John Paulson Says Double-Digit Inflation is Coming

 

The 'Helicopter Economics Investing Guide' is meant to help educate people on how to make profitable investing choices in the current economic environment. We have coined this term to describe the current monetary and fiscal policies of the U.S. government, which involve unprecedented money printing. This is the official blog of the New York Investing meetup.   

As average U.S. gas prices head toward $4.00 a gallon, billionaire hedge fund operator John Paulson recently told a standing room only crowd at New York’s University Club that double-digit inflation is about to rear its ugly head. Paulson assumes that the Fed will continue to engage in its inflation-creating behavior.

John Paulson is famous for making a killing on shorting subprime bonds before their collapse. Most of Wall Street was bullish at the time and Fed Chair Ben Bernanke famously declared that he didn't see subprime mortgages causing any problem. The market completely fell apart weeks after Bernanke spoke.

The Paulson Bernanke dynamic is now back in play with predictions of inflation. Bernanke doesn't see it now and doesn't anticipate it. In an interview with ABC News done around the same time that Paulson gave his talk, Bernanke stated "We haven't quite yet got to the point where we can be completely confident that we're on a track to full recovery," and he continued that the central bank would take no options off the table to further stimulate the economy.  The interviewer didn't ask Bernanke the obvious question of whether or not the need for further Fed stimulus after four years indicates that the previous efforts have been a failure.

Paulson's presumption that the Fed will continue to feed inflation forces is completely supported by Bernanke's actions and statements. The Fed Chair further blamed rising oil and U.S. gasoline prices on geopolitical tensions. Prior to the mid-2000s though, geopolitical tensions only raised the price of oil to $40 a barrel. This time it's well over $100 a barrel. Money printing accounts for the price difference, but you'll never hear that from the Fed's money-printer-in-chief. And this is to expected. No government in inflation's 2000 year history has ever taken full responsibility for causing it.

Governments also have a history of finagling with the inflation numbers as well. This seems to be a universal practice once some form of indexation takes place (adjusting prices for inflation). The U.S. introduced indexation for social security and tax brackets in the 1970s. Starting it the 1980s, a number of statistical "improvements" were introduced in how the inflation rate was calculated. Interestingly, all of these "improvements" lowered the reported rate.

When it comes to inflation predictions, investors have a choice between John Paulson, who has made billions from his knowledge of how markets works, and Ben Bernanke, who has repeatedly shown he is oblivious to their dangers (remember how he let Lehman Brothers go under and this almost led to the complete collapse of the global financial system?). If you are betting on Bernanke, you are betting against history repeating itself. Money-printing has always led to massive inflation in the past. Apparently, John Paulson knows this.


Disclosure: None


Daryl Montgomery
Author: "Inflation Investing - A Guide for the 2010s"
Organizer, New York Investing meetup
http://investing.meetup.com/21

This posting is editorial opinion. There is no intention to endorse the purchase or sale of any security.

Will Greek Bailout Deal Falter Now or Later?

 

The 'Helicopter Economics Investing Guide' is meant to help educate people on how to make profitable investing choices in the current economic environment. We have coined this term to describe the current monetary and fiscal policies of the U.S. government, which involve unprecedented money printing. This is the official blog of the New York Investing meetup.

The Greek bailout deal is once again falling apart. Whether or not it is patched together another time, the end will inevitably be an ugly default.

On Thursday, news sources around the world were trumpeting that the EU and Greece had come to terms that would allow Greece to receive a 130 billion euro bailout payment that would prevent the country from defaulting by March. But late in the day, EU finance ministers made additional demands on Greece. They wanted another 325 million euros in budget cuts, that the Greek parliament pass the cuts and that a written guarantee that the cuts will be still be implemented after the April elections. On one hand these demands are not surprising since the Greeks have been less than honest about their budget numbers in the past. On the other however, they are surprising because this could be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Greece is in its fifth year of recession and its economy seems to be in an unrelenting downward spiral. This is happening because just like the United States, Japan and a number of other nations, the economy is dependent on government spending made possible by huge budget deficits. Each time Greece has been forced to cut its budget deficit, the economy has shrunk some more. Additional cuts will only cause additional contraction. Although they receive little coverage by the U.S. media, riots have become common place in Greece (there is currently a 48-hour strike). Democracy might itself be threatened there. Greece does have a history of military dictatorship, with a military junta running the country between 1967 and 1974.

Lately, the country is becoming increasingly politically unstable. The far-right LAOS party, which is part of the governing coalition, has refused to support the new terms of the bailout. Its members resigned the coalition today. Even more disturbing, Reuters has reported that the Federation of Greek Police has issued the following statement to Greek officials: "Since you are continuing this destructive policy, we warn you that you cannot make us fight against our brothers. We refuse to stand against our parents, our brothers, our children or any citizen who protests and demands a change of policy. We warn you that as legal representatives of Greek policemen, we will issue arrest warrants for a series of legal violations ... such as blackmail, covertly abolishing or eroding democracy and national sovereignty."

Even if things are patched up once again and the next bailout payment is made, there will still be another one after that and even more to follow.  Greece is like the family that is only one paycheck away from homelessness, except one welfare check away from homelessness would be a more apt analogy. Eventually, something will give and this will have a major impact on the world financial system.

The real crisis in Europe is not Greece in and of itself, it is the stability of the banks in France and Germany that have lent money to Greece (and Italy, Spain and Portugal). These banks are in precarious shape and a Greek default will have similar consequences to Lehman's collapse in the fall of 2008. Expect the central bankers of the world to unleash a tsunami of money-printing liquidity into the system to stabilize it just as they did in 2008. They will be quicker this time around, so the collapse should be briefer. 

Disclosure: None

Daryl Montgomery
Author: "Inflation Investing - A Guide for the 2010s"
Organizer, New York Investing meetup
http://investing.meetup.com/21

This posting is editorial opinion. There is no intention to endorse the purchase or sale of any security.

Is Dexia Bank the Bear Stearns of the Current Credit Crisis?

The 'Helicopter Economics Investing Guide' is meant to help educate people on how to make profitable investing choices in the current economic environment. We have coined this term to describe the current monetary and fiscal policies of the U.S. government, which involve unprecedented money printing. This is the official blog of the New York Investing meetup.

Over the weekend French President Sarkozy and German Chancellor Merkel said they had come to an agreement on recapitalizing EU banks. No details of their mystery plan were released. Plenty of details were forthcoming however on how Dexia bank was going to be bailed out and they indicate that it's time for EU leaders to stop talking and to start acting. 

Before its recent failure, Dexia bank was described as one of the strongest banks in Europe. It had no trouble passing the recent EU stress tests for banks (so much for the accuracy of those tests, which I have maintained for some time are nothing but a meaningless public relations gambit). Its Greek debt exposure was cited by the mainstream media as a primary reason for Dexia's demise. Dexia though had only 5.4 billion euros of Greek debt on its books out of an asset base of 518 billion euros according to Bloomberg. So, Greek debt was a little over 1% of Dexia's loans. Apparently this was enough for wholesale funding for the bank to dry up. Like most banks, consumer deposits were not enough to maintain Dexia's operations, it needed to continually borrow in the interbank market.

Dexia was a Franco-Belgium bank created 15 years ago by a merger of banks from the two countries. It also operates in Luxembourg and owns a 75% stake in Denzibank AS in Turkey, which it purchased in 2006. The Belgium government agreed to buy Dexia for 4 billion euros.  The French and Luxembourg units will be sold. Together, the three European governments will guarantee 90 billion euros of interbank and bond funding for 10 years. Belgium's share will be about 15% of its GDP. Guaranteeing bank debt has its risks and this is why Ireland required an EU bailout. Could Belgium be next?

If Dexia can fail, what EU bank is safe?  Moreover, the failure happened without a default by Greece, so it is clear many more bank failures are possible regardless of the outcome of the Greek debt crisis.
It can also be assumed that default will make the situation much worse. There are reports from German news agency DPA that Eurozone finance ministers are working on a plan involving a 60% reduction in Greek debt (previous reports indicated a 50% reduction).

The recent Dexia failure just like Bear Stearns failure in March 2008 happened because confidence from lenders in the interbank market disappeared. This can happen overnight. The monetary authorities patched things together temporarily after Bear Stearns demise, but the overall situation continued to deteriorate until Lehman Brothers failed six months later. A Greek default is likely to be the Lehman moment for the current credit crisis and Dexia's sudden collapse is similar to Bear Stearns. More bank failures in the EU will be a warning that the current crisis is escalating out of control.

Disclosure: None
Daryl Montgomery
Organizer, New York Investing meetup
http://investing.meetup.com/21

This posting is editorial opinion. Like all other postings for this blog, there is no intention to endorse the purchase or sale of any security.
 

Central Banks Pump Money to Prop Up Europe

The 'Helicopter Economics Investing Guide' is meant to help educate people on how to make profitable investing choices in the current economic environment. We have coined this term to describe the current monetary and fiscal policies of the U.S. government, which involve unprecedented money printing. This is the official blog of the New York Investing meetup.

Exactly three years after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and almost brought down the global financial system, central banks in North America, Europe and Asia engaged in a coordinated money pumping operation to prevent the EU banking system from stalling. The move created a sharp stock market rally, especially in financial shares, just as was the case when similar actions took place during the 2008 Credit Crisis.

Involved in Thursday's action were the U.S. Federal Reserve, the ECB, the Bank of England, the Swiss National Bank and the Bank of Japan.  The purpose was to improve dollar liquidity among  European banks struggling because of the Greek debt crisis. The credit markets have frozen up, just as they did after the Lehman bankruptcy, and U.S. banks have been unwilling to lend dollars to European banks. The ECB will now be able to access dollars by swapping assets with the Federal Reserve. It wasn't stated in the announcement what assets were involved, but obviously they are substandard ones that wouldn't be accepted  in free market trading. This operation also increases exposure of the U.S. financial system to the new credit crisis in Europe.

Such coordinated money-pumping operations are a sign of desperation on the part of the authorities. They were commonplace after Lehman's bankruptcy on September 15, 2008. They created significant volatility in the stock market back then as they did yesterday. Both the German DAX and the French CAC-40 closed up more than 3%. Troubled banks had huge rallies, with Lloyd's Banking Group up over 7%. In 2008, even greater volatility took place, but the rallies proved time and again to be only temporary. The market ultimately nosedived.

The Friday before the Lehman bankruptcy, the S&P 500 closed at 1251.70. Lehman declared bankruptcy on Monday. At the end of the week, the S&P 500 closed at 1255.00. The day before however, the S&P rallied off of its intraday low of 1133.50 to a close of 1206.51 (that's a 6.4% intraday rally -- an enormous move for an index like the S&P). So, the first week after Lehman's bankruptcy it looked like the market wouldn't be impacted that much. It turned out that the actions of central banks provided investors with a false sense of security however.

By the end of September 2008, the S&P 500 closed at 1166.36. Then at the end of October it was down to 968.75. At the end of November, it had dropped to 896.24. It actually closed higher the last day of December at 903.25, before falling to 825.88 at the end of January. By the close of February, the S&P was trading at 735.08. It finally bottomed at 666.79 on March 6, 2009. All along the way, there were big moves up that coincided with the latest money injections of the central banks.

While mainstream media reports tend to portray the central bank actions and the big rallies they cause as good news for the market, they are actually an indication that more trouble is on the way. All investors have to do is remember what happened just three years ago. Yesterday's central bank action indicates that more volatility and lower stock prices are in our future. 

Disclosure: None

Daryl Montgomery
Author: "Inflation Investing - A Guide for the 2010s"
Organizer, New York Investing meetup
http://investing.meetup.com/21

This posting is editorial opinion. There is no intention to endorse the purchase or sale of any security.

Today's Stock Market Action Looks A Lot Like August 1998

The 'Helicopter Economics Investing Guide' is meant to help educate people on how to make profitable investing choices in the current economic environment. We have coined this term to describe the current monetary and fiscal policies of the U.S. government, which involve unprecedented money printing. This is the official blog of the New York Investing meetup.

Something is seriously bothering the stock market and the news that's out there isn't enough to justify what is going on. Such was the case in August 1998 as well. What caused the sudden bear market to appear out of nowhere in 1998 became fully evident only after the fact. The same could be the case in August 2011.

Perhaps the flash crash in October 1997 was a warning of things to come, just as the flash crash in May 2010 may have been a prelude to today's stock market drop. In the second half of July of 1998, stocks began to nosedive suddenly, just as they did in 2011. Some stabilization took place in the market toward the middle of August in 1998 and then a new deeper plunge began. Today, the Dow Jones industrials were suddenly down over 500 points this morning on what could only be considered minor bad news.

There were actually two problems causing the market debacle in 1998. Everyone knew about one of them - the Russian debt default and devaluation of the rubble, which took place on August 17th (less than half of the eventual market decline took place before this date).  Only Wall Street insiders knew about the second one - problems at Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) - that almost brought down the financial system. 

Trouble in Russia was evident as early as October 1997 and it resulted from the fallout from the Asian financial crisis, which in turn started as a currency crisis in Thailand in July of that year. Today, Europe is undergoing a crisis with the euro that began in Greece in 2010. By August 1998, the Russian central bank had spent a great deal of its dollar reserves defending the ruble and decided to give up. The default had a number of ripple effects, but the most important one on LTCM wouldn't be known by the public until late September, only days before the market finally hit bottom.

After the Russian debt default, stocks plunged until the beginning of September. The market was close to its ultimate low at that point, but only because of the subsequent successful rescue of LTCM.  Stocks then rallied for approximately three weeks. A bailout of LTCM was arranged by the Federal Reserve on September 23rd. The market then sold off until early October hitting a new low and then the decline  was over.

In the rally that followed the stock market experienced huge gains led by a bubble in tech stocks. This was a consequence of the Fed lowering interest rates and pumping too much money into the financial system. The Fed had a lot of leeway to do both in 1998 and still there were serious negative results between 2000 and 2002 when the tech bubble collapsed. Inflation wasn't a concern back then because commodity prices had been declining for almost two decades and were around their lows. It should be assumed that a failure to have successfully rescued LTCM would have caused a much bigger drop in stocks (as happened when the Fed didn't bail out Lehman Brothers in September 2008).

The Fed has a lot less ability to maneuver in August 2011. Fed funds rates have been at zero since December 2008. The Fed has already expanded its balance sheet by approximately $2 trillion since the Credit Crisis began. Commodities are closer to their all-time highs now, not their lows. Another bailout like the one in 1998 (which was minor compared to what occurred during the Credit Crisis) could send inflation assets into a bubble. Gold is already trading over $1800 today and seems to be leading the way.  

Disclosure: None

Daryl Montgomery
Organizer, New York Investing meetup
http://investing.meetup.com/21

This posting is editorial opinion. Like all other postings for this blog, there is no intention to endorse the purchase or sale of any security.

Euro Crisis: Starting to Look Like Lehman All Over Again

The 'Helicopter Economics Investing Guide' is meant to help educate people on how to make profitable investing choices in the current economic environment. We have coined this term to describe the current monetary and fiscal policies of the U.S. government, which involve unprecedented money printing. This is the official blog of the New York Investing meetup.


The euro fell as low as 121.27 in U.S. trading on Monday. It almost touched that level again before the New York open today. Germany has banned certain types of short selling in order to contain the damage, just as the U.S. did in the fall of 2008 after Lehman's default. Investors should take note that the U.S. ban didn't prevent a market meltdown.

Germany's recently announced ban on short selling is not as extensive as the one that occurred in the U.S. less than two years ago. Germany so far has only banned 'naked' short selling. This type of short selling takes place when the party shorting has not borrowed the security to sell. It is illegal in the United States (and should be everywhere). Nevertheless during the Credit Crisis, U.S. authorities banned naked short selling as well. This was a clear admission on their part that they had not been enforcing the law against hedge funds and the big trading houses, the only market participants who had the ability to engage in this type of trading. Apparently the small trader and investor had to follow the rules, but the big players didn't.

The German ban covers government debt, CDSs (credit default swaps) and shares of a number of financial companies. After Lehman's default, the U.S banned shorting itself for financial companies. This didn't prevent their prices from collapsing somewhat later on. Both Germany and the U.S. justified their actions as an attempt to stabilize markets. There is no reason to believe that Germany's efforts now will be anymore successful than were those in the U.S. during 2008.

The market reaction to the German ban was initially negative, but then the euro started rallying strongly. How long this last remains to be seen. The euro is already extremely oversold, but the technical indicators on the very short-term charts are highly negative. A strong reflex rally could start at any point in time. This happened numerous times for U.S. stocks during the Credit Crisis, but it took months before a bottom could be reached and a sustainable rally could begin. The euro broke key support in the 1.25 area last week and this is an indication the market has lost a certain amount of confidence in the currency. A loss of trust is not something that can be restored overnight.

Disclosure: No positions at all.

Daryl Montgomery Organizer,
New York Investing meetup
http://investing.meetup.com/21

This posting is editorial opinion. Like all other postings for this blog, there is no intention to endorse the purchase or sale of any security.

It's De Facto Default for Greece

The 'Helicopter Economics Investing Guide' is meant to help educate people on how to make profitable investing choices in the current economic environment. We have coined this term to describe the current monetary and fiscal policies of the U.S. government, which involve unprecedented money printing. This is the official blog of the New York Investing meetup.


The debt crisis in Greece looks like it is finally going to be resolved now that an S&P downgrade of the country's debt to junk status on April 27th has brought the crisis to a head. The eurozone leadership will finally have to stop its denial and provide Greece with funding to roll over its debts. Calm will be then be restored to the markets - at least for a while.

The inept handling of the situation in Greece seems reminiscent of the U.S. government's refusal to bail out Lehman Brothers. That act of political obliviousness led to a crash of the entire world financial system. Greece will have some sort of bailout however, so the more apt analogy would perhaps be the collapse of Bear Stearns. The markets were calmed when the U.S. Fed and Treasury arranged for JP Morgan to buy Bear Stearns at a fire sale price. If they were handling the Greek debt crisis, they probably would have solved it by having Goldman Sachs purchase the country at a 90% discount. Because of the brokered deal by the feds, Bear Stearns never officially went under, although in reality it did because it was no longer capable of independently functioning. If some bailout program is necessary to roll over Greece's government debt or allow it to make interest payments on it, Greece has for all intensive purposes defaulted.

The reaction of the euro zone leadership to Greece's problems seem inexplicable to anyone from the outside. It is definitely a shoot yourself in the foot to punish the other guy approach. A potential bailout for Greece is very unpopular among the electorate in Germany and there will be regional elections there on May 9th. It's the Germans that have been holding up the aid package. German banks have an estimated $45 billion in exposure to Greek debt (France is even higher, holding $75 billion in Greek loans), so an official Greek default would potentially cost Germany more than a bailout. Almost all of Greece's debt is held outside the country and the rest of the eurozone is heavily exposed. It's enough to make you wonder if big banks anywhere in the world ever apply any credit standards to their loans.

The market disaster yesterday seems to have woken the EU from its comatose state of deep denial and fast-tracked handling of a Greek aid package. The euro (FXE) hit a new yearly low of 131.63 and looks like its may have taken out a possible triple bottom. Stocks got hammered on bourses across the continent. Greece itself was down 6.7% and it reacted by instituting a two-month ban on short selling (the U.S. did the same for financial stocks after Lehman collapsed).  Portugal, which had its credit downgraded two notches by S&P, dropped 5.4% and is getting hit hard again today. Italian stocks suffered similar damage. The CAC-40 in France, the Dax in Germany and the FTSE in the UK fell 3.8%, 2.7% and 2.6% respectively. Five-year credit default swaps (CDSs) reached 840 basis points for Greek debt, 430 basis points for Portuguese debt, 270 basis points for Irish debt and 225 points on Spanish debt. The spread between German 10-year governments and equivalent Greek debt rose to 9.63%. Interest rates on two-year Greek governments rose to 18%.

When the EU created the euro currency union, it didn't plan on how to handle debt crises in member states. This was the case even though it allowed some countries with checkered fiscal pasts to become part of the eurozone.  EU leadership (or more appropriately lack thereof) has continued to avoid this issue throughout the entire Greek debt crisis so far. The obvious solution of using dollarization - letting a country continue to use the euro, but not be a part of the credit union - has seemingly not occurred to them. Instead, the tried and true bailout solution will once again by utilized. As became evident in the U.S. during the Credit Crisis, one bailout is never enough. There is already talk about raising the Greek loan guarantees from the EU and IMF from 45 billion euros to 100 to 120 billion euros and extending them over a three-year period. This bailout for Greece will likely just be just one of many and Greece itself will just be the first country to be bailed out.

EFTs that are useful for trading the current crisis in Europe include: EZU (euro monetary union), GUR (emerging Europe), VGK (European stocks), EWI (Italy) and EWP (Spain).

Disclosure: None relevant.

Daryl Montgomery
Organizer, New York Investing meetup
 http://investing.meetup.com/21

This posting is editorial opinion. Like all other postings for this blog, there is no intention to endorse the purchase or sale of any security.

World Economic Leaders Need IQ Bailout

The 'Helicopter Economics Investing Guide' is meant to help educate people on how to make profitable investing choices in the current economic environment. We have coined this term to describe the current monetary and fiscal policies of the U.S. government, which involve unprecedented money printing. This is the official blog of the New York Investing meetup.


There are few things investors can count on during our current era of financial turmoil. One of them is the unerring obliviousness and incompetence of the world's elected leaders and central banks. Somehow they both manage to find the highest cost, least effective solution for every Credit Crisis problem they try to solve. Moreover they usually don't bother to act until every dog in the street has been aware of the problem for some time. There was more than enough support for this view on both sides of the Atlantic today.

There was a summit meeting in the EU today, where the leaders of the 16-nation block struck a deal, at least in principle, on assisting Greece with its debt problems. No details of the rescue package were forthcoming, but there were suggestions of some form of loan program. This is enough to open up the Pandora's box of 'moral hazard', but probably won't be enough to fix the problem - at least not with the initial measures. The final cost for any help to Greece will be much more than early expectations and this will pale in comparison to the cost of future bailouts for other member states such as Spain and Italy.

The whole scenario currently taking place in the EU should seem vaguely familiar to Americans. The much maligned TARP bailout program was initially only supposed to be loans, so it wasn't really costing the taxpayers anything. A number of other bailout programs mushroomed around it and by some estimates reached $11 trillion in promised money (compared to $700 billion for TARP).  While it has been claimed that some TARP money was returned, it is not clear how much actually was. When Citibank announced it was paying back $20 billion (of the $45 billion it received), the U.S. government agreed to give it a $38 billion tax break. It's not clear how many similar deals were worked out to shift the burden from a loan program to a direct cost for the American taxpayer, who after all would have to pay extra taxes to make up for the federal government tax breaks given to the big banks.

While the EU leaders were busy sowing the seeds of future financial disaster for their currency union, the ever out of touch U.S. Fed chair Ben Bernanke was testifying on Capitol Hill about a proposed exit strategy from his easy money policy. As a reminder, Bernanke didn't realize that subprime loans would cause a problem, didn't realize the U.S. was in a recession months after it had begun, and didn't realize that not bailing out Lehman would lead to a possible collapse of the world financial system. Now he doesn't realize the recession and economic problems caused by the Credit Crisis are still not over.  At least he's consistent.

Those who think the U.S. economy is healthy only have to look at the state of the housing market. Almost one in three borrowers have mortgages that are for more than the value of their property. As of November 2009, 5.3% of U.S. home mortgages are three or more months behind in their payments. A year earlier in 2008, it was only 2.1%. In 2009, 2.8 million mortgage holders received a foreclosure notice. Current estimates are this number will rise as high as 3.5 million in 2010. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both nationalized by the U.S. government, have just announced that they will buy back troubled loans contained in securities they have sold to investors (this is a major bailout for the big money players, although the mainstream media did not report it as such). Last year, the Obama administration pledged to cover unlimited losses for both companies through 2012. Draining liquidity from an economy with these conditions in the housing market would send the U.S. into a major depression.

The U.S. experience in the Credit Crisis shows that once you start bailouts, there is potentially no end in sight for how many there will be, nor any limit to the final cost. The disaster precipitated by not bailing out Lehman Brothers also indicates that you must bail out everyone once you start the process. Of course, bailing out no one is the other option. Half and half measures don't work and produce the worst results at the greatest costs. The EU seems not to be aware of this lesson. Maybe they're getting their advice from Ben Bernanke?

Disclosure: No positions

NEXT: China Worries About Inflation, The EU Needs to Worry About Growth

Daryl Montgomery
Organizer, New York Investing meetup
http://investing.meetup.com/21

This posting is editorial opinion. Like all other postings for this blog, there is no intention to endorse the purchase or sale of any security.

Bank Bankruptcy Bonanza

The 'Helicopter Economics Investing Guide' is meant to help educate people on how to make profitable investing choices in the current economic environment. We have coined this term to describe the current monetary and fiscal policies of the U.S. government, which involve unprecedented money printing. This is the official blog of the New York Investing meetup.

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CIT filed for bankruptcy in New York on Sunday. This is the fourth biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history, just behind number three General Motors (Lehman Brothers was number one). The CIT bankruptcy filing followed nine bank failures on Friday, which coincidentally involved the 4th largest bank failure this year. The FDIC Insurance fund which pays off depositors of failed banks is itself bankrupt. CIT itself is a bank holding company and became one last year in order to TARP funds. It will not be countered as a failed bank since it is expected to come out of bankruptcy.

The amount of money the government put into CIT was a small $2.3 billion (compared to $45 billion put directly into Citibank). CIT was not deemed too big to fail. It has actually been on the verge of collapse for several months now and almost went under in July. Lots of parties have been holding it up, including Goldman Sachs, with temporary measures since then - and for good reason. CIT is the largest loan provider for small and medium sized business in the U.S and 300,000 retail outlets are at least partially dependent on it for their merchandise. Imagine the impact on the holiday shopping season (goods are already at the stores by this point) if CIT had failed in the summer? The U.S. economy would have taken a major hit since retailing is its largest industry.

The federal government's indifference to CIT puts the lie to Bernanke, Paulson and Geithner's claims that the TARP government bailout money was to restore lending and support the economy. The biggest U.S. lender to small and medium size businesses has been allowed to fail. Before the failure, its was drastically cutting its loans to try and stay afloat. CIT lent $11.3 billion in the first half of 2008, but only $4.4 billion in the first half of 2009. While this was taking place the large banks, who got copious amounts of TARP money to increase lending, were cutting consumer credit sharply. So the U.S. has moved toward an economy where only big businesses and the rich are supplied with adequate credit (a third-world model). There is no way an actual economic recovery can take place given this situation.

Of course the government will probably come up with a plan for the CIT post-bankruptcy. I imagine a Cash Loans for Clunker Businesses program where huge amounts of money are lent to insolvent subprime businesses that don't have a chance of every making any money (businesses with Washington connections will be at the top of the list and get 99% of the funding). Bernanke is probably starting up the printing presses right now to pay for it. Just as a reminder, Bernanke claims he and the other central bankers 'saved' the financial system last year and he has been heralded by Obama for preventing another depression. With 115 bank failures this year and counting, a major financial company bankruptcy, and an insolvent FDIC bank insurance fund, the financial system isn't looking so 'saved' lately. Well, at least we've got the stock market, which just had its best seven month performance since 1933 . Hey, wasn't that during the Great Depression?

NEXT: Markets Roller Coaster Ride Powered by Media Hype

Daryl Montgomery
Organizer,New York Investing meetup
http://investing.meetup.com/21


This posting is editorial opinion. Like all other postings for this blog, there is no intention to endorse the purchase or sale of any security.

Geithner's appointment to Treasury - a Golden Opportunity

The 'Helicopter Economics Investing Guide' is meant to help educate people on how to make profitable investing choices in the current economic environment. In addition to the term helicopter economics, we have also coined the term, helicopternomics, to describe the current monetary and fiscal policies of the U.S. government and to update the old-fashioned term wheelbarrow economics.

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The market turnaround last Friday afternoon was reported by the financial media as resulting from the announcement that the head of the New York Fed, Timothy Geithner, would be appointed by President elect Obama as his Treasury Secretary. It would indeed be reasonable for Wall Street to cheer Geithner's appointment and the future team of takover Timothy and bailout Benny. It sent a very clear message that the new administration's policies will be to rescue any and every company needing it. While stocks rallied sharply on this news, the inflation hedges gold and silver rallied even more - and for good reason.

Geithner was the mastermind behind the AIG and Bear Stearns deals. In the case of AIG the company was nationalized by paying 10 times the market price for the U.S. taxpayer's share (if this had been a private deal he would have been sued for malfeasance). Bear Stearns was valued well below market value as a gift to JP Morgan Chase (which has a seat on the New York Fed Board of Directors by the way). Taxpayers just got to guarantee Bear's toxic loans and were left holding the bag. While most news media reported that Geithner was in favor of bailing out Lehman Brothers, this was apparently not the case. People who were on the scene at the negotiations claim otherwise. It is now widely acknowledged that allowing Lehman to fail is what has led to the market turmoil in the last two months. The PR campaign to build up Geithner obviously felt it important to rewrite history and in doing so made it clear that a universal U.S. government bailout policy was in our future.

Despite the momentary trouble that the automakers are having in Washington on getting in on the government gravy train and the failure to bail out Lehman (somewhat similar to the failure of the Fed to bail out the Bank of the United States in 1930, which had disastrous consequences), short of complete nationalization, the U.S. government couldn't do much more to support financial firms other than pump even more money into them (this will indeed be happening). Over the weekend the government guaranteed the most worthless one-sixth of Citigroup's assets. Today, the Fed announced a $600 billion program to support the mortgage market, $100 billion for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (two other financial black holes for government money) and $500 billion to purchase mortgage backed securities. Additionally, the Fed will lend up to $200 billion to the holders of securities backed by various types of consumer loans. So that's another $800 billion just for today. The total in the last year is way into the many trillions and you many assume most if not all of that is freshly printed money.

The implications of these moves have not gone unnoticed in the markets. Inflation sensitive silver rallied more than any stock index on both Friday and Monday. Gold, which has not been terribly damaged in the sell off during the last two months, and beaten down oil also had good rallies. The charts for gold and silver are much healthier looking than those for the major stock indices. Sustainable rallies are possible for both, while stocks look like they will need to do more work to get to that point.

NEXT: A Black (Plague) Friday for Retail

Daryl Montgomery
Organizer, New York Investing meetup
http://investing.meetup.com/21

This posting is editorial opinion. Like all other postings for this blog, there is no intention to endorse the purchase or sale of any security.

Trojan Horse of Earnings Surprises

The 'Helicopter Economics Investing Guide' is meant to help educate people on how to make profitable investing choices in the current economic environment. In addition to the term helicopter economics, we have also coined the term, helicopternomics, to describe the current monetary and fiscal policies of the U.S. government and to update the old-fashioned term wheelbarrow economics.

Our Video Related to this Blog:

Last spring Ford reported an unexpected profit. Even though this was inconsistent with almost all other information about the auto industry at the time,which was indicating serious collapse, the press trumpeted Ford's superior performance and that happy days were here again for the company. The stock shot up. Billionaire Kirk Kerkorian who had begun buying Ford stock in early April, announced he was willing to buy another 20 million shares at $8.50. The stock closed at $1.72 yesterday. The auto companies are now fighting for their lives trying to get desperately needed bailout money from Washington to prevent impending bankruptcies. Shareholders could get wiped out.

This morning Hewlett Packard announced surprisingly good earnings. This also seems inconsistent with reports from the rest of the industry. Intel, which has a broad international market similar to HP's was gloomy in its outlook in October. Nevertheless, HP stock shot up 15% in premarket trading and this helped prevent a drop on the open that could have sent the indices to new lows. HP's justification for its better than expected profits is that it sells printers and computers all over the world and this insulates it from economic problems in the U.S. An interesting statement considering that Intel and many other tech companies can say the same, but they are either already having problems or are negative on future business prospects. Unfortunately, the 'magic' that HP is using to produce its great numbers can't be deconstructed yet, since the full details will not be released until November 24th (Thanksgiving week when many traders in the U.S. will be away).

U.S. stock indices are once again scrapping along the bottom. All the gains from last Thursday's sudden explosive and still unexplained turnaround have not yet been dissipated, but they could be soon. A pattern of a big rally and then losing the gains in three to seven trading days seems to be the current norm. All the major indices have made three passes around their lows so far. The Nasdaq and Russell 2000 have made succeeding lower lows, while the S&P 500 tried to put in a double bottom and then made a lower low last Thursday. The Dow put in its low so far on October 10th and then has been trying to put in a double bottom subsequently. The technical picture has been improving somewhat, but in a major bear market like the one we are in, the technicals should look really good before you can put any store in them. Lows so far are 7774 on the Dow, 819 on the S&P and 1429 on the Nasdaq.

The current drama going on about the proposed auto bailout in Washington should be watched carefully. A bankruptcy filing for one of the major auto companies would be as devastating to the U.S. economy as Lehman's filing was for the stock and fixed-income markets after it took place in mid-September (the Depression era equivalent was when the Fed refused to bail out the New York Bank of the United States and this caused a chain reaction of bank and business failures throughout the economy). The lame-duck two month period between the presidential election and the new administration is a risky one for both the economy and the markets. No matter what happens, little government action should be expected.

NEXT: PPI and CPI - Don't Get Excited Just Yet

Daryl Montgomery
Organizer, New York Investing meetup
http://investing.meetup.com/21

This posting is editorial opinion. Like all other postings for this blog, there is no intention to endorse the purchase or sale of any security.

Central Bank Liquidity Tsunami Returns

The 'Helicopter Economics Investing Guide' is meant to help educate people on how to make profitable investing choices in the current economic environment. In addition to the term helicopter economics, we have also coined the term, helicopternomics, to describe the current monetary and fiscal policies of the U.S. government and to update the old-fashioned term wheelbarrow economics.

Our video related to this posting:

After Lehman declared bankruptcy on the Monday the 15th, Merrill Lynch had to be taken over by Bank America and AIG was nearing its end, the market was looking for a rate cut from the Fed during its Tuesday meeting. The Fed and Treasury had conditioned the market to expect bailouts for financial firms and then failed to deliver when they didn't rescue Lehman and grant AIG its initial loan request of $40 billion. The Fed failed to deliver again when it didn't cut the funds rate. This seeming policy reversal, refusing to support failing financial firms with loan guarantees and the stock market with rate cuts, not surprisingly started a huge market sell off.

The Fed started pumping money into the financial system at the rate of $70 billion a day on Monday and Tuesday. While this was well above normal, it was by no means adequate for the financial crisis that was unfolding. Not only did the Dow go down 45o points and gold go up $90 on Wednesday, but the bond market indicated a panic flight to quality. For a brief time, interest rates on 1-month T-bills became negative. The rates on 3-month T-bills remained barely positive at 0.2%, the lowest level since 1954. The TED spread a measure of financial system stability, or lack thereof, hit the level it reached during the crash of 1987.

The Fed's apparent obliviousness to the magnitude of the situation was truly mind boggling, but not inconsistent with Bernanke's previous missteps - after all he didn't expect the subprime crisis would have any serious impact on the market as of June 2007, if not later. After the market route on Wednesday, along with Morgan Stanley acting as if it was about to go under, the Fed decided to flood the world financial system with liquidity. It supplied a line of credit of as much as $247 billion to the ECB, Bank of England, Bank of Japan, the Swiss National Bank and the Bank of Canada. These banks in turn added their own funds and a gusher of money poured forth from every central bank spigot available. As one observer noted, the central banks were essentially providing unlimited liquidity to world financial markets. Not surprisingly, stock markets reacted positively everywhere with big rallies, with the Dow being up 410 points and the Nasdaq up 100 points on Thursday.

Euphoria from liquidity injections usually lasts only a short time, unless the underlying problems get fixed. In this case, the problems may be even worse than the market realized. The Fed's delayed reaction to the market turmoil and its initial cold shoulder to AIG may not have been voluntary, it may have had no choice. On Wednesday, the Fed asked the U.S. Treasury to raise money on its behalf by selling bonds and by Thursday it had received $160 billion from this operation. The Fed has never made this request from the Treasury before. While the official explanation for doing so was to help with its cash management, this is highly unlikely. More plausible is that the Fed itself has run out of money and is being secretly bailed out. Events that took place Thursday evening lent further credence to this belief.

NEXT: The Free Market Goes Under

Daryl Montgomery
Organizer, New York Investing meetup
http://investing.meetup.com/21

This posting is editorial opinion. Like all other postings for this blog, there is no intention to endorse the purchase or sale of any security.

The Peoples Republic of the U.S. - the AIG Bailout

The 'Helicopter Economics Investing Guide' is meant to help educate people on how to make profitable investing choices in the current economic environment. In addition to the term helicopter economics, we have also coined the term, helicopternomics, to describe the current monetary and fiscal policies of the U.S. government and to update the old-fashioned term wheelbarrow economics.

In a socialist state, the government decides what a company is worth, not the market. The Federal Reserve clearly demonstrated this concept by purchasing almost 80% of the insurance giant AIG on Tuesday night, September 16th. The Fed paid over 10 times what the market said its stake in AIG was worth. It is not clear what U.S. laws allow for the nationalization of part of the insurance industry, nor what companies will be bought next now that this precedent has been set.

The final phase of AIG's death spiral began on Monday evening when the major credit agencies downgraded it. This credit downgrade required AIG to post billions of dollars of additional collateral for its mortgage derivative contracts - capital that AIG simple didn't have. The implications were far more serous than the public realized, since AIG is a central player in the CDS (credit default swaps) market and does business with almost every financial institution in the world. If AIG went under it would have been unable to pay off its CDS obligations and its counter parties would have unable to collect on its trades. It was estimated that a large number of hedge funds, and possibly some banks, would have gone under along with AIG.

Over the weekend AIG attempted to borrow $40 billion form the Federal Reserve. The Fed, originally set up to lend just to commercial banks, had no legal authority to lend to insurance companies. And even though it had extended its lending to broker-dealers in March and to mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in July, it was reluctant to add insurance companies to the list. Then on Tuesday evening, the Fed (with support from the Treasury and President Bush) decided to extend its legal authority way beyond anything ever intended by agreeing to pump $85 billion into AIG. The media described this $85 billion as a 'loan' even though a 79.9% equity stake in AIG was being given in exchange (note to media: this is a stock purchase, not a loan). This is not for already existing AIG stock, but for newly issued AIG stock, so AIG will have to increase its outstanding amount of stock to five times its current level. This is a better deal for stockholders than usual, since they will be left with something, instead of being completely wiped out.

Based on Tuesday's closing price, AIG had a market cap of just over $10 billion dollars. In order to buy 80% of the company (which was worth $8 billion according to the market), the U.S. paid $85 billion or over 10 times the market price. Socialism leads to just such economic absurdities. Unless this is stopped, expect more of this in the future - and the permanently ruined economy that always follows.

NEXT: The Mega Move Up in Gold and Silver

Daryl Montgomery
Organizer, New York Investing
http://investing.meetup.com/21

This posting is editorial opinion. Like all other postings for this blog, there is no intention to endorse the purchase or sale of any security.

Banks and Brokers Most Likely to Fail - The Big Players

The 'Helicopter Economics Investing Guide' is meant to help educate people on how to make profitable investing choices in the current economic environment. In addition to the term helicopter economics, we have also coined the term, helicopternomics, to describe the current monetary and fiscal policies of the U.S. government and to update the old-fashioned term wheelbarrow economics.

Our video for this posting can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBhEO14lwMg

Other videos on this topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIxTlP5FU_Q

At our September 8th meeting, the New York Investing meetup presented a talk on the 'Banks and Brokers Most Likely to Fail'. This was a follow up to material that was already presented in our April meeting 9th meeting talk, 'The Dirtiest Dozen Financial Companies' (the notes for both of these talks were posted on our web site at: http://investing.meetup.com/21/files). Putting together all the criteria that should be considered in determining whether or not a bank of broker could be insolvent or heading in that direction the following list of large banks or brokers resulted (how much their stock was down from the high is the figure next to their name):

Washington Mutual -down 93%
Lehman - down 91%
Wachovia - down 87%
Merrill Lynch - down 78%
Citibank - down 75%
UBS - down 73%
Royal Bank of Scotland - down 73%
Keycorp - down 82%

With the exception of Wachovia, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Keycorp, these companies had already appeared on our April list.

Washington Mutual and Lehman were obviously both in desperate shape and jocking for the number one position of who would be gone first. Washington Mutual had the highest one-year CD rates in the U.S and the willingness to pay a lot more for funds than its rivals indicated how urgently it needed funds. It could also not raise capital because it had sold stock at $8.75 a share with an agreement to reimburse the buyer for the price difference if it sold stock again at a lower price. It's price had fallen so low (it's price dipped to $1.75 a share the day of our meeting) that if it sold new stock, it would have to pay more to this purchaser per share than it would from the sale. Lehman on the other hand, had been in serious trouble since March and would have gone under right after Bear Stearns failure except for Federal Reserve cash infusions into the company from the newly established PDCF (Primary Dealer Credit Facility). It had just released its earnings and had lost $5.62 a share in the third quarter versus $5.19 a share in the second quarter. Its stock was falling rapidly and would close at $3.65 on Friday.

Lehman had been trying to sell some of its operation or part of the company for the previous several weeks. The Korean Development bank finally withdrew from negotiations claiming they were asking too much. Lehman had deteriorated so much that an emergency meeting was held at the New York Fed's office starting Friday evening and going into Sunday. The Treasury secretary and all of Wall Street's movers and shakers were there. Even then, nothing could be worked out for Lehman. For the first time, the Treasury refused to offer government guarantees. This should not be interpreted as the Fed and Treasury finally realizing the danger of Moral Hazard, or that no one voted for the U.S. becoming a socialist state, but rather that they themselves are out of funding sources.

Without a government rescue, Lehman was forced to declare bankruptcy Monday morning. Ironically, Bank of America agreed to buy Merrill Lynch as a result of the emergency meeting (both were there), apparently with some prodding from government officials. Elsewhere, insurance giant AIG requested access to the Fed's lending facilities, in order to stave off its own impending bankruptcy.

NEXT: Lehman, Merrill Lynch, and AIG - the Morning After

Daryl Montgomery
Organizer, New York Investing meetup
http://investing.meetup.com/21

This posting is editorial opinion. Like all other postings for this blog, there is no intention to endorse the purchase or sale of any security.


























































































































NEXT: The Banks and Brokers Most Likely to Fail








Daryl Montgomery
Organizer, New York Investing meetup







http://investing.meetup.com/21








This posting is editorial opinion. Like all other postings for this blog, there is no intention to endorse the purchase or sale of any security.

Bailout to Bailout: The Bear Stearns Bailout and Its Aftermath

The 'Helicopter Economics Investing Guide' is meant to help educate people on how to make profitable investing choices in the current economic environment. In addition to the term helicopter economics, we have also coined the term, helicopternomics, to describe the current monetary and fiscal policies of the U.S. government and to update the old-fashioned term wheelbarrow economics.

Our video for this posting can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8Mn67rNCFQ

It was soon realized that the temporary loan given by the Federal Reserve to Bear Stearns would not be enough to keep the company afloat. Indeed this was probably already known before the loan's announcement was made on the afternoon of the 14th. The Fed, particularly the New York regional division, worked feverishly all weekend to find a definitive solution to Bear's insolvency. They decided to have JP Morgan take over Bear at a price of $2.52 a share, a rather sharp haircut to the Friday closing price of $30 a share ... and an even steeper discount to the official book value of $84 to $97 a share for Bear stock, which the CEO had announced was unimpaired only two days earlier.

Not only did JP Morgan get Bear Stearns essentially for free, but the Federal Reserve further guaranteed $30 billion (later reduced to $29 billion) of Bears troubled mortgage bonds. JP Morgan was by no means just a lucky bystander in this transaction. Its CEO sat on the board of governors of the New York Fed and got to influence the decision that proved highly favorable to them - in more ways than one it turned out. JP Morgan was a counter party to a large number of derivatives on Bear Stearns books and Bears failure would probably have sunk JP Morgan shortly thereafter. So the Fed's giveaway bailout of Bear Stearns was also an indirect bailout of JP Morgan. Membership (in the Fed) obviously has its privileges. Bear Stearns not being a Fed member wound up being thrown to the wolves.

While JP Morgan and the Bear Stearns bondholders were winners because of the Fed arranged bailout, stockholders and credit default swap (CDS) holders wound up being the big losers. If Bear Stearns had actually declared bankruptcy, the CDS holders would have had a big payday. However, once again the Fed's interference in the market turned winners who had made the correct investment decision into losers by changing the rules of the game at the last moment.It turned out that the stock holders had more clout and wound up successfully agitating for an increase in the takeover price to $10 a share. Even at that price some of the 'smart money' lost big, including British investor Joe Lewis, who lost over a billion dollars, and renowned mutual fund manager Bill Miller whose fund had large holding of Bear stock. The American taxpayer, as per usual, was put on the hook and would also wind up paying for Bear Stearns mismanagement and the Fed's gifting to JP Morgan.

As a result of being blindsided by Bear Stearns failure, the Fed set up the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF) in March of 2008. For the first time in its history, the Fed allowed broker-dealers to also borrow from them, not just commercial banks. Lehman Brothers was an immediate beneficiary of this new program, which probably kept it from failing shortly after Bear Stearns did. The legality of this new Fed operation was at best tenuous, but the Fed seemed to have little concern for following its mandate of controlling inflation or restricting its activities to those specifically granted to it by the U.S government. After all why should the Fed be concerned about such things since it knew the government was unlikely to try to keep it from doing whatever it wanted to do - legal or otherwise.

NEXT: Run on the Bank, 2008 - Indymac

Daryl Montgomery

Organizer, New York Investing meetup

http://investing.meetup.com/21