of the bank's available capital."
American Home Mortgage said that that it would lay off all but 750 of its 7,000 employees “in light of liquidity issues resulting from disruptions” in the secondary mortgage market.
According to the WSJ, jittery home-mortgage lenders are cutting off credit or raising interest rates for a growing portion of Americans, extending well beyond the market for subprime loans for people with the weakest credit records. This worsening credit crunch threatens to put further pressure on the housing market, where prices are flat to declining in much of the country. The market for mortgage-backed securities is "very panicked," Michael Perry, chief executive of IndyMac Bancorp Inc., another big lender, said in a message on the lender's Web site yesterday.
Microsoft Corp. slashed the price on its Windows Vista operating system in China by more than half, in a bid to lure buyers away from pirated versions of the software.
Nouriel Roubini: "Specifically, hundreds of thousands of subprime and near prime households will default on their mortgage and their homes will end up in foreclosure; the ability of the financial and legal system to manage such a surge in bankruptcies is severely limited. Also, over fifty subprime lenders have now gone out of business and now some of the larger lenders – see AHM and Accredited Home Lenders Holdings Co. - are also in trouble and near bankrupt; the mortgage rot is spreading from subprime to near prime and Alt-A (see Countrywide, IndyMac, etc.). Now, there are news of massive losses among major US home builders and rumors that some may be near bankruptcies. There are already half a dozen mid-sized hedge funds – between US, Australia and Europe – that have gone belly up; and every day financial institutions across the world are reporting large subprime-related losses as a lot of the RMBS and CDO were bought by foreign investors. And in a world where most investors in these illiquid instruments (RMBS, CDOs, CLOs, etc.) are marking to model rather than marking to market the extent of the eventual losses is unknown and the number of financial institutions that will go belly up is also unknown and likely to surprise on the upside. Systemic risk episodes often occur with a death through 1000 cuts rather than one single major – a’ la LTCM – blow."
In the face of a growing crisis of confidence in Chinese goods, Bo Xilai, commerce minister, said that “over 99 per cent of China’s export products are good and safe”. In comments published on Thursday on the ministry’s website, he added: “We hope that all parties can treat Chinese products objectively, fairly and rationally. Don’t let this damage the normal development of trade.”
OPEC's daily shipments of crude oil will probably fall 0.4 percent in the four weeks to Aug. 18 from the previous month, Oil Movements predicted.
Nonfarm payrolls expanded by 92,000 in July, lower than the 133,000 expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch. The unemployment rate ticked higher to 4.6% in July from 4.5% in the previous month. This is the highest unemployment rate since January. Economists forecast the unemployment rate to remain steady at 4.5%. Average hourly earnings increased 6 cents, or 0.3% to $17.45. The increase was in line with expectations. Earnings are up 3.9% in the past year. The average workweek slipped 6 minutes to 33.8 hours. Economists were expecting the workweek to remain steady at 33.9 hours in July.
China's shares rose to a new record high Friday the third time in a week.
IndyMac Bancorp Inc. is joining rival lenders in making ``very major changes'' to home-loan standards and charging higher rates because of a slump in mortgage securities, the company's chief executive officer said. IndyMac Bancorp is the holding company for IndyMac Bank, F.S.B., which bills itself as the seventh largest savings and loan and the second largest independent mortgage lender in the nation.
South Korea's Finance Minister Kwon Okyu said the yen's weakness isn't justified and that carry trades based on the Japanese currency threaten to destabilize global markets.
George Ure: "Only 26,000 of the 92,000 new jobs were from the CES Birth-Death Model, although 537,000 jobs 'created' this year are attributable to the CES model. The U-6 report (a proxy for unemployed engineers flipping burgers) index moved up a tad to 8.6%."
Weyerhaeuser Co. said on Friday its second-quarter earnings fell due to higher costs and a weak U.S. housing market. Excluding items, the company earned 48 cents a share in the latest quarter down from $1.19 a year earlier.
A decision not to renew a major nuclear arms reduction treaty may have dire consequences for U.S. foreign policy and the entire world, Russian experts said Thursday.
The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START-I) was signed by the United States and the Soviet Union on July 31, 1991, five months before the union collapsed, and remains in force between the U.S., Russia, and three other ex-Soviet states.
Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine have since disposed of all their nuclear weapons or transferred them to Russia, and the U.S. and Russia have reduced the number of delivery vehicles to 1,600, with no more than 6,000 warheads. The treaty is set to expire on December 5, 2009.
General James E. Cartwright, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, said Wednesday that the refusal to prolong the START-I Treaty would allow the United States to conduct quick and pinpointed strikes anywhere in the world, which is crucial for an effective fight against global terrorism. I wonder whether this will be reported on the front page to Americans? The story was printed in Moscow.
Yahoo! was the most popular property, with 41.5 million unique visitors, and Yahoo! now reaches 77 percent of the total Japanese online population.
GAO Report: "Despite 4 years of effort and $2.7 billion in U.S. reconstruction funds, Iraqi oil output has consistently fallen below U.S. program goals. In addition, the State Department's data on Iraq's oil production may be overstated since data from the U.S. Department of Energy show lower production levels -- between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels less per day. Inadequate metering, re-injection, corruption, theft and sabotage account for the discrepancy, which amounts to about $1.8 to $5.5 billion per year. Comprehensive metering of Iraq's oil production has been a long-standing problem and continuing need."
Countrywide's credit default swap spreads widened by almost 100 basis points, reaching more than 300 basis points, or $300,000 per year for five years to insure $10 million in debt, from 215 basis points at Thursday's close.
The cost to insure Bear's debt with credit default swaps rose to around 163 basis points, or $163,000 per year for five years to insure $10 million in debt, from about 115 basis points at Thursday's close.
Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs credit default swap spreads each widened by around 30 basis points to 130 basis points and 100 basis points, respectively.
Merrill Lynch's swaps were also around 30 basis points wider at around 100 basis points and Morgan Stanley's swaps widened around 20 basis points to the high 90 basis point area.
DaimlerChrysler AG has completed the sale of its majority interest in the Chrysler Group to a subsidiary of private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management L.P. Cerberus now has an 80.1% stake in the Chrysler Holding LLC, while Daimler retains a 19.9% interest, the automaker said. Both companies will subscribe $2 billion of second lien debt for Chrysler's automotive business, to be drawn within 12 months, the company said. Daimler's portion will be $1.5 billion.
December gold climbed $7.80 to close at a more than one-week high of $684.40 an ounce. September silver rose 1.3% to close at $13.158 an ounce, up 3.5% for the week. September copper fell 2.6% to close at $3.479 a pound, down 2% for the week.
Bear Stearns: "Our franchise is profitable and healthy and our balance sheet is strong and liquid." Bond market turmoil sending investors fleeing from risk may be a worse predicament than the 1980s stock market fall and Internet bubble burst, Bear Stearns Chief Financial Officer Sam Molinaro said on Friday.
"These times are pretty significant in the fixed income market," Molinaro said on a conference call with analysts. "It's as been as bad as I've seen it in 22 years. The fixed income market environment we've seen in the last eight weeks has been pretty extreme."
September crude closed at $75.48 a barrel, down $1.38 for Friday's session and down 2% for the week. September natural gas fell 1.6 cents to close at $6.09 per million British thermal units. It lost 1.9% for the week.
"Banks want to see higher credit scores and more money in the bank and larger down payments," says Melissa Cohn, chief executive of Manhattan Mortgage, a New York mortgage broker. "If lenders can't sell loans they have, there is no choice but to offer mortgages at a higher rate to homeowners," Cohn says. "It has nothing to do with bond market yields right now". As an example, Cohn says that even someone with a high credit score could pay as much as 8.25% for a jumbo 30-year loan. That's well above the conventional 30-year fixed mortgage rate, which currently average 6.26%, according to Bankrate.com.
Wells Fargo, the second-largest U.S. mortgage lender, said it is curtailing issuance of "Alt-A" home loans through brokers, while Wachovia has stopped entirely. Wachovia also said one lending unit has temporarily halted its Alt-A production.
Lenders are making fewer home loans once thought to be safe because investors now perceive those loans to be risky. The changes could worsen the U.S. housing slump by putting home ownership beyond the reach of a larger number of Americans.
Alt-A loans, short for Alternative-A, fall between prime and subprime in quality. One Alt-A specialist, American Home Mortgage Investment Corp , is closing on Friday.
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