Credit Writedowns

I just came across a post on Zero Hedge called “An Overview Of The Fed's Intervention In Equity Markets Via The Primary Dealer Credit Facility.” Now, that’s a mouthful. As far as I can discern, the post’s purpose is to expose alleged…

Three years ago, MetLife agreed to sell the community of Stuyvesant Town (Peter Cooper Village) to Tishman Speyer and BlackRock for the exorbitant sum of $5.4 billion at the top the market. That deal has now gone completely pear-shaped and…

The casino is open for business.

The Seattle Times has a must-read piece on Washington Mutual today which reveals a lot of the fine detail on how the company was run and what led to its demise (hat tip calculated Risk). As with many of the other busted financial giants…

There is mounting evidence that bubbles are forming again everywhere across the globe as easy money makes itself felt in asset prices. The latest evidence comes from Sweden where Europe’s lowest home loan rates have pushed up the price of…

This is probably my fourth post on the tangled web woven by securitization, which puts a considerable distance between home owners and mortgagees which own a mortgage.  The issue is causing huge problems in bankruptcy and foreclosure…

This is good. H/T Michael Panzner.

Richard Bernstein has done a huge reversal in the last few months from touting low-risk stocks to high-beta ones. He has gone from a preference for consumer staples to one for consumer cyclicals (XLY). And he has gone from lugubrious…

GM puts Opel sale signing on hold "European Union concerns that Germany rigged the sale to Magna to save jobs" Despite the recession, Westfield London is celebrating its first anniversary Same thing is happening in the…

This is my translation of a Dutch-language article which appeared today in Belgian daily De Tijd. Let’s see if this news is picked up in the U.S. Citibank Belgium never should have recommended the controversial Lehman Brothers…