Bank of America

We have previously discussed the maturity cliff in Treasuries, Commercial Real Estate, Financials and High Yield. Focusing on the latter, a recent report from Moody's, indicated that there is roughly $800 billion in high yield bonds maturing by 2014. Today, Bank of America jumped on the HY maturity warning bandwagon, discussing the "maturity wall" which while alarming, is estimated by BofA to be $600 billion, or materially less than Moody's estimates. So while not in any way novel, Bank of America does provide a rather convincing view of therelative maturity schedule in HY currently versus the historical average in both loans and bonds. The results should be troubling to all CFOs and PE-owners of highly indebted organizations: absent raising equity rapidly, the ability to roll these loans in a rising interest rate environment will be next to impossible. Because with 89% of loans maturing in under 5 years (compared to 36% on average), and 50% of bonds (37% average), the maturity cliff,whether defined by Moody's or by Bank of America, is fast approaching.

• Nationwide strike paralyzes Greece, clashes between rioters and Police begin (WSJ, Bloomberg)
• Protests have spread to Spain (El Pais, h/t Paul)
• Dutch snap elections scheduled for June 9 (FT)
• Geithner may give regulator leeway in applying volcker rule (Bloomberg) - Note: Vince Reinhart is co-author of the seminal "Conducting Monetary Policy at Very Low Short-Term Interest Rates" in which the Fed considered buying equities and foreign sovereing bonds
• Reinhart: Bernanke's confidence game (The American)
• Home purchase loan demand at lowest since 1997 (Reuters)

• Asian shares fall for first time in three days on US consumer confidence.
• Dollar weakens versus Euro on speculation Fed to hold rates.
• German business confidence unexpectedly drops as snow hampers retail sales.
• Hong Kong raises tax on luxury homes to cool market after 29% price gain.
• Japan January export growth accelerates to 40.9% as overseas demand drives recovery.
• Oil hovers below $79 in Asia after US crude supplies drop, suggesting demand up.
• Treasury said it will borrow $200B and leave money on deposit with the Fed.

Some of the top secret AIG bailout info is out. One Goldman Sachs Guess who's at
the heart of it, making money by creating straight trash, selling it to
its clients then buying insurance to benefit from its inevitable
crash? I quote "divulging the names of the [trash] CDOs could erode their value: “We will be hurt because traders in the market will know what we’re holding.”.

Following the money - taxpayers give money to BofA to keep it alive, BofA pays SEC/shareholders in revised wrist slap. Sure seems like one way to keep keep the velocity of money above 1. One hopes that Cuomo won't follow next and throw in the towel in his civil suit against Ken Lewis. A seemingly unhappy with this outcome Rakoff had this to say: "So should the court approve the proposed settlement as being fair, reasonable, adequate and in the public interest? If the court were deciding that question sole on the merits - de novo, as the lawyers say - the court would reject the settlement as inadequate and misguided. But as both parties never hesitate to remind the court, the law requires the court to give substantial deference to the SEC as a regulatory body having primary responsibility for policing the securities markets, especially with respect to matter of transparency." We have gotten to the point where the SEC's cronyism is even impairing the judicial system.

Does the Fed's move spell the end of easy bank profits? Not a chance! They will continue making a killing on prop trading and the revival of M&A activity. Then there is OTC derivatives, which fatten up profit margins and remain unregulated. We need another Brooksley Born and fast!

Nothing really new, just the most searing and comprehensive evisceration of the vampire squid's "profitability tactics" to date, packaged in a box of exquisite semantic brilliance that only Matt Taibbi can provide, and comprehensible enough for anyone to understand. Taibbi points out: "the fact that we haven't done much of anything to change the rules and behavior of Wall Street shows that we still don't get it. Instituting a bailout policy that stressed recapitalizing bad banks was like the addict coming back to the con man to get his lost money back. Ask yourself how well that ever works out. And then get ready for the reload." It is time to break up the market monopolizing force known as Goldman Sachs.

With the threat of sovereign default and contagion now pervasive within the Eurozone periphery, it is relevant to quantify the relative exposure of various banking centers' assets as a percentage of host countries' total GDP. The reason for this is that in Europe for many countries a sovereign default would not have as great an impact, as a risk-flaring contagion impacting these countries' primary financial entities, whose assets account in some cases for multiples of host GDP. For example in Switzerland, the assets of the top two banks, UBS and Credit Suisse, alone account for nearly 600% of the country's GDP. And while Switzerland is relatively isolated from the budget and deficit crises in the PIIGS and STUPIDs, other countries such as Italy, Belgium and ultimately France, Germany and the UK, are much more exposed.

Nobel-winning Columbia professor Robert Mundell, considered the "father of the euro" provides some biased views on his creation, and how it is impacted by Greece (spoiler alert: this will only make the EMU stronger). To be sure, he sees no risks of Greece spillover into the broader eurozone, and in fact is calling for the adoption of the euro by Britain. Probably not worth holding your breath on that one. What he does highlights is that Greece is not the powderkeg - Italy is. This is inline with Bank of America and others' warning that the biggest concern in the eurozone crisis is indeed the Boot. "I think it would be very difficult to bail Italy out. I think we have to make sure that whatever is being done to Greece, and possibly to Portugal and maybe Ireland has to also save Italy. Italy has got to be worried...Right now I think they should let the euro ever, for the next 10 years, rise above $1.40." We are confidence Bernanke and Shirakawa will miss that particular memo.

The U.S. economy ceased to function this week after unexpected existential remarks by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke shocked Americans into realizing that money is, in fact, just a meaningless and intangible social construct. What began as a routine report before the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday ended with Bernanke passionately disavowing the entire concept of currency, and negating in an instant the very foundation of the world's largest economy. "Though raising interest rates is unlikely at the moment, the Fed will of course act appropriately if we…if we…" said Bernanke, who then paused for a moment, looked down at his prepared statement, and shook his head in utter disbelief. "You know what? It doesn't matter. None of this—this so-called 'money'—really matters at all." "It's just an illusion," a wide-eyed Bernanke added as he removed bills from his wallet and slowly spread them out before him. "Just look at it: Meaningless pieces of paper with numbers printed on them. Worthless."

Paulson & Co's December 31, 2009 13-F was just released. The disclosure for the fund's equity long (shorts are not disclosed, neither are credit cash nor CDS and other holdings) reveals $19.8 billion in positions. The fund's top position continues to be GLD at a value of $3.4 billion (unchanged from September 30). Notable is the addition of 206.7 million shares to the fund's Citi position which is now worth approximately $1.7 billion. Other notable financial additions include SunTrust Bank, in which Paulson added 28.8 million shares, Wells Fargo, a new 17.5 million position worth $472.3 million, JPMorgan common, in which the fund added 5 million shares to 7 million for $291 million, as well as JPM Warrants worth $250 million (a new position). Other new positions in the top 20 include Comcast (44 million share), XTO Energy (10 million shares), IMS Health (18 million shares), and Pfizer (15.6 million shares). A primary reduced holding is the fund's exposure in Bank Of America - Common stock, which declined by 8.8 million shares to 151 million, or $2.27 billion. This was offset by the purchase of 13.8 million BAC "Units" worth $205 million.

A quick preliminary read of the Simon proposal to acquire GGP for $10 billion, via Bank of America, indicates a cap rate of 8% "assuming growth of 3.5% on top of the annualized NOI stream." The offer values GGP at $9/share, including $3 for the land business. As readers will recall there has been a difference in opinions between Hovde and Ackman on GGP's value, the first of which gets an "implied equity value of $5.73 per share at a 7.5% cap rate and negative $5.03 per share at an 8.5% cap rate which after incorporating the conversion of the unsecured debt into equity at price of $6 per share, the implied equity value is $5.94 per share at a 7.5% cap rate and $3.62 per share at an 8.5% cap rate," while Ackman is a tad more ambitious: "based on cash NOI (not adjusted for lease termination fees, tenant allowances, maintenance capital expenditure) for LTM ending Sep 2009, Ackman values GGP at $23.7, $32.0 and $41.6 per share at cap rate of 7.21%, 6.71% and 6.21%, respectively." Seems like Hovde is just a little bit closer in his valuation (assuming no overbid). The OCC supports the Simon offer as they get taken out at par.

Bank Edition for Wednesday ~ 12 daily / weekly technical profiles of : Bank of America (BAC); Citigroup (C); Goldman Sachs (GS); JP Morgan Chase (JPM); Morgan Stanley (MS) & Ultrashort Financials (SKF)

Standard and Poor's whacks Citi and Bank of America, revising its outlook on both firms from Stable to Negative, cites "increased uncertainty about the U.S. government's willingness to provide additional extraordinary support to highly systemically important financial institutions in a way that will benefit debt holders."

Today, casinos have much more integrity in their business dealings than do banks. In general, casinos have more cash and more transparent business dealings with their clients than do banks. That's why it's so ironic that most large commercial banks, as part of their "moral code", do not allow private bankers to do business with casinos. It appears today, that the bankers got that one entirely wrong.