Deutsche Bank

I don't want anyone to think this is a Goldman bashing exercise. I actually admire their prowess. Not for operational excellence (as many mistakenly consider them to have when not adjusting accounting returns for risk), but for the way they seem to get away with murder, time after time. You gotta give it to them. I want readers to take time to go through the anecdotal evidence here and decide if it is more profitable to invest with Goldman, or actually attempt to put your bid in to get a slice of that $19 billion, middle class taxpayer funded, regulator protected bonus pool.

To us, the confirmation hearings last week before the Senate Banking Committee only reaffirm in our minds that Benjamin Shalom Bernanke does not deserve a second term as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Farewell IPO window. European infrastructure company Hochtief was forced to cancel the IPO of its concessions business once investors became unwilling to pay more than €20 for the new shares, with the bottom of the range at €24 previously. Furthermore, according to market participants, the company was able to only fill half a book, after a hatchet job by Credit Suisse analysts, as well as management disclosure during a roadshow lunch that the Dubai jitters made finding investors complicated (to say the least). Watch for some material downside to HOT GY when it opens in Europe tomorrow.

On a global scale, Dubai World's debt problem seems relatively minor, but it illustrates the impact from one tiny country in an increasingly interconnected world. The Dubai news also cast doubt over the strength of the U.S. economic recovery, and the prospects for a bottoming of property prices.

Background to, and fallout from, Dubai debt crisis.

Is another Deutsche Bank (ex) prop group about to blow up on Dubai World? First, of course, we had Boaz Weinstein who lost so much money on the basis trade implosion last year, the DB accountants are still unsure how to quantify the P (not so much) & L, and now QVT Financial, originally also a prop trading group at DB until 2003, seems to have lost a boatload on the Dubai fiasco. The WSJ reports that QVT, headed by one Angelo Moskov, is "spearheading efforts to rally holders in bonds in Dubai World subsidiary Nakheel, including hedge funds and other money managers in New York and London... About 15 or 20 investors in bonds of Dubai World's real-estate subsidiary have come together in an effort to explore their options, after suffering huge losses."

As traditionally those most exposed within any given committee are presented the privilege to "head" such ad hoc initiatives, we are fairly certain that the QVT gentlemen have absorbed the lion's share of said "huge losses." And as the bonds have dropped from 110 to 40 in two days, and are trading below such liquidating names as Nortel, with other credits fully on the government's bailout/subsidiary payroll, this could easily be the single worst performing issue of 2009. Thus not one year seem to pass without what seemingly is yet another major Deutsche Bank legacy blow up.

Spreads closed marginally wider today amid low volumes as single-name CDS breadth was negative and financials underperformed non-financials. A plethora of data and news today kept equity indices guessing all day (and HY credit) but IG seemed pretty stable as intrinsics and indices saw marginal widening and steepening across the curve although HY felt generally weaker than either IG or stocks all day.

At 2PM Eastern, CIT's CDS auction was priced at a final recovery of 68.125. This was over 2 bps lower than the inside midpoint market announced earlier. Going into the auction, there was $728.98 billion of open interest, indicating that basis traders were a dominant force and exlipsed correlation desks' influence in the auction. The 13 participating dealers submitted $4.5 billion worth of limit order, with an average bid of 65.66, just 3.6% away from the final settlement price, indicating that the option to low-ball into the Dutch auction and get hit on some insane bid has disappeared.

ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet on Wednesday urged European insurers and pension funds to have sufficient capital on hand, stressing they are "systemically important" to the financial system. I have long argued that insurers and pension funds need to be monitored by regulatory agencies that respond to systemic risks. Unfortunately, the New Normal for retirement benefits looks a lot like the old normal based on chicanery and deceit.

• Geithner singled out in TARP watchdog Neil Barofsky's scathing report on AIG bailout (HuffPo)
• Deflation ex fuel and energy pervasive (AP)
• Ken Jacobs chosen to replace Bruce Wasserstein, Caruso-Cabrera ex-boyfriend Gary Parr strikes out (Bloomberg)
• China questions cost of US healthcare reform (Reuters)
• Bankrupt CIT loss triples to $1.07 billion, provision for credit losses skyrockets from $210.3 million in Q3 2008 to $701.8 million currently (AP)
• High-frequency firms make inroads into US futures (FT, h/t Sean)

Following on previous posts by Janet Tavakoli and Dylan Ratigan, which both reference the need to uncover how and why it is that AIG counterparties received such generous taxpayer funded bailout terms, it is critical to present the letter penned by California Congressman Darrell Issa to New York Fed President Bill Dudley, demanding much more information on the Fed's decision regarding AIG. Issa's quote that "behind closed doors and with no approval from Congress, the FRBNY may have added an additional $13 billion of debt on the backs of taxpayers. These allegations, if true, amount to nothing less than a backdoor bailout of AIG’s creditors, including Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Société Générale and Deutsche Bank" leaves many open questions as to the true motives of the NY Fed and the Federal Reserve system overall.

"A year ago it was revealed to the American people that our banking system was a legalized Ponzi scheme in which bank and insurance CEOs paid themselves billions of dollars in personal compensation to lend and insure assets with money they didn't have to customers who couldn't pay back the loans. In those dark days between the fall of Lehman Brothers and before the presidential election, we were often carried through that time by the small glimmer of hope in that at least we would soon have a new leader who would hopefully fix this mess and punish those responsible. Yet in the past 9 months, not only has the administration not fixed anything, they have made things much worse for anyone who isn't a Wall Street banker. Therefore, we are past the point where anyone in power still gets the benefit of the doubt and the process of taking back our country for all citizens must begin now." - Dylan Ratigan

These are some of the more important stories concerning the European economy

Fellow Zerohedge contributor George Washington parrots the lovely Janet Tavakoli and states his (her?) ire that the "Evil Vampire Squids" at Goldman SHOULD NOT have been paid at Par for their CDS trades with AIG.

I, for one, don't necessarily agree.

If history has taught us anything, it is that those with the most money are not necessarily those that are best at investing money. There is a saying that encapsulates this in a somewhat more erudite manner (I would never be so forward, or so rude :-)) - "When playing poker, look around the table. If you can't find the sucker, it is probably you!". Obviously, the guys at Capmark didn't read BoomBustBlog...