by ilene - March 29th, 2010 4:30 pm
Courtesy of Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge
A suitable follow up to our earlier post on domestic equity fund flows (which have been negative year to date), and our conclusion that Primary Dealers are merely taking advantage of the ZIRP carry trade, is Rosie’s observation that the only entities doing any relevant trading are the prop desks of the Big Five TBTFs. If that is indeed the case, the market, which Rosenberg concludes optimistically is 25% overvalued will certainly face a Black Monday-type correction as soon as the elusive "unpredictable" occurs and the Prop desks as always scurry for cover, with no volume consolidation to the upside.
It would be such a wonderful time to truly implement the Volcker Rule as the bank’s prop desks, if David is correct, are about to cause some major damage to the market… Of course, it is these very prop desks that are the staunchest opposition to the Volcker Rule and its negative implication on prop trading.
From David Rosenberg and Gluskin-Sheff:
Well, well, the theory that the stock market has turned in a double top may not have gone the way of the Dodo after all, following the reversals we saw in the last two trading days of last week. Negative reversals and distribution days in three of the last six sessions is something to be concerned about if you are long this market — and volume remains tepid at best.
The market is now overvalued by over 25% but is also extremely overbought having gone 24 sessions without a decline of 1% or more, and 89% of the stocks in the S&P 500 are now trading above their 50-day moving averages (see page M3 of Barron’s). The Dow has advanced in 17 of the past 21 days. I mean, even if you are bullish on the outlook, one would have to admit that such a parabolic move is vulnerable to at least a modest pullback… or more. I know what a broken record sounds like and this has been a confounding and confusing market — for both the bears and many (though not all) of the bulls.
Looking at the fund flows, there is only one conclusion that can be reached:…
Tags: "too big too fail", David Rosenberg, primary deals, prop desks, prop trading, Stock Market, trading, Volcker Rule
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by ilene - March 29th, 2010 1:31 pm
Courtesy of Simon Johnson at Baseline Scenario
When a company wants to fend off a hostile takeover, its board may seek to put in place so-called “poison pill” defenses – i.e., measures that will make the firm less desirable if purchased, but which ideally will not encumber its operations if it stays independent.
Large complex cross-border financial institutions run with exactly such a structure in place, but it has the effect of making it very expensive for the government to takeover or shut down such firms, i.e., to push them into any form of bankruptcy.
To understand this more clearly you can,
The Citigroup situation is simple. They would like to downsize slightly, and are under some pressure to do so. It is hard to sell assets at a decent price in this environment, so why don’t they just spin off companies – e.g., quickly create five companies in which each original shareholder gets a commensurate stake?
The answer is that Citi’s debt is generally cross-guaranteed across various parts of the company. US and foreign creditors have a claim on the whole thing, more or less (including the international parts), and you can’t break it apart without upsetting them. The cross-border dimensions make everything that much more knotty.
Senator Kaufman explains what this means – essentially the “resolution authority” proposed in the Dodd legislation is meaningless. How would any administration put a huge bank into any kind of “resolution” (a FDIC-type bank closure, scaled up to big banks) when it knows that doing so would trigger default across all the complex pieces of this multinational empire?
You could do it if you are willing to accept the costs – and if you understand there are big drawbacks to providing an unconditional bailout of the 2009 variety. But will a future administration be willing to take that decision? The Obama administration was not – and big finance will only become bigger and more complex as we move forward.
If you look into the eyes of the decision-makers from spring 2009, they honestly believe that taking over Citi or Bank of America would have caused greater financial trouble and a worse recession. You can argue about their true motivation all you want; this…
Tags: "too big too fail", Banks, Citi, debt, Dodd bill, Economy, Obama Administration, Senator Kaufman, Volcker Rule
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by ilene - March 26th, 2010 1:24 pm
I am a big fan of the law of unintended consequences.
My thoughts on Michael Covel’s article: you can’t legislate away human nature, true, but if you define and enforce penalties for criminal behavior, you can decrease its occurrence. It is part of human nature to be deferred by harsh penalties. We’ve seen a lot of fraud go un-prosecuted and even rewarded recently. As long as this persists, it is human nature that the human behavior will continue.
This is where good legislation vs. bad legislation comes in, and real law enforcement (rarely spotted in the financial kingdom) vs. non-enforcement makes a difference. - Ilene
Courtesy of Michael Covel
We will see the law of unintended consequences arrise from this:
“[Senator] Dodd’s 1300-plus page proposal includes a laundry list of items: a new consumer financial protection agency, new supervision of hedge funds and derivatives trading, a reshuffling of banking industry regulators, investor protection, new federal authority to handle too-big-to-fail financial firms meant to limit taxpayer bailout funds and the creation of a systemic risk council as part of an early warning system.”
Kids, repeat after me and tap your ruby red slippers three times: you can’t legislate away human behavior, you can’t legislate away human behavior, you can’t legislate away human behavior…Followed by: bigger bubbles will follow, bigger bubbles will follow, bigger bubbles will follow…
Seriously, doesn’t it appear the United States federal government is attempting to strap a diaper on all of us? I get the idea of a diaper’s job, but guess what: When everyone shits away it might not hit the floor, but it will still smell awful — diaper or not.
See Also:
Senator Kaufman Blasts Dodd Bill, Says It Gives Regulators "Reshuffled Set Of Regulatory Powers That Already Exist", Zero Hedge
Tags: "too big too fail", banking industry regulators, Dodd bill, Financial Regulation, Fraud
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by ilene - September 15th, 2009 11:07 pm
Courtesy of Washington’s Blog
Economics professor and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich today joined the growing ranks of top economists calling for an end to the too big to fail concept:
If you don’t have time to watch, Huffington Post summarizes Reich’s statement:
Buchanan then asked Reich if he believed the government should have allowed a couple of the massive banks to fail like Lehman Brothers to teach them them the lesson that the government won’t always consider them too big to fail. Reich found himself unexpectedly agreeing once more:
"You know it’s interesting Pat Buchanan, I start worrying about my own convictions when I hear you repeating back to me exactly what I believe. We ought to have either had kind of a restructuring of all of these big banks based upon something like Chapter 11, or we should have had a kind of temporary receivership, but we have the worst of both worlds. Taxpayers bailed them out so right now they know they were going to get a bailout next time. Before they didn’t even know they were going to get a bailout, now they’re making these wild trades they’re doing the same risky stuff they were doing before, and now they know that if they get in trouble the government is going to bail them out because they are, quote, "too big to fail." Nothing in capitalism, no entity should be too big to fail."
Tags: "too big too fail", Bailout, bankers, Pat Buchanan, Robert Reich
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
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