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Category Archives: banking
Morgan Stanley: What Did CIC Know, and When Did They Know It?
Tinbox, in the comments to my last Morgan Stanley post, makes a very good point: that China Investment Corp must have been given lots of material non-public information in advance of Morgan Stanley’s Q4 earnings announcement. I don’t know how … Continue reading
Morgan Stanley: Yet More Proof That Stock Moves Make No Sense
I puzzled yesterday over the question of why Goldman Sachs fell in the wake of spectacular earnings. Today, it’s the other way around: how on earth is Morgan Stanley’s stock rising in the wake of losing $3.56 billion last quarter? … Continue reading
Morgan Stanley: Eminently Stoppable
Morgan Stanley’s Q3 earnings were bad. "Mack Smacked" was the Portfolio headline, reacting to a lower profit (just $1.54 billion, John Mack’s first quarterly earnings decline) and a nasty $940 million write-down on bad loans. Ah, those were the days. … Continue reading
Why David Viniar Didn’t Cause Goldman’s Shares to Fall
Any given stock, on any given day, even if that day sees the release of an earnings report, moves in an essentially random direction. If you want to see what’s happened to Goldman Sachs shares, don’t look at where they closed today compared to where they closed yesterday: look at where they are now compared to a month, or a quarter, or a year ago.
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Will the ECB Start Buying CDOs?
We know that the Fed has pretty low standards when it comes to the collateral it will accept. But that doesn’t really matter, since the Fed is mainly relying on getting its money back from the banks it’s lending money … Continue reading
Posted in banking, bonds and loans, fiscal and monetary policy
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Goldman: Unstoppable
We knew that Goldman Sachs had been very successful shorting the mortgage market; we also knew that Goldman’s asset-management arm was very unsucccessful this summer playing the stock market. And we’re also used, by now, to Goldman setting new records … Continue reading
Posted in banking
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Microlending in Mexico: Still Extortionate
BusinessWeek has a big (3,000-word) story on Mexican microlending, by Keith Epstein and Geri Smith. It’s heavy on the anecdote, and it comes down hard on one lender in particular: Ricardo Salinas’s Banco Azteca, which specializes in consumer finance. I’m … Continue reading
Posted in banking, development
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VaR: For a Crappy Tool, It’s Really Important at Goldman Sachs
In Kate Kelly’s narrative of Goldman Sachs’s mortgage-trading gains, thrice the traders want to keep their bearish bets but are forced to unwind their positions by higher-ups. What fascinates me is the way in which value-at-risk, a very quick-and-dirty risk … Continue reading
Posted in banking
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Citi: Still Partially Insulated from SIV Losses
Alea has the scoop on Citi’s SIVs: they’ll have to decline in value by $2.5 billion, or more than 5%, before Citi takes a penny in losses. No wonder Citi found it relatively easy to sell tens of billions of … Continue reading
Posted in banking, bonds and loans
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Citi Bails In its SIVs
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, or something. Somehow – more by luck than judgment, I’m sure – I managed to call this one pretty well. December 11: If Citi can carve off some large chunks of … Continue reading
Posted in banking
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Lehman Profits From Earlier Write-Downs
There’s an art to the write-down. On the one hand, you don’t want to scare people by writing down too much money unnecessarily. But on the other hand, you want to be conservative, and you certainly don’t want to have … Continue reading
Posted in banking
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Bonus Watch, Goldman Sachs Edition
At Goldman, all is sunny: Many were celebrating Wednesday. “Are people happy? I think broadly yes. The message was that in a year when the firm has done well, it pays its people well,” said a delighted banker.
Citigroup Should Cut its Dividend Now
Morgan Stanley thinks Citi will cut its dividend. CIBC thinks Citi will cut its dividend. And according to Alea, the markets think Citi will cut its dividend, too: Based on implied forward prices derived from options markets, a 40% dividend … Continue reading
Still Underwhelmed by Pandit
Vikram Pandit, it turns out, has something of an online fan club. When I described him yesterday as "a dull technocrat who has never achieved very much," I was immediately slapped down by commenters – most of whom spent much … Continue reading
Posted in banking
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The Best and Worst Bank Deals of 2007
Time’s Bill Saporito says that the takeover of ABN Amro by the RBS-led consortium was the 4th best business deal of 2007. Wha? RBS overpaid massively: the consortium decided to pay mainly in cash, but by the time the deal … Continue reading
Fed, Citi: Mildly Disappointing
It’s obviously a day for mildly-disappointing expected decisions. The Fed has cut by a quarter point, and Citigroup has decided to appoint Vikram Pandit its new CEO. I doubt that many people can gin up much in the way of … Continue reading
Posted in banking, fiscal and monetary policy
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How Citi is Solving its SIV Problems
Citigroup was always understood to be the prime beneficiary of the SuperSIV plan. But yesterday, Eric Dash dropped hints that Citi had been working on a Plan B, saying that "Citigroup, the financial giant that first proposed the initiative, is … Continue reading
Posted in banking, bonds and loans
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Takeover Speculation of the Day: JPMorgan to buy Citigroup?
When Merrill Lynch put out a research note saying that Bank of America might buy Barclays, Alphaville was not impressed, calling the Merrill research "bolshy" and "spivvy". When CreditSights puts out a research note saying that JPMorgan Chase might buy … Continue reading
Banking: It Pays To Be Conservative
It turns out that it’s relatively easy to survive a subprime crisis, if you’re a conservative Swiss bank. The problems at Citigroup and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are basically that their losses are eating into their capital, leaving them … Continue reading
Posted in banking
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Why Does Goldman Sachs Need 10 Acres of Trading Floor?
Gari N Corp has a question: Why do investment banks need such big trading floors? Are we talking about one big floor for everyone, or multiple huge floors? I mean, is it just about creating a collegiate atmosphere? Compliance (avoiding … Continue reading
Posted in architecture, banking
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Silvio Berlusconi for Citigroup CEO!
In the wake of Saturday’s NYT story that Vikram Pandit looks set to take over Citigroup, a bit of color is emerging: essentially that he’s the best man for the job only insofar as he’s the only person willing to … Continue reading
Posted in banking
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Can Thain Make Merrill More Collegial?
John Thain wants to know why his new colleagues at Merrill Lynch can’t just get along: Mr Thain, whose tenure as Merrill chief executive begins on Monday, said in an interview that he believed there was insufficient co-operation between senior … Continue reading
Posted in banking
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The Strategy of Capital Injection
At the risk of repeating the mistake I made with the Bank of America – Countrywide deal, I have to say I like this Citadel – E*Trade deal a lot. The total cash infusion of $2.5 billion is actually larger … Continue reading
Posted in banking
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And You Thought Bear Stearns Was Looking Cheap
Ah, those storied names. Dillon Read. SG Warburg. PaineWebber. Pactual. The reputations, the brands, the cashflow. Priceless. Literally. According to Credit Suisse (which admittedly might not be the most impartial arbiter in such matters), the value that the market is … Continue reading
Posted in banking
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John Reed for Citigroup CEO!
Things are pretty bad at Citigroup right now: its tier 1 capital, while above the federally-mandated level of 6%, is below its own internal target of 7.5%. But things were much worse in 1990, when that same ratio was just … Continue reading
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