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Monthly Archives: August 2007
Is This a Liquidity Crisis or an Insolvency Crisis?
Telling the difference is always more of an art than a science. And from my point of view, a lot of what Roubini considers to be insolvency is reallly “just” a liquidity problem.
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Posted in bonds and loans, economics
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The Credit Crunch Reaches the Money Market
Investors in obscure asset-backed instruments knew, or should have known, that they were taking liquidity risk. But the interbank market and money-market funds are designed to be as liquid as possible.
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Posted in bonds and loans
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Abolish Mortgage-Interest Tax Deduction, But Not Now
Matt Cooper is 100% right, today, when he says that we should
abolish
the mortgage-interest tax deduction.
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Posted in fiscal and monetary policy, housing, Politics
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In Defense of Credit Indices, Part 2
CDS indices aren’t
perfect. But they’re a darn sight better than the alternative, which is
nothing.
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Posted in derivatives
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BNP Paribas Funds: A Non-Story With Big Consequences
Why all the fuss about these BNP
Paribas funds?
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Posted in bonds and loans
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Print Bears vs TV Bulls
Brian Wesbury says there are too
many bears on the telly; Barry Ritholtz says there are
too
many bulls.
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Posted in Media
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When Is A Bailout Not A Bailout?
Dean Baker says
it’s bailout – of hedge-fund managers, no less. Tim Worstall
says
it’s a bailout, which raises all manner of moral-hazard issues. Joanna
Ossinger says
it’s a bailout. But it’s not.
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Posted in housing
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Looking for a Risk-Constant Mutual Fund
The financial markets have outgrown their retail investors. When will those investors be given the tools to catch up?
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Posted in personal finance
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Bush and the Dollar
A weak dollar is neither a bad idea nor a good idea: it’s just a fact of life, imposed on the US by the international currency markets.
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Posted in foreign exchange
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Analyzing Bear Stearns’s Credit Portfolio
I find the bearish case more persuasive than the bullish.
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Posted in banking
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Credit Market Datapoint of the Day
Serena Ng says that Bear Stearns paid
"a heavy price" when it issued $2.25 billion of five-year bonds
at 245bp over Treasuries on Monday.
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Posted in banking, bonds and loans
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In Defense of Credit Indices
I was quite
rude about the ABX.HE indices this morning, but, like all hedging mechanisms,
they do serve an important purpose.
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Posted in derivatives
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Let Fannie and Freddie Buy Profitable Mortgages
Is it a good idea to lift restrictions on the kind of mortgages that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can buy? In a word, yes.
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Posted in housing
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The ABX Indices: Making the Bad Seem Worse
The ABX.HE indices are a pretty weak indication of what mortgage-backed
bonds are actually worth.
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Posted in bonds and loans, derivatives
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How Politicians Can Help Fix the Mortgage Mess
Hillary Clinton has a plan to address
the subprime mortgage mess, and, to my surprise, it’s actually eminently
sensible.
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Why CEOs Don’t Resign
Let me try to answer Matt Cooper’s question:
How come Warren Spector has been fired from Bear Stearns, but
Jimmy Cayne is still there?
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Posted in defenestrations
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IMF: Strauss-Kahn Joins the Side of the Angels
Dominique Strauss-Kahn apparently wants to reform
the process which is used to choose the IMF’s managing director –
the very process which has just landed him in that job.
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Posted in IMF
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Andre Esteves, UBS’s Very Expensive New Debt Head
At the end of 2006, UBS bought Brazil’s Banco Pactual for $2.6 billion. The
managing partner of Pactual, Andre Esteves, owned 30% of Pactual,
and so, naturally, he stayed on salary at UBS.
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Posted in banking
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Free the NYT’s Archives!
Holly Sanders of the New York Post is reporting
that the NYT is finally going to abolish its idiotic TimesSelect service –
and about time too.
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Posted in Media
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Mea Minima Culpa
Starting on August 30th, before we invest in low-yield, illiquid securities with high default risk we promise to “think-twice”.
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Posted in remainders
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When Competition Increases Sales
You’re in a market and a competitor arrives. Should you be worried? Not always.
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Posted in economics
2 Comments
WSJ Anoints Carlos Slim as World’s Richest Man
I was travelling over the weekend, and so I missed David Luchnow’s
profile
of Carlos Slim in the WSJ. Boy am I glad I found it now!
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Posted in wealth
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The Jumbo Mortgage Window Slams Shut
Are we in the middle of a fully-blown credit crunch, or is this merely an unpleasant and discontinuous repricing? The answer to that question lies in whether credit is available at any price.
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Posted in bonds and loans
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Privatization and Subsidies Don’t Mix
James Surowiecki says, quite rightly, that the US student-loan
system is one
enormous boondoggle for private lenders to students.
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Posted in privatization
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Measuring Home Preferences
Would you rather have a 4,000-square-foot house in a neighborhood of 6,000-square-foot McMansions, or a 3,000-square-foot home in a zone of 2,000-square-foot bungalows?
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Posted in economics
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