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- Japan's Sovereign CDS Indicates Higher Relative Risk
- The US government debt is clearly growing out of control and will present some unprecedented challenges for the nation in years to come. But the US debt problems are not even close to what Japan is facing. We've discussed the issue of Japan's growing debt problem before. A great...
- External links 2009-10-21
- Corporate Credit Market Rally Irrationally Exuberant
- The corporate credit market rally is beginning to look silly. It is "irrational exuberance" at it's best.The chart below click to enlarge shows speculative grade credit indices for HY bonds, leveraged loans, and emerging market bonds. We are now above the pre-Lehman levels and going higher as of yesterday with...
- External links 2009-09-17
- U.S. Dollar Has Become the Currency of Choice for the Carry Trade
- With the collapse of US interest rates, the dollar is replacing the Yen as the "carry trade" base currency. It's an easy trade to put on, even for a retail investor. A dealer or a fund can simply sell dollars forward against another currency. This trade is equivalent to borrowing...
- External links 2009-09-14
- New Commodity Regulations Giving Regular ETF Investors New Set of Headaches
- Having given up on trying to invest in natural gas with USG, Larry the retail investor decided to go for a broad commodities index. And why not. The dollar is on a downward path and some commodities exposure could do the old portfolio some good. Larry chose GSG, the liquid...
- External links 2009-09-13
- State Sponsored Economic Bubble Appears to be Forming in China
- A while back we discussed signs of an asset bubble building in China. Let's now take a glance at China's government contribution to this bubble formation. What's particularly striking is the amount of waste involved as the Communist regime's central planning pushes through massive infrastructure projects. Many are developed without...
- External links 2009-09-11
- Recent TALF Operations Focused on Credit Cards
- The TALF program continues to move at a fairly weak pace. About $50 billion has been financed through this program. This may seem substantial, but consider that within a year, the total US consumer credit has dropped by double that.TALF over time by Walter Kurtz
- External links 2009-09-11
- Commercial Real Estate Loan Market Facing Two Nasty Headwinds
- The commercial real estate loan market is facing two nasty headwinds. The first one, which is more visible, is the maturity wall of commercial mortgages many of which have been securitized via CMBS. Concentrated maturities with balloon type principal payments will make it that much more difficult to refinance these...
- External links 2009-09-09
- Negative Interest Rates May Become a Reality in Europe
- The Bank of England is continuing on its aggressive path of quantitative easing. From CNN: by Walter Kurtz
- External links 2009-09-08
- Pipe Dream: A Single Reserve Currency
- Here we go again with the calls for a new reserve currency or a new world currency. From Reuters: A U.N. panel will next week recommend that the world ditch the dollar as its reserve currency in favor of a shared basket of currencies, a member of...
- External links 2009-09-08
- Why Goldman's $4 Trillion Projection Is Wrong
- From Bloomberg: Jan Hatzius, chief U.S. economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. GS, said the Federal Reserve could double the size of the central bank’s balance sheet again if needed to support economic growth. by Walter Kurtz
- External links 2009-08-30
- M&A Activity Is About to Pick Up Steam
- The data says that mergers and acquisitions activity has come to a halt. Here is the latest chart from Thomson Reuters showing M&A activity for the US at a fraction of that for recent years. by Walter Kurtz
- External links 2009-08-30
- Lehman's $130 Billion Loss Went Out with the Market
- A recent article in Naked Capitalism called "So Where, Exactly, Did Lehman's $130 Billion Go?" again suggests that Alvarez & Marsal have mishandled the Lehman's bankruptcy. It has come out that the losses appear likely to be $130 billion on what was a roughly $660 billion balance sheet....
- External links 2009-08-30
- CMBS TALF Is Starting to Ramp Up
- In our previous discussion on CMBS called CMBS balloon risk looming, we covered the refinancing risk for commercial mortgages. These mortgages form the collateral pools for CMBS bonds, creating significant risk that these securities will default on part or all of their principal. That risk however varies dramatically based on...
- External links 2009-08-27
- Inventories May Have Dropped, But Crude Oil Prices Still Constrained by Natural Gas Oversupply
- The WTI crude oil futures curve click to enlarge has flattened substantially in the past month. It's an indication that the US crude reserves in storage may be on a decline and people are becoming more comfortable taking deliveries in the spot market. by Walter Kurtz
- External links 2009-09-17
- Overview: U.S. Consumer Leverage
- There has been a great deal of talk lately about consumer deleveraging, particularly with the focus on consumer credit. The Fed tracks consumer credit separately and releases the number fairly frequently. Based on the chart below click to enlarge, some deleveraging has in fact taken place.source: Bloomberg by Walter Kurtz
- External links 2009-09-17
- Pinto's Testimony on FHA
- Here is a recent House testimony from Ed Pinto (Fannie Mae's chief credit officer back in the 80s) pointing to a potential funding gap at the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). FHA is the government agency that among other things provides mortgage insurance to the lenders for home buyers who do...
- External links 2009-10-11
- PPIP to the Rescue
- The "bad bank" program to purchase loan assets from the balance sheets of banks called PPIP was supposed to be the mother of all bank balance sheet cleanups. The program was divided into two components: the loan program and the securities program - the Treasury would provide leverage and investors...
- External links 2009-10-11
- We're in a Pattern of Increasingly Longer Employment Recoveries
- An extremely useful chart was recently posted on the Calculated Risk site, showing recovery rates in US employment in all the previous recessions since WW-II. The author points to the fact that the recent revisions to employment figures have been worse than originally reported. by Walter Kurtz
- External links 2009-10-08
- TALF's Progress Is Painfully Slow
- The Fed's TALF program continues to struggle. It's a good sign for the taxpayer because the Fed's exposure to the program is quite modest relative to its overall balance sheet. Exposure to AIG including the Maiden Lane portfolios is significantly larger than TALF for example. But it's bad news for...
- External links 2009-10-08
- Mortgage Modifications Just Delay the Inevitable
- The OCC is out with their mortgage metrics report. No major surprises there - the delinquency pain continues. Late or non-performing mortgages stand at 11.4% across all mortgages portfolios (prime, sub-prime, Alt-A, etc.). The report gives all the details. But the report is based on data that's a quarter old...
- External links 2009-10-08
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