Morgan Stanley’s most mysterious footnote — Part 2
In Part 1, we looked in and around Morgan Stanley’s mysterious little footnote about how the bank had reduced net exposure to Italy from $4.9bn to $1.5bn with a restructuring...
Morgan Stanley’s most mysterious footnote — Part 1
(7) On December 22, 2011, the Company executed certain derivative restructuring amendments which settled on January 3, 2012. …This mysterious little footnote announced...
On Opaque Transparency
There are two things that I want to comment on Fed policy this evening: Transparency is overrated, and Bernanke does not understand savings. Transparency is Overrated Ever heard of the phrase “data overload?” Greenspan would do that verbally in his testimony to Congress, providing them with more data than they needed, and occasionally contradictory so...
On Financial Intermediation
I appreciate Steve Randy Waldman, who writes the excellent blog Interfluidity. Even before I started blogging, while I was at RealMoney, we interacted over CPDOs, along with Alea, and several others that were onto the scam. That was a fun time, because aside from the Canadian rating agency Dominion, there was no one else questioning...
Living off immoral earnings
“The reality.. is that banks.. support a thick layer of second tier executives, as well as legions of pen-pushing, meeting-loving, middle- and back-office workers who are paid multiples of their worth and contribution, especially compared with other industries.” - Financial...
The Rules, Part XXIX
Risk premiums should never be capitalized, they should only be taken into income as earned. This may end up being another odd post of mine. I’m going to start writing about bank regulation, but I will end up talking about monetary policy. There are many people who hate the rating agencies. They hate them because...
It’s Bonus Week for Bankers in Hong Kong
Bonus week is kicking off for bankers in Hong Kong. Many are going to walk away not just sad, but empty-handed.
Too Many Par Claims versus Sub-Par Assets
The world is a maze of debt. Debts layered on debts. The Earth and its productivity is roughly the same or better than prior years. What is the problem with the economy then? The problem is this: there are entities that made bad loans in the past that expect to be paid back in full. ...
KeyCorp Grabs More Bank Branches
The small intra-bank deals are heating up.
Recapturing the losses of the crisis
Deferred tax assets are a favourite of FT Alphaville’s. Some banks made such awful losses during the crisis they opted to store the losses on balance sheets for a sunny day...
Bank Stocks: Nowhere to Go But Up in 2012?
Bank stocks are cheap! Where have we heard that before? Oh, right. A year ago, repeatedly, at a point when the KBW bank-stock index was about 24% higher than it is today. That call turned out to be premature. But it's a new year so it's time to be hopeful.
The Worst Bank Stocks of 2011 Are…
Bank of America is an easy guess as the worst-performing stock among the 50 largest banks, falling 59% this year. Now for some surprises...
