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’Flat BAC
Seems the only way to describe Bank of America’s CDS curve after Monday’s (margin?) disaster. Citi appended for contrast:
One-year BAC CDS jumped from 99bps to 285bps, according to Markit data. Well.
Was demographics destiny after all?
Interesting USDA chart, pointed out by Big Picture Agriculture:
It’s from this data set. We’re interested in it, anyway. There’s an argument out there that falling Mexican emigration to the United States (caused in this theory by a crackdown on illegal immigrants) was a “missing”
Bove says Goldman hasn’t gotten him
Rochdale Securities banking analyst Dick Bove is mildly annoyed this Monday.
Having reversed his position on Goldman Sachs and its alleged subprime short after Andrew Ross-Sorkin sprang to the bank’s defence last week — it seems Bove has become the focus of some criticism.
Where’s Lucas?
Where’s Lucas?
The man of many words has gone silent.
There was a time a Taibbi article would have provoked a scathing response from the Goldman Sachs PR man. Let’s not forget his reply to Matt Taibi’s immortal ‘vampire squid’ meme.
Cembalest changes his mind on the subprime crisis
Here’s something you might have missed during last week’s (UK) holiday.
Michael Cembalest has made a retraction. JPMorgan’s private banking chief investment officer (and reportedly the only JPM-er who refused to do business with Ponzi-schemer Bernard Madoff,
Why no Canadian, Australian housing busts?
Here’s a chart to ponder from the peer review of residential mortgage practices, just published by the internationally-coordinated Financial Stability Board:
Set aside Switzerland and the Netherlands.
‘Securitisation is not that evil after all’
Now there’s a title, from a new BIS working paper, to catch one’s eye.
In it, the authors tackle the issue of information asymmetry in the securitisation process — or the basic idea that the holders or creators of a security might have better information about the investment than potential buyers.
A risk management review of Citi, revealed
That’s an old Valentine’s day letter — sent on February 14, 2008 — from John Lyons at the Office of the Comptroller (OCC) to Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit. We bring it up because it’s the subject of a new column by Bloomberg’s Jonathan Weil,
The full story of the Ibanez case
Back in 2005 in Springfield, Massachusetts…
What happened next currently has the mortgage and housing market palpitating.
US Bank filed a foreclosure complaint on the above loan, but soon found itself embroiled in a legal battle which would become known as the ‘Ibanez’ case.
And the financials all went down on Massachusetts
(Excuse the Bee Gees song reference, couldn’t help ourselves.)
As we have already noted, Wells Fargo and US Bancorp on Friday lost what could turn out to be a highly critical case regarding the general legality of bank foreclosures in the United States.
Goldman’s uneasy subprime short
In early 2007 Wall Street was in the early stages of the subprime crisis.
Spreads on the ABX indices, which had become synonymous with the crisis, were falling. And Goldman Sachs was about to do something which would eventually lead it to a $4bn profit and make it one of the last banks standing on Wall Street.
Worst banking conspiracy ever
Have you ever heard of Inter-Alpha? We hadn’t until this weekend, although we tend not to frequent the conspiracy sites that lump it in alongside the world’s Bilderbergs, Rothschilds, and the Stonecutters.
Goldman Sachs junk CDO trouble – again
Goldman Sachs must be getting tired of this.
The bank duly revealed it’s the subject of a(nother) class action lawsuit involving one of its Collateralised Debt Obligations (CDOs) in the 10-Q it filed on Tuesday — only to set-off another wave of reports — even though the court filing is old.
Collateralised contagion
Interactive graphics at their best, this.
Network scientist Valedis Krebs has created a visualisation of ownership in Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) — all that securitised cross-ownership.
To make it,
UBSoiled all over again
Because the first 50-page report into shareholders’ subprime losses, released in April 2008, was not enough. UBS have now published a 76-page “Transparency report to the shareholders of UBS.”
This Swiss bank is a sucker for subprime pain.
SEC charges State Street employees
The SEC has charged two employees of State Street with misleading investors over their subprime exposure.
According to the SEC order, John Flannery and James Hopkins marketed a fund that was mostly invested in RMBS as an alternative to a money market fund.
Citi sued by Norwegian central bank
Inevitable, really. Though we wouldn’t have expected the staid Norwegian central bank to be the first (?) to take up legal arms.
After the US Securities and Exchange Commission exposed Citi’s super senior subprime slip — in which the bank misled investors over its subprime exposure between July and October 2007 — now come the lawsuits.
Software of the subprime crisis
Here’s a novel idea about the CDO component of the subprime and financial crisis.
As late as 2003 CDOs were — believe it or not – still being described with words like “Toxic. Explosive. Opaque.”
Pyxified, Merrill’s subprime sink
Have you ever heard of Merrill Lynch’s Pyxis CDO/SPV/Insert Structured Finance Acronym?
It’s confusing a lot of people this week, after the NYT’s Louise Story exhumed the deal, which she says was a way for the bank to shift its subprime exposure off-books.
Citi’s super senior subprime SEC slip
One of these is a draft version of a third-quarter pre-earnings announcement Citigroup considered making in the credit-crunched October of 2007, in reference to its subprime exposure. The other is what actually went out.
Cleveland 0, Wall St 1
The US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has thrown out the city of Cleveland’s case against 22 banks and mortgage lenders, alleging they created a public nuisance by issuing mortgage-backed securities, which subsequently led to a rash of foreclosures locally and a generalised blot on the Cleveland landscape.
The banking ‘miracle’ – debunked [updated]
The Bank of England’s executive director of financial stability has a refreshingly straight-forward answer to his self-imposed question “The Contribution of the Financial Sector: Miracle or Mirage?”
His response:
The tale of the Shadow Banks
Here’s a scary story to recount at finance campfires.
It’s the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s monograph on the rapid growth — and collapse — of the shadow banking system. It’s also 81-pages of acronyms (think CDOs,
Those Triaxx CDOs…
Collateral managers beware! The SEC is coming for you.
The SEC on Monday filed a suit against ICP Asset Management — the boutique investment bank once indirectly described by AIG execs as one of the,
Eternal sunshine of the securitisation mind
It’s conference time!
The 2010 Global ABS meet is currently taking place at the Hilton Metropole, just across from the Marks & Spencer on Edgware Road in London. This is rather a fall from grace,
Ambaaaac! Trouble in mezzanine tranches of CDOs, that is
Here’s a structured finance blast from the past; some trouble in mezzanine tranches of ABS CDOs.
Last week the ailing (in fact, almost dead) bond insurer Ambac announced it would commute its remaining $16.4bn of of exposure to Collateralised Debt Obligations of Asset-Backed Securities.
Back to the future, by BIS
Lehman-Greece parallels we are familiar with.
But in the latest edition of the BIS Quarterly Review, the Bank for International Settlements argues that the current eurozone debt crisis has more in common with the slow-burn start of subprime than a sudden Lehman-esque collapse.
Goldman’s Hudson CDO – What lay beneath
Savvy readers may have spotted some confusion over Goldman Sachs’ Hudson CDO.
Specifically on the subject of whether the bank used its own assets for the deal.
The FT seems to suggest yes:
The bank created and sold Hudson Mezzanine,
A Hudson CDO primer
Will the SEC be going after every CDO named in this 2009 New York Times article?
After taking on Goldman’s Abacus, with US prosecutors going after Morgan Stanley’s Dead Presidents deals, the FT reports that the SEC is now pursuing another CDO — Hudson Mezzanine Funding 2006-1.