notional value

The MF Global Trustee has just released their preliminary report on the progress in uncovering where the vaporized cash went. Bloomberg notes:

• MF GLOBAL DIDN'T ALWAYS RECORD CASH MOVEMENTS, TRUSTEE SAYS
• TRUSTEE SAYS MF HAD SHORTFALL IN COMMODITIES FUNDS START OCT 26
• MF BROKERAGE TRUSTEE TRACED $105 BLN IN CASH MOVEMENT
• MF COMPUTERS COULDN'T TRACK VOLUME IN FINAL DAYS, TRUSTEE SAYS

Of course, we know that MF Global is the only company to not follow Fiduciary Principles 101 (client cash commingling) but also Accounting 101 (T square, debits, credits, and all that boring and apparently irrelevant in a time of uber-kleptocracy, stuff) leaving us wondering just how much of that unrecorded cash may be found in unrecorded suitcases in unrecorded bank vaults.

According to the Bank of International Settlements, as of June 2011 total over-the-counter derivatives contracts have an outstanding notional value of 707.57 trillion dollars, ( 32.4 trillion dollars in CDS’s alone). Where does this kind of money come from, and what does it refer to? We don’t really know, because over-the-counter derivatives are not transparent or regulated. With regulated economic markets, when an underlying real asset is impaired (i.e. the company in question is bankrupt, the mortgage has defaulted, etc.), market value is assessed, default insurance is paid up to replacement or full value, bond holders and stock holders make claims on remaining value and the account is closed. There is no need for bailouts because order and proportion of compensation has been established and everything is attached to the value of the underlying asset. When the unreal, counterfeit economy intrudes, you now have a situation where a person can put in an unregulated, but recognized, claim to be paid a thousand times over in case of impairment. Say market participants have negotiated for a bankrupt company a 70% payback for bondholders and (36% payback for insurance claims), and I come with not one but rather 1,000 CDS claims demanding to be paid for each CDS.

The just reported Bank of America top and bottom line numbers were better than expected, coming in at $24.89 billion compared to estimates of $24.5 billion, and EPS of $0.18 vs $0.15. The actual Net Income number number was $2.0 billion and $2.7 billion pre tax. So far so good. But a quick skim through the presentation (attached below), indicates that the $0.18 number may be grossly inflated. Because when one excludes the various selected one time items highlighted in the quarter, which are as follows: Gain on sale of CCB shares-$2.9; Gains on exchanges of trust preferred securities - $1.2; Gains on sales of debt securities - $1.2; Representations and warranties provision - ($0.3); DVA on trading liabilities- ($0.5); Goodwill impairment - ($0.6); Fair value adjustment on structured liabilities - ($0.8); Mortgage-related litigation expense ($1.5), all of which it appears are part of the pretax number, the final EPS comes in at a much less impressive $1.3 billion pre tax, which at the company's indicated tax rate, would have been $1.0 billion after tax, or $0.10 EPS, a notable miss. Which likely means that the Revenue "beat" on an apples to apples basis would also have to be pro forma'ing a bunch of items, and likely would be a miss. But for that we will need to go through the several hundred page 10-Q, something which management is hoping the machines which will send its stock much higher in the pre-market session, will never do. Another notable item is that for the first time in a long time, the company's average deposit balances declined by 1.2% in Q4 from Q3, from $422.3 billion to $417.1 billion (as the rate on deposits fell from 0.25% to 0.23%). Not a good trend, but certainly to be expected following the snafu with the company's electronic banking website last quarter. Also troubling is that in Q4, the company's Home Equity Non-Performing Assets increase for the first time in years, from $2.4 billion to $2.5 billion: it seems the improvement in housing has plateaued. Finally, and most troubling, is that BAC reported that "Estimated range of possible loss related to non-GSE representations and warranties exposure could be up to $5B over existing accruals at December 31, 2011." The reason: a surge in New Claims in Q4 "primarily related to repurchase requests received from trustees on private-label securitization transactions not included in the BNY Mellon settlement." Which means another $5 billion out of Net Income due to underreserving. Because how much did BAC provision for Reps and Warranties in Q4? Why a 'whopping' $263 million. And how much is the potential full notional value of underreserved contingent liabilities? Why $755 billion only.

Payback sure is a bitch. After being demonized for everything from the tiniest tick down in the EURUSD, to blowing out spreads in CDS, to plunging stocks across the insolvent continent, hedge funds, long falsely prosecuted for everything, even stuff they patently did not do, are about to have their day in the sun, precisely in the manner we predicted back in June of last year when we posted: "Greek Bailout #2 Is Dead On Arrival: A Few Good Hedge Funds May Have Called The ECB's Bluff, And Hold The Future Of The EUR Hostage." Back then we wrote: "we may suddenly find ourselves in the biggest "activist" investor drama, in which voluntary restructuring "hold out" hedge funds will settle for Cheapest to Delivery or else demand a trillion pounds of flesh from the ECB in order to keep the eurozone afloat. In other words, the drama is about to get very, very real. And, most ironically, a tiny David is about to flip the scales on the mammoth Goliath of the ECB and hold the entire European experiment hostage..." Sure enough, we were right yet again. Ekathimerini writes: "Hedge funds are taking on the powerful International Monetary Fund over its plan to slash Greece's towering debt burden as time runs out on the talks that could sway the future of Europe's single currency. The funds have built up such a powerful positions in Greek bonds that they could derail Europe's tactic of getting banks and other bondholders to share the burden of reducing the country's debt on a voluntary basis." Oh no, they will let it happen, but first Europe will pay, with real interest, for every single incident of hedge fund bashing and abuse over the past 2 years. We estimate the final tally, to US taxpayer mind you, will be about $20 billion, to remove the "nuisance factor" of hold out hedge funds. Congratulations Europe - you have proven to be a continent full of idiot "leaders" once again.