Monthly Archives: August 2007

Suprime Collateral Damage: Homes in Chelsea (London)

Posted on August 24, 2007 by Felix

Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism submits: Bloomberg tells us that sales of 2 million pound ($4 million) homes and flats in London are on hold as buyers pull back, expecting subprime woes to put a damper on City bonuses this … Continue reading →

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Central Bank Efforts to Stabilize Money Markets May Not Be Working

Posted on August 23, 2007 by Felix

Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism submits: An update from Bloomberg tells us that commercial paper outstandings fell 4.2% in a week, which suggests the efforts of central bankers to restore confidence in that market, and particularly in asset backed commercial … Continue reading →

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Special Situation: Lehman Subprime Unit Shutdown

Posted on August 23, 2007 by Felix

Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism submits: The securities industry is highly cyclical, and like the markets they trade in, Wall Street firms are prone to overshoot and undershoot. Executives cut too deeply in downturns, resolve not to repeat that mistake … Continue reading →

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Paulson Hoist on His Own Petard (Yuan Version)

Posted on August 23, 2007 by Felix

Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism submits: One of the Treasury Department’s big campaigns has been to put pressure on the Chinese to allow the yuan to float more freely (the Chinese now engage in a dirty float in place of … Continue reading →

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Do-It-Yourself Dubious Accounting

Posted on August 23, 2007 by Felix

Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism reports: Part of the hangover that followed the dot-com bubble was rampant accounting fraud. Before then, accounting chicanery was virtually unheard of in Fortune 500 companies. It instead cropped up at high fliers with loose … Continue reading →

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Press Burnishing of Presidential Image

Posted on August 22, 2007 by Felix

Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism submits: The media is typically kind to newly-elected leaders, so now it’s Sarkozy who is getting favorable press treatment. And when we say “burnishing image,” we mean it literally. From the BBC: The French magazine … Continue reading →

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Mortgage Delinquency Rises at Fastest Rate in 17 Years

Posted on August 22, 2007 by Felix

Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism submits: Bloomberg informs us that the FDIC has released data showing that mortgages over 90 days past rose over 36% from second quarter last year to second quarter this year, the biggest increase since 1991. … Continue reading →

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The Financial Times’ Martin Wolf Defends the Fed

Posted on August 22, 2007 by Felix

Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism submits: Normally, I have the highest regard for Martin Wolf, the Financial Times’ lead economics writer. He is forthright, data-driven, articulate, and insightful. However, I take issue with his current article, “The Federal Reserve must … Continue reading →

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Bush’s FHA Band-Aid

Posted on August 22, 2007 by Felix

Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism submits: The Bush Administration, which resisted proposals to have Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy more mortgages to alleviate stress in the housing markets, is instead looking to the Federal Home Administration, which traditionally has … Continue reading →

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Harvard Gets It Right Again

Posted on August 21, 2007 by Felix

HMC had a truly phenomenal fiscal 2007.
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Has Smoke and Mirrors Worked?

Posted on August 21, 2007 by Felix

Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism submits: In an inspired bit of stagecraft, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd reported today on a meeting with Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury secretary Henry Paulson that the Fed stood ready to use … Continue reading →

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Lawyers of the World Unite! You Have Nothing to Save but Your Jobs!

Posted on August 21, 2007 by Felix

Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism submits: A Bloomberg story reports that large corporate law firms such as Kirkland & Ellis and Jones Day are facing not merely pressure, but explicit client demands, to send junior level work overseas. This is … Continue reading →

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Dubious Factoid of the Day, Japan Edition

Posted on August 21, 2007 by Felix

In the era of the hyperlink, I’m increasingly mistrustful of bandied-around statistics which don’t have an easily-accessible paper backing them up.
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The Attraction of 15 Central Park West

Posted on August 21, 2007 by Felix

It’s the most successful residential development in New York history. So just
what is it that makes 15 CPW so different, so appealing?
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The Four Views of What the Fed Should Do

Posted on August 21, 2007 by Felix

Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism submits: A gut-wrenching two weeks in the credit markets have been capped by unprecedented moves by central bankers. The ECB’s offer of an unlimited infusion to member banks the week before last was followed last … Continue reading →

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Stretching Credulity on Identity Theft Costs

Posted on August 21, 2007 by Felix

Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism submits: A solid article in ComputerWorld tells us that data theft is getting worse. In the ongoing struggle between the security mavens and the data thieves, the bad guys are gaining ground. They are getting … Continue reading →

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William Lauder Needs a Lesson on What It Means to Be Public

Posted on August 20, 2007 by Felix

Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism submits: I’m a bit late to this item from today’s Wall Street Journal because I generally skip its softball CEO interviews. However, they do give corporate leaders the opportunity to make unwitting self revelations. Here, … Continue reading →

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Changing Motivations for Home Ownership

Posted on August 20, 2007 by Felix

Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism submits: Courtesy Paul Kedrosky at Infectious Greed comes this chart that shows over time how renters’ reasons for taking the plunge into home ownership have changed. While this is a UK rather than US sample, … Continue reading →

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Quel Surprise! Most Traders Would Cheat if They Could Get Away With It

Posted on August 20, 2007 by Felix

Wall Street appears to come upon its dubious reputation for ethics honestly.
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Municipalities May Suffer Subprime Fallout

Posted on August 20, 2007 by Felix

Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism submits: Gillian Tett, in “Credit compass fails to work,” in the Financial Times (subscription required), uses the woes suffered by monoline insurers such as MBIA and Ambac to illustrate that in our current credit crunch, … Continue reading →

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Did Bernanke Make a “Rookie Mistake?”

Posted on August 19, 2007 by Felix

Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism submits: A Bloomberg story, in what may be becoming conventional wisdom, charges Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke with making a novice’s error: By lowering the discount rate and issuing a statement conceding threats to the … Continue reading →

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Beware of Consultants Bearing Data

Posted on August 18, 2007 by Felix

Has a BCG study just outdone the Street in the data massaging game?
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More on AT&T/iPhone (and Now BlackBerry) Woes

Posted on August 17, 2007 by Felix

Can someone, anyone, save AT&T from themselves?
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Rate Cut Linkfest

Posted on August 17, 2007 by Felix

Some links to good posts on the Fed’s latest move.
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The Fed Kills the Shorts?

Posted on August 17, 2007 by Felix

Traders were supposedly heavily on the put side today, an options expiration day, so the stock market response to the Fed’s discount rate cut seems surprisingly subdued.
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