[Greed & Fear] The fallout for China equities — and the rating agencies
China is in the sights of CLSA’s Christopher Wood this week, as he asks about threats to China’s booming equity story, particularly after the release this week of the country’s biggest inflation number in 11 years.
[Greed & Fear] The nasty aspects of securitisation gone wrong…
Western financial stocks have been rallying of late and they can rally some more if a political “solution” can be found to the bond insurer problem, says CLSA’s Christopher Wood in his weekly client newsletter,
[Greed & Fear] On the brink, around the world…
Financial markets hang on the brink, says CLSA’s Christopher Wood in his weekly client newsletter Greed & Fear. If the US authorities can come up with a package that defuses the bond-insurance issue, more of a bear-market relief rally can definitely unfold,
[Greed & Fear] Avoid panic, take a long-term view
Logic and chart patterns suggest to CLSA’s Christopher Wood some near-term respite in the markets after recent partial capitulation — though in his view, it will be a radically different market from now on,
[Greed & Fear] Flirting with Armageddon
One week on and there are yet more investments into high-profile western financial institutions, possibly prodded along by a helping official hand in Washington – but it won’t solve the fundamental problem,
[Greed & Fear] Can an old trade work new tricks?
It is another year, and investors naturally worry whether last year’s successful trade can work, notes CLSA’s Christopher Wood in the latest issue of his client newsletter, Greed & Fear.
Wood’s view is still that it makes sense to remain long Asia and emerging markets and short Western financials,
[Greed & Fear] The new Asia Maxima and the demise of credit
The New Year has begun on a deflationary note with the US 10-year Treasury bond yield declining by 12 basis points to 3.9 per cent, notes CLSA’s Christopher Wood in the new year issue of his client newsletter,
[Greed & Fear] Financial constipation: The big ‘dump’ is coming
The “gob-smacking provision” of U$500bn of liquidity by the ECB this week is proof, if it were still needed, that a large part of the festering structured excreta lies in Europe, says CLSA’s Christopher Wood,
[Greed & Fear] [Greed & Fear] Where to from here?
CLSA’s Christopher Wood is less than impressed by the Fed’s move to orchestrate co-ordinated central bank action. First, he says, Ben Bernanke acted in “predictable fashion” by cutting the Fed funds rate 25bp to 4.25%,
[Greed & Fear] Greed & Fear: And you think America has problems…
CLSA’s Christopher Wood is underwhelmed by President Bush’s plan to freeze subprime home rates. US policymakers led by Hank “the Hunk” Paulson are clearly reacting to the political need to be seen to be doing something as the housing mess intensifies,
[Greed & Fear] Greed & Fear: America’s bizarre GSEs and the coming Asian bubble
The saga of the big US, government-sponsored mortgage lenders has fired up CLSA’s Christopher Wood this week. In the latest issue of his client newsletter Greed & Fear, Wood muses over the recent “spectacular”
[Greed & Fear] Buy gold, avoid ‘structured excreta’
While there are still lots of pundits talking stagflation and the like, the reality is that market action grows ever more deflationary, prompting CLSA’s Christopher Wood to put out a mid-week edition of his newsletter Greed & Fear.
[Greed & Fear] - “Britain is only about housing, financial services and subprime lending”
CLSA’s Christopher Wood is turning a stern eye on Wall Street this week in his client newsletter, Greed & Fear, comparing its desire for a rate cut to the behaviour of a spoilt child (surely not?). “Hence there are rallies when the equity market thinks it is going to get its way,” he notes.
[Greed & Fear] In the money markets: It’s an insolvency issue
The US commercial-paper market remains seized up, while the US stock market has rebounded to near-old highs — leading CLSA’s Christopher Wood, in the current issue of his client newsletter Greed & Fear,
[Greed & Fear] Risk aversion is alive and well in Japan
After exploring further gloomy prospects for the US housing sector, CLSA’s Christopher Wood and his newsletter Greed & Fear land in Japan this week and conclude that, unlike the Americans, the Japanese “need no lessons in regulating financial excesses”.
[Greed & Fear] The coming unwind of structured finance
Fresh from being singled out by the Wall Street Journal as “the man who saw it coming”, CLSA’s Christopher Wood in this week’s issue of his client newsletter Greed & Fear marvels at the wilful blindness of stock market investors and looks to the great unwind of structured finance.
[Greed & Fear] And another new subprime celebrity…
Financial meltdown, while painful, can be good for your career. Look at Minsky, the new economist du jour, who commentators the world over are fighting over to claim as their own.
Now the subprime debacle seems to be creating another celebrity in the form of Alphaville favourite Christopher Wood.
[Greed & Fear] On the US property outlook and Asian markets
The bad news will end at some point, notes CLSA’s Christopher Wood in his weekly newsletter Greed & Fear. But on the US housing front, Wood expects continuing bad news for the rest of this year.
“This is why,”
[Greed & Fear] Don’t invest in something you can’t explain in a single sentence
“Ben Bernanke has blinked and the morons on CNBC are grinning again,” notes CLSA’s Christopher Wood, in an interim “flash” edition of his Greed & Fear newsletter.
The Fed chairman “is to be congratulated on the relative subtlety of his approach by focusing on the discount rate and the need to reliquefy the interbank market,”
[Greed & Fear] On the potential for panic
An asset class called “credit”, which was largely the creation of the past six years, has begun to blow up, says CLSA’s Christopher Wood in his client newsletter Greed & Fear. In Wood’s view, “this asset class is now in the process of self-destruction as the whole edifice of structured finance is completely discredited,
[Greed & Fear] In a funk — get those central banks out of the markets
“It borders on the unbelievable”, says CLSA’s Christopher Wood in a special “flash” edition of his Greed & Fear newsletter. After months of telling everybody that the subprime problem would be “contained”,
[Greed & Fear] Don’t worry, more bad news is on the way
The first sign of weakness in commodities this week is evidence that markets have begun to think about economic weakness as a potential consequence of the escalating distress in the world of credit, says CLSA’s Christopher Wood in a particularly sweeping issue of his client newsletter,
[Greed & Fear] In the ‘deleveraging cycle’
The deleveraging cycle has now well and truly commenced, and Asian and other emerging asset markets will be big beneficiaries, says CLSA’s Christopher Wood in the latest issue of his client newsletter,
[Greed & Fear] In the subprime mire: ‘Time to short credit spreads’
The inevitable next step in the US subprime mortgage turmoil may be very nasty indeed. Investors should not forget about the potential regulatory and prosecutorial backlash emerging from the US subprime mortgage meltdown — this time aimed at credit rating agencies and investment banks,
[Greed & Fear] In the ‘commodity complex’ and EM debt spreads
Emerging market debt yields and their strong correlation with recent commodities trends have prompted CLSA’s Christopher Wood to remind us, in his Greed & Fear client newsletter, of the moment in the 1970s when Japanese government bond yields broke through US Treasury bond yields for the first time in the post-war period.
[Greed & Fear] In CDOs and Asian markets
Equity fund managers now know what a CDO is, notes CLSA’s Christopher Wood in his typically understated client newsletter, Greed & Fear. “An awareness of risk has clearly risen”, he notes. But Wood believes much of the anxiety among the fund managers stems from their holdings in Asia.
[Greed & Fear] On the end of securitisation and the looming sell-off
It’s the 10th anniversary of the onset of the Asian crisis this week and the world has turned almost full circle, says CLSA’s Christopher Wood in his latest Greed & Fear client newsletter. In his usual neat way of putting things,
[Greed & Fear] In the bond market, the yen carry trade and Japan
The US 10-year Treasury bond yield has now broken out of a 26-year trendline. If the move is sustained, that must – sooner or later – be very bad news for Wall Street-correlated equities as well as credit spreads,
[Greed & Fear] And the yen carry trade
“The world has of late stopped talking about the yen carry trade,” notes CLSA’s Christopher Wood in his subscriber newsletter Greed and Fear. “But the most recent data on capital outflows from Japan is a reminder that the key component of the yen carry trade is probably the Japanese themselves.”