Archive - Mar 31, 2009

And Northern Trust thought it had problems when Barney Frank went postal for the company's House Of Blues romp.

This is not the way to avoid bankruptcy. GM, which will announce March car sales tomorrow, has told its dealers the company has achieved less than two-thirds of its retail sales goal for this month.

This is not the way to avoid bankruptcy. GM, which will announce March car sales tomorrow, has told its dealers the company has achieved less than two-thirds of its retail sales goal for this month.

This is not the way to avoid bankruptcy. GM, which will announce March car sales tomorrow, has told its dealers the company has achieved less than two-thirds of its retail sales goal for this month.

Slight improvement in average loan and bond spreads from two weeks ago, when loans were 857 bps and bonds averaged 1740 bps. These have tightened to 839 bps and 1574 bps respectively over the last week. Senior-secured negative basis capital structure opportunities have disappeared, compared to several such arbitrage opps available in February 19.

Slight improvement in average loan and bond spreads from two weeks ago, when loans were 857 bps and bonds averaged 1740 bps. These have tightened to 839 bps and 1574 bps respectively over the last week. Senior-secured negative basis capital structure opportunities have disappeared, compared to several such arbitrage opps available in February 19.

Spreads were mixed in the US today with IG worse, HVOL improving, ExHVOL weaker, XO wider, and HY selling off. Indices generally outperformed intrinsics with skews widening in general as IG's skew decompressed as the index beat intrinsics, HVOL outperformed but widened the skew, ExHVOL intrinsics beat and narrowed the skew, XO's skew increased as the index outperformed, and HY outperformed but narrowed the skew.

The axes is swinging at AllianceBernstein, which likely hasn't seen a profitable quarter in years. The company announced it had canned a total of 237 people, lowering headcount to 4,760 at March 31, from 4,997 in December, and another 75 are expected to be sacked any minute. Among the 237 were 31 investment professionals which include analysts, PMs, CIOs, directors of research and traders. Presumably these are the 31 that watch Cramer for investment advice and start every conference call Q&A with the words "Great quarter..."

Zero Hedge has written repeatedly in the past about the importance of keeping track of sovereign CDS levels as more and more corporate risk (especially in financials) is being offloaded to the balance sheet of respective sovereign balance sheets. And while pundits may claim these indications are useless as there is no way, no how that the U.S.

Zero Hedge has written repeatedly in the past about the importance of keeping track of sovereign CDS levels as more and more corporate risk (especially in financials) is being offloaded to the balance sheet of respective sovereign balance sheets. And while pundits may claim these indications are useless as there is no way, no how that the U.S.

Zero Hedge has written repeatedly in the past about the importance of keeping track of sovereign CDS levels as more and more corporate risk (especially in financials) is being offloaded to the balance sheet of respective sovereign balance sheets. And while pundits may claim these indications are useless as there is no way, no how that the U.S.

WSJ reports that Members of Congress have asked federal authorities for confidential reports prepared by a lawyer charged with monitoring AIG's business practices over the past four years.

The request, dated Monday, expands the scope of the congressional investigation into AIG's collapse and subsequent federal rescue in September. The request was made by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in letters sent to both the Department of Justice and Securities & Exchange Commission.

Two companies threw in the towel today. The first one is provider of directory services Idearc, which as recently as a year ago was claiming it is in phenomenal health.

Not sure if this fall angel downgrade of Fiat SpA is due to the "Chrysler connection" (which alone would be worthy of a C- rating), or just because S&P realized there are other auto companies out there that deserve a careful scrutiny, but either way, here it is.

Carmaker Fiat SpA Becomes A Fallen Angel On Downgrade To 'BB+/B' Re Weak Liquidity; Long-Term Rating Still On Watch Neg

Among other parts of the S&P report:

When times were good, the trade/currency situation with China was a cause that was railed about only by academics and obscure politicians. Whenever the issue was brought up, it was politically expedient to sweep it under the carpet rather than bring it up with the Chinese and explain what the potential problem would be i.e. a huge sucking noise sending dollars to China.