November 2008
“So far, so good”
U.S. ‘Black Friday’ Sales Rise 3%, ShopperTrak Says
By Lauren Coleman-Lochner
Nov. 29 (Bloomberg) — U.S. holiday retail sales increased 3 percent yesterday from a year earlier, the smallest gain for a “Black Friday” in three years, research firm ShopperTrak RCT Corp. said.
Sales rose to $10.6 billion, the Chicago-based company said in a statement. The increase was the smallest since a...
Link-a-palooza
Junk-Bond Market Has Closed the Door
WSJ ($)
11/29/2008 03:06 PM
U.K. takes over Royal Bank of Scotland
IHT
11/29/2008 03:07 PM
In Brazil, Credit to Farmers Dries Up
WSJ ($)
11/29/2008 03:05 PM
Economic crisis deepens in Europe, Asia
AFP
11/29/2008 03:01 PM
Fears That a Weakened British Pound May Grow Weaker
NY Times
11/29/2008 08:37 AM
British...
D'OH!
Zoo solves mystery of celibate polar bears
Puzzled zookeepers in northern Japan have discovered the reason why their attempts to mate two polar bears kept failing: Both are female. The municipal zoo in the city of Kushiro in Hokkaido brought in a polar bear cub three years ago. They named it Tsuyoshi, after the popular baseball outfielder Tsuyoshi Shinjo, and waited until it reached reproductive...
Freddie back in the growth mode...
Freddie Portfolio Expands at 44% Rate in October
Freddie Mac’s portfolio of mortgage assets grew at an annualized rate of 44 percent in October after regulators directed the government-run company to ramp up purchases to ease constraints on the U.S. housing market. The portfolio rose to $763.7 billion for the first full month that Freddie was under federal control, adding $26.8 billion in net new...
Deep thoughts from Martin Feldstein
Housing is bad enough, but wait — it’ll get worse
If you think the housing slump can’t get much worse, Martin Feldstein thinks that both home prices and the broader economy can — and very likely will — get a whole lot worse. “There are now 12 million homes in the United States with a loan-to-value ratio greater than 100 percent. That’s one mortgage in four. The aggregate...
More on Robert Rubin...
From nakedcapitalism:
Mirabile Dictu! Rubin Takedown by the Wall Street Journal!
This ought to be a celebratory event, the scrutiny of a powerful player in the financial system who heretofore seemed immune to criticism. And what is interesting about the spotlight on Citigroup consigliere and board member Robert Rubin is that, unlike Greenspan, the reassessment is starting while he would still...
Quote of the day
“There is a comfort of sorts, in the familiar, even if the familiar is pure misery. Pity the poor soul who is unhappy with his life, yet fears to change. He is both the jailed and the jailer, keeper of the key and afraid to use it.”
- Alice Ruddy
The Worst Is Yet To Come: Anonymous Banker Weighs In On The Coming Credit Card Debacle
By NYTimes Joe Nocera
A few weeks ago, I published an e-mail message sent to me from an executive who works in the banking industry — and had become disgusted by what he sees all around him. This weekend, that same banker sent me another e-mail message, which he has also agree to let me publish. It’s another...
Revisionist history in the making...
“What came together was not only a cyclical undervaluing of risk (but also) a housing bubble and triple-A ratings were misguided. There was virtually nobody who saw that low-probability event as a possibility.”
- Robert Rubin, Director and “Senior Counselor” of Citigroup (formerly Chairman of the Executive Committee)
Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt! :-)
Commercial real estate goes into the crapper...
“Conditions have deteriorated on a scale and with a speed that no one could have predicted just a few months ago. Market conditions of unprecedented strength are roiling the world’s financial markets. The global economy is either in, or close to, recession and 2009 is not likely to be a year of great recovery.” Brett White, president and chief executive officer of CB Richard...
Is the Golden Era of Consumption over?
NYT Op-Ed Contributor
Dying of Consumption
By STEPHEN S. ROACH
Hong Kong
IT’S game over for the American consumer. Inflation-adjusted personal consumption expenditures are on track for rare back-to-back quarterly declines in the second half of 2008 at a 3.5 percent average annual rate. There are only four other instances since 1950 when real consumer demand has fallen for two quarters in a...
From the "It's your money dept"
From the Financial Times:
One day after announcing strict limits on salaries and bonuses for its top tier of executives, AIG revealed that some of those executives will receive millions in “retention bonuses” next year… The retention bonuses for 130 key executives were disclosed by AIG in September, after the US government rescued the firm from bankruptcy by purchasing 79.9 per cent of the...
Bailout Scorecard
From WSJ’s MarketBeat:
The bailouts keep on coming. The Federal Reserve is busy introducing plans to support the asset-backed securities market, as well as buy up to $500 billion in mortgage-backed securities and $100 billion in agency debt. Meanwhile, Citigroup is getting a big capital infusion and an implicit guarantee that the monsters in the closet won’t come to get them. MarketBeat...
Thank God for the SEC
Without them, we might be facing a peer-to-peer financal crisis!
Best to leave lending to the big, corporate banks. They know what they are doing.
===================================
Prosper, America’s largest people-to-people lending marketplace, was created to make consumer lending more financially and socially rewarding for everyone.
The way Prosper works is intuitive to people who...
World Bank China Quarterly (a must read) →
Quote of the Day
“This is an unprecedented export recession,” said Richard Jerram, chief economist at Macquarie Securities Ltd. in Tokyo. “The world stopped turning for about a month and a half after the middle of September …”
I wonder what he’ll say when he gets the Q4 data.
Link-a-palooza
Wall Street futures point to fall in quiet half-day trade
Reuters
11/28/2008 04:48 AM
Oil falls below $54 ahead of OPEC meeting
Reuters
11/28/2008 04:46 AM
Pension Agency Sounds Alarm
WSJ ($)
11/27/2008 09:51 PM
Bets are off as lack of deals hits arbitrageurs
FT ($)
11/28/2008 05:55 AM
Meltdown far from over, new mortgage crisis looms
AP
...
The Mother of All Bear Market Rallies?
Insight: We are in for the mother of all bear market rallies
By Barton Biggs
Published: November 24 2008 16:16 | Last updated: November 24 2008 16:16
Before we all are swept away into total despair, let’s take a step back and imagine what could get stocks around the world going up for a while. Bear in mind that I am hedge fund manager, have been wrong on the severity and...
A sign of the times...
From WSJ.com:
THE WEALTH REPORT Robert Frank looks at the lives and culture of the wealthy.
Rich Cut Back on Payments to Mistresses You know times are tough when the rich start cutting costs on their mistresses.
According to a new survey by Prince & Assoc., more than 80% of multimillionaires who had extra-marital lovers planned to cut back on their gifts and allowances. Still, only 12% of...
Gee How Quaint...
“If they are too big to fail, make them smaller.”
-former Nixon Treasury Secretary George Shultz, said about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
"Bailout" wins 2008 Word of the Year!
From Boston Herald: In sign of times, ‘bailout’ is ‘word of year’
The word “bailout,” which shot to prominence amid the financial meltdown, was looked up so often at Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary that the publisher says it was an easy choice for its 2008 Word of the Year.
I can’t wait to hear the acceptance speech.
$7.8 Trillion Total Bailout Commitment →
MassPike Massholes bet big and lose...(It's a good...
Massachusetts Turnpike Big Dig ‘Swaps’ Backfire
By JENNIFER LEVITZ and PHILIP SHISHKIN
The financial crisis is causing a big row in Massachusetts over tolls.
The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, already the object of local scorn for cost overruns incurred in the infamous Big Dig road project, faced further public wrath in recent weeks when it proposed a $100 million a year toll...
Link-a-palooza
Stock futures fall on gloomy outlooks
Reuters
11/26/2008 07:31 AM
Oil gains on China rate cuts, EU stimulus plan
Market Watch from Dow Jones
11/26/2008 07:37 AM
Treasuries Rise, Yields Near Record Lows; Spending May Decline
Bloomberg
11/26/2008 07:37 AM
Dollar mixed as risk appetite wanes
Market Watch from Dow Jones
11/26/2008 05:17 AM
Gold Falls in London...
“I did not see how problems in the subprime market would roll into the mortgage...”
– Former Golden West chief executive Herb Sandler, disclaiming the roughly $2.4 billion he and his wife, Marion, pocketed when Golden West was sold in 2006 for $24 billion to Wachovia Bank.
The Sandlers are credited with the invention of the “Pick-A-Pay” mortgage that allowed borrowers to...
A sign of the times...
From WaPo:
Americans’ Food Stamp Use Nears All-Time High
By Jane Black Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, November 26, 2008; A01
Fueled by rising unemployment and food prices, the number of Americans on food stamps is poised to exceed 30 million for the first time this month, surpassing the historic high set in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina.
The figures will put the spotlight on...
Goldman alum continue to shine in public office.
Way to go, Gov. Jon Corzine! You should put in for a raise.
The Star Ledger is reporting New Jersey pension funds lost $23B so far this year.
New Jersey’s pension fund has lost more than $23 billion this year, dropping to its lowest level since 2003 as a collapsing financial market battered its investments, a new state report shows. The latest losses — nearly $9 billion in October,...
A sign of the times...
Record High TV Use, Despite Online/Mobile Video Gains
People hunker down around the idiot box TV.
“comScore (NASDAQ : SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today...”
– comScore Forecasts Flat Growth for 2008 Holiday E-Commerce Spending (via fred-wilson)
Me speaking: Wow…online retail hits the wall! That’s really scary.
Factoid of the Day
The US Department of Agriculture now estimates that 36 million Americans, 12% of our population, are “food insecure.”
This is beautiful...This is a Comp Committee...
From Footnoted:
A. Schulman, Inc. (NasdaqGS: SHLM) During fiscal 2008, the Compensation Committee determined that maintaining a lease on a private airplane was no longer a cost-effective method for providing business-related transportation to our Named Executive Officers and Directors. The airplane was used only for business-related travel, and personal use was not permitted. With the termination...
Link-a-palooza
Yen Gains on Bets Global Recession Will Unwind Carry Trade
Bloomberg
11/25/2008 02:53 PM
Wall Street fluctuates after big 2-day rally
AP
11/25/2008 02:52 PM
Oil drops nearly 7 percent
Reuters
11/25/2008 02:51 PM
Treasuries Rally as Fed’s Move to Buy Mortgages Prompts Hedging
Bloomberg
11/25/2008 02:53 PM
UK to suffer ‘severe’ recession
BBC
...
The shitty deal we the people got from...
From WSJ’s Market Beat:
The market unambiguously voted for more bailouts Monday, as investors sent shares soaring in a rollicking session that piggybacked on the news of a federal bailout for Citigroup Inc., one that will guarantee a nice sum of capital for the company, handle several billion dollars of losses, and not wipe out the equityholders in the process. The deal fell short of the...
