Bank of New York

Ahead of today's Bank of America conference call organized by Fairholme's Bruce Berkowitz which has one purpose only: to rescue his losing investment in Bank of America, which is down almost 30% in the past week, below, courtesy of Manal Mehta, we present 6 prepared questions which we are confident will all get their due attention by Mr. Berkowitz because unless these core questions, which go to the heart of all investors fears about Bank of America, are not answered, and instead nothing but fluff is discussed, the whole exercise will lead to an even greater panic in Bank of America stock. And what would be more ironic than another 20% drop in the BAC stock during this call. Also, in addition to the questions below, we post the following, based on an analysis by Compass Point Research & Trading, which matches an analysis conducted independently by Zero Hedge, and according to which BofA could be forced to repurchase between $28.4 and $62.2 billion, or between $10.6 and $44.4 billion above the bank's current reserves, which would immediately impair the firm's Tier 1 Capital, trimming it by more than 50%, and forcing the company to immediately issue an equity follow on, which will likely lead to a stock price also about 50% lower.

Over the past several months, I have been debating with my good friend and mentor David Kotok of Cumberland Advisers over the impact of the new FDIC insurance assessments on the money markets. David as well as another friend, Jim Bianco, insist that the imposition of the new deposit insurance assessment on all bank liabilities net of capital is blocking Fed monetary policy. I totally disagree.

What is the difference between -13 and +7?  The answer is 20.  Twenty is the market-based pricing of the cost of the FDIC asset-based fee assessment.  For the first time, we were able to see its impact.  It is important to understand this calculation in order to fully appreciate what is happening in the financial markets.

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 stunner in this morning's newsflow (the long, long overdue market collapse which is a much needed catalyst for QE3 should not surprise anyone), comes out of the WSJ which has just reported that the Bank of New York has informed institutional clients it will begin charging a fee of 13 bps on deposits in excess of 110% of the client's monthly average. This is nothing short of outright terrorism to get everyone out of cash and into fiat-based ponzi products. Such as Short Term Bills. Indeed, as was reported earlier the 3 Month bill just hit zero. But you ain't seen nothing yet. As Credit Suisse strategist Ira Jersey reports, courtesy of Bloomberg,  "If this is true then we’re likely to see short-end interest rates actually go negative. By what degree depends on who else follows and how much money is involved." Cue unpredictable consequences of a totally broken bond market. What happens next will likely make the market dislocations following Lehman like a breezy walk in the park.

Just out from the office of David Grais of Grais & Ellsworth: "We also conferred, per the Court’s request, with the office of Attorney General of the State of New York. The Attorney General’s office has asked us to inform the Court that it is completing its analysis."

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Today, in addition to the official launch of Europe's PPT, we get a reminder that our own version, the Federal Reserve, is as criminal and corrupt as always, especially when working in conjunction with that old standby, Goldman Sachs. Just like back in 2009 and 2010 it was discovered that former Goldman director and New York Fed Chairman Stephen Friedman had bought tens of thousands of shares of Goldman stock while the entire system was being bailed out by the very same Fed, so today we learn that another former Goldmanite and then Plunge Protection Head team (i.e., Brian Sack predecessor) Bill Dudley had held shares of AIG stock while the Fed was arranging the bailout of the doomed insurer. But it's all good: Dudley had a waiver. Mostly likely signed by his then boss and former Goldman coworker Friedman. We wonder if it was Dudley who signed Friedman's waiver? From Bloomberg: "The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s William C. Dudley got a waiver in 2008 to keep personal financial holdings of American International Group Inc. (AIG) after the company received a Fed rescue, a U.S. senator said. Dudley, who was the New York Fed’s markets-group chief at the time and is now the bank’s president, is the senior New York Fed official identified in a Government Accountability Office report today as receiving the waiver, Senator Bernard Sanders, a Vermont Independent, said today in a statement. Jack Gutt, a New York Fed spokesman, declined to comment." Of course, when one is from Goldman, one does not care about the glaring impropriety of one's actions. After all, one rules the world. And speaking of Bernie Sanders, he earlier tore the Fed a new one, after he released details of the Fed's GAO audit and took every opportunity to make his opinion on the master criminals well-known: "As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world," he said. "This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else." Well, didn't everyone know that by now?

All we ever asked was for the banks and their attorneys to FOLLOW THE LAW. No free houses, no windfalls for the homeowner, no debt forgiveness. JUST FOLLOW THE LAW... Because once we lose that, we lose society as we know it...

Frequent Zero Hedge readers may recall that back in the spring of 2009, when the market needed a desperate boost by any and all insivible hands, we exposed one of the methods of ramping stocks as being stock custodians, in this case State Street and Bank of New York, generating a wholesale squeeze by pulling borrow, or in other words retrieving lent out shares so those who are short are forced to cover. Many laughed assuming this was merely yet another deranged rant. It wasn't. Fast forward to today, when we learn that the Consob, Italy's market regulator and SEC equivalent, has "recommended to stakeholders who have lent shares in Italian companies to retrieve them" - i.e., playbook artificial short squeeze 101. This is two days after the Consob banned naked short selling: a move which had disastrous consequences after the market continued plunging and would have collapsed entirely had it not been for the ECB and/or China buying Italy bonds before yesterday's Bill auction. ""Yes, we've exercised moral suasion by asking all those who have lent shares to retrieve them," Consob Chairman Giuseppe Vegas told journalists on the sideline of a conference." And now you know how to generate a market-wide short squeeze.

Yesterday, when sharing our latest thoughts and observations on the $8.5 billion Bank of America settlement we said, "One thing is certain: the final BAC settlement, if one even comes to fruition, will not be $8.5 billion." Once again: we may have been correct...

• NEW YORK INVESTIGATING $8.5 BLN BANK OF NEW YORK MORTGAGE DEAL
• NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL SEEKS DATA ON BANK OF AMERICA ACCORD
• NEW YORK PROBE IS PART OF MORTGAGE SECURITIZATION INVESTIGATION
• NEW YORK SENDS LETTER TO GOLDMAN SACHS, BLACKROCK, ING, INVESCO

BAC stock not liking this latest development at all.

Thanks, Turbo Tim ...

A month ago we reported about Bob Ivry's discovery that the Fed had been conducting a secretive bailout operation between March and December 2008, under which banks borrowed as much as $855 billion over the time frame for a rate as low as 0.01%. As the Fed itself explains following a just disclosed launch of a page dedicated to this Saint OMO, "The Federal Reserve System conducted a series of single-tranche term repurchase agreements from March 2008 to December 2008 with the intention of mitigating heightened stress in funding markets. These operations were conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York with primary dealers as counterparties through an auction process under the standard legal authority for conducting temporary open market operations. In these transactions, primary dealers could deliver any of the types of securities--Treasuries, agency debt, or agency MBS--that are accepted in regular open market operations. By providing term funding to primary dealers, this program helped to address liquidity pressures evident across a number of financing markets and supported the flow of credit to U.S. households and business." Well, not really. As the chart below shows the banks, pardon primary dealers, that benefited the most from this secret iteration of Fed generosity were once again foreign banks, with the Top 5 borrowers being Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, RBS and Barclays. Together these five accounted for $593 billion of total borrowings, or 70% of the total. So perhaps the Fed should rephrase the last sentence to "supported the flow of credit to U.S. European households and business" which is to be expected. After all, as we have demonstrated before, the European banking system's liabilities are orders of magnitude greater than the US. So in order to preserve the global Ponzi (a main reason why Greece must never be allowed to fail), the biggest weakness that has to be addressed constantly is and will be in Europe.

As Zero Hedge readers predicted by a margin of more than nearly three to one, Tim Geithner's next employer of choice, per bnet's Constantine von Hoffman, is none other than the universal viceroy-cum-vampire squid presiding at 200 West according to a just "leaked" letter. And while we all know the key resume highlights (issuing $1.5 trillion in debt a year for the duration of his tenure, mopped up on both sides by Quantitative Easing, bringing America to the verge of insolvency and living on an "auction to auction" basis), here is the summary of Geithner's key qualifications that make him a shoo in for the job.

Three weeks ago, when discussing the failed (yes, failed) Maiden Lane 2 auction by the New York Fed, we said: 'Something quite disturbing happened during today's latest attempt by the Fed to sell $3.8 billion in face amount of Maiden Lane 2 assets: it had a busted dutch auction. In fact, the auction was so massively busted, the New York Fed managed to sell only half of the bonds for sale, or $1.898 billion in 36 Cusips of the total 73 Cusips offered for sale." Subsequently we noted the sudden radiosilence from the Fed on this issue on Twitter. To be sure, every MBS trader and the kitchen sink promptly complained that the Fed was saturating the market with toxic AIG garbage, which prompted us to declare that: "unless someone opens up a release valve, we are about to see a massive
regurgitation and even more massive repricing of credit risk, first in
IG, then in HY and ABX/CMBX, and lastly, and most massively, in
equities, which continue to exist in their own world and which are now
totally disconnected with HY, which they used to track so very closely." We just got the release valve: from Bloomberg: "The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is halting its sales of mortgage bonds acquired in the rescue of American International Group Inc. "Given prevailing market conditions” for residential mortgage-backed securities, “we do not anticipate any sales of bonds in the near term or until such time as the New York Fed deems it will achieve value for the public," Jack Gutt, a New York Fed spokesman said in an e-mail." Uh, what prevailing market conditions: a Nasdaq which has ripped over 100 points in one week (granted on no volume and on unprecedented market manipulation but so what). Regardless, this is a huge slap in the face for the Fed, which has just proven that even in a surging market it can not unwind an amount from its book that is less than 1% of its total asset holdings without actually crashing the market.