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Awaiting A Directional Signal From The Stocks

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:25:51 GMT

At the outset of a new quarter, market signals remain mixed, making it difficult to find a reliable trading edge. Just to reiterate my longer-term thesis, I think talk of economic recovery is premature. We still have a number of shoes left to drop, including consumer deleveraging, commercial real estate woes, economic calamity in California, falling state tax revenue across the board, still-expanding toxic debt issues with banks, and a financial sector that retains most of the essential systematic problems that caused the crisis in the first place. As the architects of the disaster (e.g., Larry Summers) seek a solution, too-big-to-fail institutions continue to speculate heavily in risky investments, meanwhile lobbying in Washington with your tax dollars to further rig the system to their benefit. Of course, the redistribution of our collective wealth to the bankers may push equity prices still higher in the short term. Meanwhile, at some point financial[More...]

BIS Finds Out That The Old Dogmas Don't Apply Anymore In Its Annual Report

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:08:35 GMT

Wishing that the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) had issued its annual report 2009 a day earlier - when Vienna drowned in torrential rain - I nevertheless attempt to provide readers with an executive summary that the central bank of central banks has omitted in its version. This leads me to the first conclusion that world finance must have become really complicated when not even several dozen BIS economists with months of preparation time can sum up 250 pages of data and events. Please recline your chair and hang around as this annual report from what should be the highest-ranking group in the know unwittingly delivers ironies rat-tat-tat like an AK-47 in the loose hands of a kid soldier in one of these African countries we[More...]

AIG: Ready To Blow Up Again

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:27:00 GMT

“Given the size of the credit exposure, a decline in the fair value of this portfolio could have a material adverse effect on AIG’s consolidated results,” -AIG “They’re guaranteeing close to $200 billion in assets in probably the riskiest environment in our lifetimes. It’s a huge number -- if there was any surprise, it’s that this hasn’t been flagged before.” -David Havens, Hexagon Securities LLC. FN: AIG is about to get into trouble... again. Hehe. If it weren't so damn sad and expensive it could be comical. You children's children will curse your names because they'll still be slaves to your debts. You've sold their futures so you wouldn't have to get up off the couch and make the hard choices... like letting AIG actually FAIL so the next generation doesn't. [More...]

FOIAing The Fed

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 04:42:41 GMT

Marshall Huebner is a person Zero Hedge has great respect and admiration for. The Davis Polk lawyer, in addition to having an impressive work ethic with many successful bankruptcies under his belt (Delta's 2007 emergence being a case in point: in fact, he will likely be making a repeat appearance there quite soon now that Goldman has envisioned another ramp to $200/barrel of crude), volunteers 13 hours every Sunday night as an Emergency Medical Technician - a noble dedication to his community. Marshall's dedication however is not only to his immediate community, but to American taxpayers in general: a little known fact is that Davis Polk is the official yet still formally unannounced legal advisor for the Federal Reserve. And no other company has tested Marshall's mettle more than AIG, which has been on the verge of complete financial collapse on many occasions over the past[More...]

Progress On Auctioning TARP Warrants

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:01:01 GMT

Ten major banks repaid almost $70 billion to TARP in recent weeks. But they aren’t free from TARP just yet: Treasury still owns warrants to purchase their common stock. I’ve previously argued that Treasury ought to auction these warrants to the highest bidder. Auctions would (a) be transparent, (b) provide full, fair value to taxpayers, (c) free banks from the TARP, and (d) give banks the opportunity, but not the requirement, to repurchase the warrants. As close to a win-win-win policy as one can hope for in Washington. Unfortunately, as I noted in a follow-up post, the original TARP investment contracts include a specific[More...]

The Subsidies In TARP

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:47:39 GMT

How much is TARP costing American taxpayers? We know that Congress originally authorized up to $700 billion in TARP investments. And we know that $439 billion has been committed to various programs. But how much of that money are taxpayers likely to see again? And to what extent will they be compensated for making those investments? The Congressional Budget Office took a crack at answering those questions in a report released last night. The headline finding is CBO’s estimate that subsidies in the TARP program are $159 billion. Taxpayers put up $439 billion and, in return, now own assets (including recent repayments) worth $280 billion. The following chart shows the estimated value of the TARP portfolio (dark red) and subsidies (light red) across the major TARP programs: [More...]

Market Gaming: Pressin' Their Bets

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:20:02 GMT

Props to Zerohedge on tracking this: Just released NYSE data indicate a 50% ramp up by Goldman's principal Program Trading unit. Whereas the prior week saw Goldman trading only 631 million principal shares on the NYSE, the most recent data indicate a massive rise to 977.8 million.[More...]

Bernanke Testimony Recap

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:58:16 GMT

After catching a few bits and pieces earlier today of Ben Bernanke's testimony on the subject of the Bank of America/Merrill Lynch deal before the House Oversight Committee, it seemed best to let the "professional" bloggers over at the Wall Street Journal do the heavy lifting and go for a nice afternoon hike instead - that turned out to be a good decision. Here's recap of today's events, first, from the Real Time Economics: The Fed chairman is used to harsh treatment from some corners — Sen. Jim[More...]

AIG's 10(b) 5 Fraud, And Goldman's CDO Collateral Calls

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:47:25 GMT

Recently uncovered critical documents disclosing details about AIG's CDO portfolio and collateral calls, indicate that during a December 5th conference call with Investors, Joe Cassano, famous for singlehandedly destroying capitalism and forcing most financial companies to be subsidized by US taxpayers in perpetuity, as well as then CEO Martin Sullivan, effectively commited 10(b) 5 fraud by misrepresenting internal conditions. The collateral disclosure, courtesy of CBS News, which comes from an email sent by Joseph Cassano to Bill Dooley on November 27, a week before the fateful "all is good" conference call, identifies $66.7 Billion in CDO Negative basis trades with 9 counterparties, most of which demand collateral to cover mark discrepancies amounting to a total of just over $4 billion. Not surprisingly, Goldman dominates the list in[More...]

ETF Screener: International ETFs Paying Dividends

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:45:17 GMT

Many of the Japanese ETF charts we mentioned in last week’s ETF Screener look even healthier this week. Two new Japanese ETFs joined the party this week as ETFs that could outperform the S&P 500 in the near-to-intermediate term. iShares MSCI Japan Index (EWJ) SPDR Russell/Nomura PRIME Japan (JPP) Japan isn’t alone on the international front. Many high yielding international ETFs and one currency ETF, iPath GBP/USD Exchange Rate ETN (GBB), popped off the charts in this week’s ETF screener. Investors will be rewarded with rich dividends while invested in these international ETFs that flashed[More...]

Stocks Tumble on Jobs News

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:49:00 GMT

Stocks got slammed in extremely light trading Thursday following the employment report, which revealed more weakness for job trends ahead of the long July 4 holiday weekend.
Action Economics said the report was weaker than expected due to a drop in the workweek to a new low of 33.0 hours from 33.1 over the last three months, and an associated big 0.8% drop in the hours-worked index.
Action Economics said it has revised down its second quarter GDP estimate to a decline of 2.5% from a drop of 2.0%.

: iStockAnalyst.com Symbols Feed

Awaiting A Directional Signal From The Stocks

BIS Finds Out That The Old Dogmas Don't Apply Anymore In Its Annual Report

AIG: Ready To Blow Up Again

FOIAing The Fed

Progress On Auctioning TARP Warrants

The Subsidies In TARP

Market Gaming: Pressin' Their Bets

Bernanke Testimony Recap

AIG's 10(b) 5 Fraud, And Goldman's CDO Collateral Calls

ETF Screener: International ETFs Paying Dividends

Stocks Tumble on Jobs News

The Baltimore Sun Jay Hancock Column: Md. Lawmakers Hedging Bets on Economy

Stocks Start Q3 With Gains

AIG, General Mills, MetroPCS are big movers

The Following is an Investment Opinion Release Issued By MicroCapster: Midday Watch List for July 1st Including AIG and Google

AIG, Continental, Apollo Group are big movers

EDITORIAL: Obama Falls Short on Financial Fixes: Companies Too Big to Fail Will Be Propped Up, Paving Way for Next Crisis and Bailout.

Stocks Finish With Strong Gains

AIG moves to spin off 2 units, reduce gov't debt

Sale of Aig Advisor Group Seems Doubtful As Reps Head for Exits

Farmers Insurance Acquisition of 21st Century Insurance Finalized

AIG Completes Sale of 21st Century Insurance to Zurich Financial Services Group Unit

AIG in Agreement to Sell Its Consumer Finance Operations in Colombia

Alico Announces Rebranding Initiative

ParagonReport.Com Complimentary Analyst Opinion on AIG, BAC, WFC, and C

AIG Announces Voting Results of Annual Meeting of Shareholders

AIG to Sell Assets of AIG Credit Card Company (Taiwan) Limited to Far Eastern International Bank

AIG To Sell Its Russian Bank Subsidiary to Banque PSA Finance

AIG to Webcast Annual Meeting of Shareholders on Tuesday, June 30 at 10:00 A.M.

Belarc Announces the Newest Version of Its Popular Belarc Advisor Program

Form 4 AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL For: Jun 08 Filed by: STARR INTERNATIONAL CO INC (10K)

Form 3 AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL For: Jun 05 Filed by: C V STARR & CO INC (10K)

Form 3 MATTHEWS EDWARDS E For: Jun 05 (10K)

Form 3 GREENBERG MAURICE R For: Jun 05 (10K)

Form 3 AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL For: Jun 05 Filed by: Universal Foundation Inc (10K)

Form 3 AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL For: Jun 05 Filed by: STARR INTERNATIONAL CO INC (10K)

Form 4 WINTROB JAY S For: May 01 (10K)

Form 4 WALSH NICHOLAS C For: May 01 (10K)

Form 4 NEUGER WIN J For: May 01 (10K)

Form 4 LEWIS ROBERT EDWARD For: May 01 (10K)