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Archive for January, 2008

Risk still far from being priced into the market

Posted in Bankruptcy, Equities, Federal Reserve, Foreclosure, Gold, Herd Mentality, Interest Rates, Liquidity, Real Estate, Recession, Silver, Subprime, U.K., U.S. on January 29, 2008 | 1 Comment »

What amazes me is that investors are still bullish at the slightest bit of good news. Yet, they ignore the growing and very serious macro risks facing the global markets. The report on new home sales released today was an absolute disaster, yet the Dow was up 1.5% on rate cut hopes. [...]

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Mortgage bond insurers need $200bn boost

Posted in Bankruptcy, CMBS, Equities, Federal Reserve, Foreclosure, Herd Mentality, Interest Rates, Liquidity, Rating Agencies, Recession, Subprime, U.S. on January 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

Won’t be long before the monoliners are nationalized. This is a great article from The Times (January 25, 2008). Some classic highlights:
America’s biggest mortgage bond insurers collectively need a $200 billion (£101 billion) capital injection if they are to maintain their key AAA credit ratings, a figure that dwarfs a plan by New York regulators [...]

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Greenspan to blame

Posted in Bankruptcy, CMBS, ECB, Federal Reserve, Foreclosure, Interest Rates, Liquidity, Recession, Subprime, U.S. on January 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

As in our previous post “Alan Greenspan should be jailed,” this is a great quote from Professor Anna Schwartz in the January 14th edition of the Telegraph:
“As rebukes go in the close-knit world of central banking, few hurt as much as the scathing indictment of US Federal Reserve policy by Professor Anna Schwartz.
“The high [...]

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As expected, Wamu posts big loss

Posted in Bankruptcy, CMBS, Foreclosure, Herd Mentality, Interest Rates, Investment Banks, Liquidity, Rating Agencies, Real Estate, Recession, Subprime, U.S. on January 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

As we wrote in August (Washington Mutual Cut to Sell) Washington Mutual has been headed for some serious writedowns.  Sure enough, it didn’t take long for this to happen, with the stock closing at $12.46 today.  This is from $36 in August, and $47 when we shorted the stock in February 2007.  It is time [...]

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2008 Market Predictions for Macro Investors

Posted in Currencies, Energy, Equities, Federal Reserve, Fixed Income, Gold, Herd Mentality, Interest Rates, Liquidity, Natural Gas, Oil, Peak Energy, Resource Wars, Silver, U.K., U.S. on January 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

This is our “Market Predictions” post from January 17, 2007.  Other than declining interest rates (what is Bernanke thinking!), we were spot on with:

Gold
Silver
Falling US dollar
Oil
Natural gas
Agricultural commodities

The only other sectors we should have added to this list are (i) desalinated water and  (ii) clean and “cleaner” energy (such as solar, wind, geothermal, biomass).  [...]

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Update on Oracle (ORCL)

Posted in Herd Mentality, Recession, U.S. on January 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

Larry Ellison has now sold $1.58 billion of ORCL shares in the last 52-week period.  This compares to $165 million that he sold in the previous 52-week period.  On a daily basis, he has stepped up his insider selling to approximately $30 million a day.  While the US recessionary environment will take some time to filter [...]

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