Friday, October 24, 2008

The next day (or there will not be one?) by Ektoras

The market is crashing.. What did you expect? At this moment there are many reasons for the markets to collapse. May be we don’t want to realize it but it is just right in front of us. The real economy will suffer. The next thing that one should expect now is that debt coming from shipping companies will not be repaid and that banks that are heavily exposed to the emerging markets, and do not have a well established network, will face major loses.
The situation in the Shipping industry is really bad. One after the other, shipping companies shut down and things are about to get worse as the global economic slowdown really affects the world demand for commodities. The Inflows will diminish and the losses will increase dramatically. Hence, banks will not be paid for their shipping loans and will have to write them off or sell them with major loses.
On the emerging markets front now, unfortunately things are about to get even worse. The local currencies have declined against the US$ and the Euro, there is no liquidity in the market and on the top of that people are afraid of the banking system and they massively withdraw their savings. The funding gaps that will be created will be disastrous and the mother companies either will pay a high price to cover them or they will not cover them at all! The picture gets even more complicated if we add the fact that banks are not in position to borrow/lend money in the interbank market. Moreover the government intervention is not going to help, to this end, as it is not very likely that the governments will allow the banks to take risks and grow with its money.
We should realize that companies do not face losses.. they just try to survive under the destroy of capital. Finance returns to its roots and a new banking era starts.. In any case, in the long run banks will survive and will bring reality to their standards- not their standards to reality. After all, banking is the second ancient profession!

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F is also for Forex (FT Alphaville)

F is also for Forex

Oct 24 10:11
by Izabella Kaminska

The forex markets are seeing an unwind of epic proportions this morning,

Latest key rates include:
$£ 1.5516

$Y 93.35

€$ 1.2798

The great British Krona’s decline is perhaps best reflected in chart form:

link to great british krona
Regarding the carry trades that may have got us into this trouble in the first place Denis Gartman of the Gartman letter put it nicely yesterday:

Perhaps we have entered a new era of forex market volatility that shall be with us for a very long while, but we suspect we shall never, ever, EVER see the likes of this punishing unwinding of this hugely important cross position again in our lifetime. Certainly we hope never to see its likes again.

Adding to that we must not forget the ‘Great Emerging Market’ forex debacle featuring the Polish zloty, Hungarian forint and the South African rand all heading for their biggest weekley declines EVER. At the last count:

  • The Zloty’s weekly decline is an impressive 16%
  • The Hungarian forint’s decline is a slightly less impressive 14%
  • And the “commodities trade” South African rand is down nearly 17% in the week
In Addendum - Wasn’t it the fall of the mighty denarius that actually brought down the Roman Empire?

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The rising default wave (FT Alphaville)

The rising default wave

Oct 24 09:10
by Sam Jones

From a Fitch report out Wednesday (emphasis ours):

Fitch believes that the toxic combination of economic and funding pressures has set in motion the beginning of the next cyclical peak in high yield corporate defaults. In fact, a surge in corporate defaults has already taken place. The par value of U.S. high yield bond defaults alone has increased to $25 billion year to date through September from $3.5 billion for all of 2007, and including bonds affected by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s bankruptcy filing and Washington Mutual Inc.’s collapse, pushes the par value of corporate bond defaults above $100 billion, a level comparable to 2002 defaults…

…already.

Fitch believes that recent events are among a number of worrisome factors that suggest that the coming high yield default wave may be the most severe on record.

A few other select snaps from the report:

Impaired credit access will remain an issue for speculative grade companies years beyond the current crisis.

Consumer retrenchment more problematic than telecommunication meltdown.

Defaults tend to spike roughly one year following a meaningful contraction in corporate profit growth.

Roll on 2009, year of the corporate default.

Fitch default rates

From a strictly old-world point of view, this is going to be painful: corporate defaults always hurt.

What will make it all the more so this time, however (as compared to during the 1990s) will be the effect this has on the CDS markets. The pricing models on which CDS markets trade have not been tested through a major recession. Synthetic structured finance, to boot, offers the possibility of a damaging positive feedback loop, with ructions in the CDS markets forcing further deleveraging from banks, causing further credit contraction, and more corporate defaults.

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Bernanke Bailouts Not Working, Banks Hoarding (the Financial Ninja)

Bernanke Bailouts Not Working, Banks Hoarding


Click on the chart to marvel at the carnage.

Bottom line, Bernanke pumps in liquidity and the banks continue to hoard it. The Bernanke bailouts are not working, yet...

I'm encouraged by some of the recent improvements in the credit markets, but it isn't enough.

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