Archive - Feb 2009 - Story

For a good overview of Obama's first month on the job:

http://futuremd.blogspot.com/2009/02/worst-week.html

The S&P will likely hit 880 today. Based on a conservative 2009 S&P earnings projection of 40, this implies a 22x forward multiple, which is a realistic 80% premium to the past 130 years' historical average of 12x. If only the economy could now just jump right to 2017 when the depression is hopefully over and the mutiple has some sort of vaguely remote credibility.

Just saying.

Moody's just laid down the law and downgraded 12 classes, or $2.4 billion worth, of Bank of Countrywide Lynch's CMBS 2006-6 Series (that's Bank of America for you Bono fans)

Warren Buffett's rating agency said the reasons for the downgrade were "higher expected losses for the pool resulting from increased leverage, reduced debt service coverage, and anticipated losses from loans in special servicing. Moody's also affirmed nine classes."

Moody's just laid down the law and downgraded 12 classes, or $2.4 billion worth, of Bank of Countrywide Lynch's CMBS 2006-6 Series (that's Bank of America for you Bono fans)

Warren Buffett's rating agency said the reasons for the downgrade were "higher expected losses for the pool resulting from increased leverage, reduced debt service coverage, and anticipated losses from loans in special servicing. Moody's also affirmed nine classes."

Despite Target stock being down only 9.6% in January, Bill Ackman got 4x the beating as he was using options instead of stock to express his bullish bet. Pershing Square IV, which is how The Target fund is formally known, is down a whopping 89.5% since inception.

We used to be huge fans of president Palmer, so we are very troubled by the fact that instead of standing for all that is shady in CTU's interrogation techniques and making sure Jack Bauer lives yet another season, he keeps on steadfastly peddling Allstate's insurance business.

We used to be huge fans of president Palmer, so we are very troubled by the fact that instead of standing for all that is shady in CTU's interrogation techniques and making sure Jack Bauer lives yet another season, he keeps on steadfastly peddling Allstate's insurance business.

You were expecting an upgrade? Only Dick Bové has good things to say worthless piles of toxic asset heaps these days.

The report below.

Fitch Ratings-New York-06 February 2009: Fitch Ratings has downgraded the following ratings for Citigroup Inc. (Citi):

--Individual to 'C/D' from 'C'

--Preferred to 'BB' from 'BBB'.

Another really scary tidbit - first the fate of the CMBS market in the U.S. lies on Moody's not so broad shoulders, now, according to Barclays, the future of the $1 trillion covered bond market in Europe is about to depend on the shoddy analysis of S&P analysts. European covered bonds which date back to 18th-century Prussia, are Europe’s main source of funding for home lenders and have been promoted by the U.S. Treasury as a way of boosting the mortgage market.

Another really scary tidbit - first the fate of the CMBS market in the U.S. lies on Moody's not so broad shoulders, now, according to Barclays, the future of the $1 trillion covered bond market in Europe is about to depend on the shoddy analysis of S&P analysts. European covered bonds which date back to 18th-century Prussia, are Europe’s main source of funding for home lenders and have been promoted by the U.S. Treasury as a way of boosting the mortgage market.

You knew it was coming.

• Jobless rate at 7.6%, futures spike on doomsday expectations (Bloomberg)
• Julius Baer confirms "minor trading accident" relating to hiding trading losses (Reuters)
• Nomura needs $3.3 billion following Lehman gluttony leads to indigestion (Reuters)
• Ford on verge of begging after "unexpected" 4$ billion pension shortf
  

After fooling around with the Madoff account data, I decided to geocode some of it. As there is a lot of addresses, I focused on some of the core areas: NY, California, Connecticut, Palm Beach, and the rest of the world. Below are the mapped results for all accounts in any one given region. With some skill these addresses can be ported to Google earth and likely seen in all their 2 feet resolution splendor. Make sure to click on the hyperlinks for interactive maps (take a few seconds to load), the graphics are fixed snapshots.

After fooling around with the Madoff account data, I decided to geocode some of it. As there is a lot of addresses, I focused on some of the core areas: NY, California, Connecticut, Palm Beach, and the rest of the world. Below are the mapped results for all accounts in any one given region. With some skill these addresses can be ported to Google earth and likely seen in all their 2 feet resolution splendor. Make sure to click on the hyperlinks for interactive maps (take a few seconds to load), the graphics are fixed snapshots.

• $10 billion slipped between cracks...