derivatives

The OCC’s Quarterly Report on Bank Trading and Derivatives Activities for the Fourth Quarter 2008 is out. And derivatives exposure is way up. U.S. commercial banks now have a massive $200 trillion in derivatives exposure, which is 14x U.S.…

Story from Investor's Business Daily: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner called for "new rules of the game" on Thursday, including a systemic-risk regulator, stronger capital cushions for banks, and more disclosure from hedge funds.…

This comes via Angus Robertson of Research Recap: The performance of auto loan securities has been mixed, but Standard & Poor’s Credit Research points out that overall ratings on the ABS have been remarkably stable in spite of…

This video from the Charlie Rose show should give one a fairly complete view of most of the relevant finance and political issues surrounding the AIG situation. (hat tip Calculated Risk) Participants include bank analyst Meredith Whitney…

As I mentioned in my post, "TALF: A bailout if one reads the fine print" the TALF is not a program ONLY for U.S. institutions. It is a vehicle for re-starting the U.S. asset-backed securities credit markets. In fact, the first recipient…

This comes via the website The Agonist (Hat tip Scott).  I have bolded the important bits: So what are AIG’s arguments for making these bonus payments? All 450 employees of AIG in London, where the derivatives contracts were booked and…

Back on March 6th, I noted that the nationalized insurance company AIG had settled Credit Default Swaps contracts with a number of counterparties at the top of the market. In effect, AIG was offering a hidden subsidy to its counterparties…

By now you have heard that Warren Buffett's bets on GE, Goldman, and Swiss Re and his derivatives positions have earned him a downgrade from Fitch Rating Agency. Below is the Fitch statement. I have highlighted the key sections.

Don Kohn's testimony before the Senate Banking committee was so outrageous that I feel compelled to re-post the first paragraphs of this article from Willem Buiter about the moral hazard it represents. Basically, the U.S. government…

Marshall Auerback here. I have a few words about the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility - otherwise known as the TALF. Economist Paul Kasriel of Northern Trust confirms my interpretation, namely that we get stuffed holding these…