BAC

As definitive evidence just how fucked up this entire market is, here is what happens to the ES the second the infinite BAC Bid at $5.00 finally gets taken out. This is the ESH2. That's right - the entire market moved tens billions in market cap because the Plunge Protection Team just failed at protecting the "precious" $5.00 level.

We can only imagine the frantic calls being place between Omaha and Washington this morning...

Just as we had suspected, Bloomberg is now reporting that BofA has gone all M.A.D. on the hand-that-feeds by leaving the possibility of bankruptcy for its trade-of-the-decade, accretive-within-a-year, coulda-been-a-contender business unit Countrywide Financial Corp. The entity remains a separate legal entity under the BAC capital structure with $3.8bn of direct Senior Unsecured and Senior Subordinated debt and an aggregate exposure around $6.5bn from all the sub-entities under the CFC entity. Of course, threatening the use of this legal route will not be a tidy process and will likely bring in doubt the rest of BAC's capital structure to a greater or lesser degree and is unlikely to bode well for BAC's capital market access and trading partners - but perhaps that won't be a problem once the FDIC's living wills are in place.

Is that H₂SO₄ that Warren is pouring for his next deeply introspective bath? Or will he double down and throw good money after bad money that was good as recently as 2 weeks ago (and according to Cramer was supposed to trigger a "massive short covering squeeze in the XLF.")

The FHFA filing an objection to the Bank of America settlement? Forget about it. After all should BAC implode upon having to fund another $50 billion in mortgage putback claims, and Countrywide have to be spun off and nationalized, it would simply mean that more capital would flow away from the already insolvent GSEs and to a totally new branch of taxpayer funded RMBS. Which is why are confident that the latest objection filed against the BAC settelement is merely there to weaken the case, or as Manal Mehta puts it: a Cover Your Ass filing because "they’ve pre-determined the conclusion and then will do the bare minimum discovery until they can jump ship and undermine the efforts of the rest of the objectors." Why else would anyone file a "conditional objection" whose sole purposes is " to reserve its capability to voice a substantive objection in the unlikely event that necessity should arise." Unlikely? Obviously this is Bank of America's higher power interest already doing all they can to prevent an out of control situtation getting even worse. Which after all is the whole point of why the Fed, Pimco, BlackRock et all filed the lawsuit in the first place: to ring-fence the total amount of cash outflow claims, instead of allowing Bank of America to experience death by a thousand lawsuits. In this regard, tonight's FHFA filing is nothing more than a wolf in plaintiff's clothing doing what they can to weaken the case against undoing the settlement.

Another deal I don't like.

And BAC retraces 50% from its pop. An 81 year old Buffett should really stick to washing himself while in the bathtub, flying in private jets with Becky Quick, and contemplating ways to have everyone in America pay more taxes, and maybe even consider retirement every now and then, than making "Long-Term" investment decisions.

The Buffett bandaid move, coming 48 hours after Buffett's conversations with Obama, and which also comes oddly enough just 24 hours before Bernanke was expected to announce QE3, succeeds in temporarily sending the stock back to early August levels. It also succeeds in sending the financial sector higher, which as we explained yesterday is the main reason for why the 2s10s had to be steepened, so as a result Operation Twist now can go back to its original formulation of broad 2s30s flattening and result in purchases of bonds across the board. As for what to expect with this surprising move out of Omaha? Absolutely nothing. The $5 billion in cash, unlike Buffett's investment in Goldman, will be laughably insufficient, considering that the bank's mortgage exposure is in the tens of billions, while its litigation liability is another $20-30 billion. This does nothing to change our thesis that BAC will need to come to the market again and again to raise capital. However, as this "raise" confirmed, BAC only has access to private investments: we hope Buffett has very deep pockets to keep doubling down. The other news to come out of this - Paulson will be saved with another deus ex machina and will not need to sell his gold or GLD holdings, removing the liquidation overhang from spot gold. The only good news out of all of this: the taxpayer bailout of Bank of America, when it comes, will be $5 billion less.

... then it's not a very big net worth, we are sorry to say (and it will get even smaller).

With Bank of America investors finally realizing it is game over for the company as a going concern, at this point there are just two options for Brian Moynihan: the spin off of CFC as a bad bank, backstopped by the Fed, or, well, Chapter 11, which for a bank is essentially liquidation (and with CDS trading up 50 bps to 260 a bankruptcy seems increasingly inevitable). It also means that another TARP is on the way. And once America realizes that another several trillion have to be put into its insolvent banking sector, it will get quite violent. The biggest irony: it is AIG which takes down the financial system for the second time after its lawsuit against BAC filed last night kills Bank of America.

When we last looked at the Bank of America joke of a "non-settlement" settlement for a paltry $8.5 billion when $424 billion in total misrepresented (530 in total) Countrywide mortgage trusts were at stake, we said, "we are confident that the legal process will prevail and that the presiding judge on this case, and if not him then certainly the New York District Attorney, will step up and demand a thorough reevaluation of the settlement process." We were, oddly enough, correct. According to a just released filing from the New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Bank of America (and Bank of New York Mellon, one of the tri-party repo banks mind you), violated New York state law and "misled investors." In a knock out punch to Bank of America (and Brian Lin who was profiled here previously), the  bank allegedly violated the New York’s Martin Act and misled investors about its conduct tied to mortgage securitization as Bloomberg summarizes. Schneiderman said he has "potential claims" against Bank of America Corp. and its Countrywide Financial unit. As Zero Hedge alleged all along, "The proposed cash payment is far less than the massive losses investors have faced and will continue to face." What does that mean? Well, as the countersuit by the FHLB indicated (which we are certain will be the basis for the NY AG claims), the likely final settlement is probably going to be about $22 to $27.5 billion. Which also means that the bank's Tier 1  capital is about to be discounted by about 25% lower. Which, lastly, means that the stock is about to plunge due to a massive litigation reserve shortfall which will have to be plugged with, surprise, a new equity capital raise. Which brings us to our original question: got CDS (which closed around 200 bps today, roughly 25 bps wider - it is going much wider tomorrow, especially if the expected Sarkozy-Merkel-Zapatero meeting achieves absolutely nothing)? Cause this baby is going down...and it is probably about to be broken up into good BAC and bad bank, consisting almost entirely of all legacy Countrywide operations. Said otherwise, it could well be time for a CFC-BAC CDS pair trade.

The negative trend in Bank of America's financial results over the past several quarters is deeply troubling and, as we have long predicted, may suggest an approaching Dodd-Frank restructuring is in the cards.

In August 2009 the "Deadbeats" paid the loan IN FULL. But... BAC claimed to have received rights in the loan from Taylor Bean & Whitaker as of Sept 1, 2009. Notwithstanding that the loan was FULLY PAID, BAC attempted repeatedly to collect on the PAID OFF loan.

“A thief who steals a check payable to bearer becomes the holder of the check… but does not become the owner of it.” 4closureFraud.org

Those fabulous Bernanke Bears have a great discussion about the merits of BAC, listening to WikiLeaks and investing in NFLX.