Rating Agency

All you need to read and some more.

In what S&P calls a 'Perfect Storm', the next four years will see a minimum of $30 trillion in companies' refinancing needs related to maturing bonds and loans and further they expect $13-$16 trillion more debt will be required to finance growth. With bond portfolios over-stuffed with corporate debt (since angst over sovereign risk has skewed asset allocation away from that cohort) the rating agency is concerned that ongoing bank deleveraging, these huge debt re-funding requirements, and the diminishment of central banks and governments to do anything about it leave serious problems with a credit overhang so large. Critically, especially as we hear calls for 'growth' plans from Europe, is the increasing likelihood that, as Reuters reports, this will potentially influence corporate credit quality and "alter the fragile equilibrium that currently exists in the global corporate credit landscape". While S&P expect the refinancing needs may well be met "This global wall of nonfinancial corporate debt will potentially compound the credit rationing that may occur as banks seek to restructure their balance sheets, and bond and equity investors reassess their risk-return thresholds" which "raises the downside risk in global markets" as an inability to finance growth may well be the catalyst for another risk flare. "Governments and central banks have less fiscal and monetary flexibility to prevent serious problems emanating from future market disturbances. A perfect storm scenario would likely cause financing disruptions even for borrowers that are not highly leveraged."

If French Fitch, which will first be Egan-Jonesed than downgrade France from its unmovable AAA rating is starting to say that the unthinkable, namely the departure of Greece from the Eurozone, would be "bearable", then things are about to get once again exciting, as this is merely setting the stage for the next leg down. Among the other google translated gibberish said by Fitch chief Taylor, here is the argument: Germany would merely soak up the damage caused by a Greek departure: "Greece's exit does not mean the end of the euro. Above all, Germany has a fundamental interest in preserving the common currency remains. Would the D-mark re-introduced, they would add value compared to other currencies strong. The export industry, that is: would the engine of the German economy, damaged. This will not allow Germany - even if one or more countries leave the single currency area." How about Italy's exit? Or Portugal's? Or Spain's? At what point does it become unbearable for German taxpayers to burn their wealth to preserve a system that virtually nobody but a few select career politicians demand?

There are some people who also believe that the private Federal Reserve with the Treasury in tow has the ability to prolong the worst symptoms of the collapse indefinitely, or at least, until they have long since kicked the bucket and don’t have to worry about it anymore (the ‘pay-it forward to our grandkids’ crowd) .  I can say with 100% certainty that most of us will live to see the climax of the breakdown, and that this breakdown is about to enter a more precarious state before the end of this year.  You can only stretch a sun-boiled rubber band so far before it snaps completely, and America’s financial elasticity has long been melted away.  A pummeling hailstorm of news items and international developments have made the first half of 2012 almost impossible to track and analyze.  The frequency at which negative information has surfaced is almost dizzying.  However, a pattern and a recognizable motion are beginning to take shape, and, I believe, a loose timeline is beginning to form. 

All you need to read and some more.

Even as the SEC is hell bent on destroying Egan Jones as a rating agency, in the process cementing its status as an objective, independent, and honest third party research entity, the firm is just as hell bent on milking its still existing NRSRO status for all it's worth. Because while Egan Jones was the first entity to cut Spain two weeks ago, only to be followed by Spain, it just did so again minutes ago.

Better late than never. All you need to read. 

All you need to read and more.

Just in case one is wondering what is a greater crime in America: vaporizing $1.5 billion in client money or having the temerity to downgrade the US (twice), JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley, here is the SEC with the answer:

• SEC SUES EGAN-JONES, SEAN EGAN ON ALLEGED MISREPRESENTATIONS

Somewhere Jon Corzine is cackling like a mad cow.

Here is the point; Bernanke thinks he can deal with this falling growth outlook and a deleveraging consumer by adding to QE to keep rates very low. I am not sure it will work and if it doesn’t yields could start to rise and the more he throws at it the more yields actually rise as vigilantes will fear pent up inflationary pressures. This is a potential disaster for central bankers and at some point the impact of QE may be proven limited. When it is the central banks will have shot the last bullet. Why is no one discussing this?

All you need to know.

This is so pathetic, it is beyond words:

• US SEC EXPECETED TO VOTE ON POSSIBLE CHARGES AGAINST RATING FIRM EGAN JONES ON THURSDAY - RTRS
  
• POSSIBLE CHARGES STEM FROM ALLEGED WILFUL MISTATEMENTS ON EGAN JONES' REGULATORY APPLICATION WITH SEC - RTRS

If nothing else, it explains the recent WSJ hit piece against Egan, just so it can make the public record in the SEC documentation. In other news, this will surely teach any other rating agency to downgrade the US not once (ahead of everyone else), but twice. In the meantime, the SEC still has NO IDEA what liquidity is, and continues to refuse to take ANY action against High Frequency Trading, to press criminal charges against ANY banker, or for that matter, to do anything that may jeopardize its staffers future careers as 7th assistant general council at assorted bailed out Wall Street firms. Now we wait to hear news that Fitch and Moody's will receive a cash bonus from the SEC for not downgrading the US properly filing their regulatory applications. And now back to midget porn.

All you need to read and some more.

The iconoclastic rating agency, and fully recognized NRSRO to the dismay of some tabloids, which just refuses to play by the status quo rules, and which downgraded the US for the second time last Friday, to be followed soon by other rating agencies as soon as US debt crosses the $16.4 trillion threshold in a few short months, has just done the even more unthinkable and downgraded Fed boss JPMorgan from AA- to A+.

A few weeks ago when discussing the imminent debt ceiling breach, and the progression of US debt/GDP into the 100%+ ballpark, we reminded readers that in February S&P said it could downgrade the US again in as soon as 6 months if there was no budget plan. Not only is there no budget plan, but the US is about to have its debt ceiling fiasco repeat all over as soon in as September. Which means another downgrade from S&P is imminent, and continuing the theme of deja vu 2011, the late summer is shaping up for a major market sell off. Minutes ago, Egan Jones just reminded us of all of this, after the only rating agency that matters, just downgraded the US from AA+ to AA, with a negative outlook.