Real estate

Once again, the algospasms have turned many funds into dust as those attempting to short brokerage stocks, REITs, etc. in front of the European implosion are getting killed. Clearly, investors are voting that U.S. commercial real estate is the last bastion of safety, and the primary growth industry in 2011 will be stock trading.

European pension funds hired more fund managers in 2009 than in the previous year to take advantage of bargains in crisis-hit asset classes, a study by Mercer said on Tuesday. And PE shop Candover, which has been slashing costs in the face of a cash shortage, is in talks with the Alberta Investment Management Company (Aimco). Despite the flows and deals, I doubt PE will stage a serious comeback.

Goldman employees have incriminated the company in the quest for compensation, but I have the solution...

European central bankers and politicians have been as dumb as their American counterparts ...

Much has been said on TV about the "great" earnings season so far. The truth is that ex-financials the upside EPS factor is just 10%. This is driven purely by ongoing cost-cutting and layoffs. What is much more relevant is the top-line. And there again, ex-financials, the upside surprise, is... zero. As David Rosenberg puts it: "In other words, outside of financials, revenues are just meeting analyst expectations. In a nutshell, the impressive earnings surprises, thus far, is being driven by Financials cost surprises (including write offs)." And why are financials beating so heartily? Because they are all reducing loss allowances on their books, when their whole books are based on mark to myth. The wholesale market lie continues, and a read between the lines indicates that the trillions in monetary and fiscal stimulus is still not pushing company top lines. In light of this observation, we are certainly not holding our breaths to see a $100 EPS on the S&P for 2011 as UBS projects.

• Brazilian policy makers poised to raise borrowing costs at the fastest pace since 2003.
• China may use capital requirements for developers as policy tool to cool property market.
• Cost of insuring Greece's debt against default soared to a new record.
• Portugal suffering Greek debt contagion puts pressure on EU's bond markets.
• Republicans joined in the Senate to block Democrats' overhaul of financial regulation.
• Shanghai shares down 2.1%, with real estate stocks down on policy concerns.
• Trend in U.S. home prices may have been positive for first time since 2006

For those who have forgotten the implications of the highly leveraged and opaque financial holdings (the true value of which rests at the mercy of market sentiment) and can turn blind eye to the highly volatile nature of the trading revenues combined with a literal tsunami of regulatory pressure and potential litigious onslaught (all issues which we have repetitively brought up in the past as what appears to be the sole voice of contrarian reason), Goldman Sachs holds a strong investment proposition. However, if fundamental considerations such as the company’s solvency, true economic profit (not the accounting earnings you hear preached from your brokerage’s sell side marketing propaganda cum research reports) and the sustainability of income are to be considered, GS should NOT appear among the preferred lot.

If Goldman Sachs wanted to reduce its exposure to subprime mortgage investments, why didn't it simply sell the assets it owned? Two reasons: First, those large sales would have sent a signal that something was terribly, terribly wrong, and thereby pushed prices down further. That's how supply and demand normally works. Second, Goldman professed to be market maker, which uses its trading book to instill confidence. It ostensibly bought, sold and inventoried mortgage securities to provide stability and liquidity to the marketplace. Of course, we now know that such market confidence was entirely misplaced. To sidestep these issues, Goldman and other major banks found a solution that subverted the laws of supply and demand, and escaped the price discovery of a transparent marketplace. They fabricated synthetic CDOs, such as Abacus 2007 AC-1. These toxic assets, invented out of thin air, made the meltdown worse than it otherwise would have been.

Demographics Auger Poorly for the Real Estate Market. Desperate homeowners counting on a "V" shaped recovery in residential real estate prices to bail them out better first take a close look at global demographic data, which tells us there will be no recovery at all. The Demographic Nightmare in Japan. The demographic paradise in Vietnam. (EEM), (VNM).

• Asian stocks, commodities rally on economic recovery, Greece.
• Bond traders declare inflation dead with yields below 2008 crisis levels.
• China is considering introducing new or higher taxes on real estate.
• Consumer spending in US probably stepped up, carrying expansion in 2010.
• Dollar rises versus Yen amid signs of global recovery before Fed meeting.
• Finance Ministers urge IMF, EU to speed aid to Greece at Washington Talks.
• Germany is laying the legal ground for its contribution to the financial aid package for Greece.

Let me start off by saying the market should be correcting. Sentiment has reached ridiculous bullish extremes, the kind of extremes that led to the January /February correction. That correction separated the second leg of the bull from the third. But let’s face it, sentiment has been in this condition for several weeks now and the best we could muster was a minor correction of 30 points on the news the SEC was filing charges against Goldman Sachs for fraud.
We’ve had three opportunities to “sell the news” with the April jobs report and recently with INTC and AAPL earnings. None of them have panned out. The market could use the Greek excuse as a downside catalyst, the same as it did in January. And now Greek short term bonds are tanking as the EU waffles about writing that check in front of the German elections in May. All in all it boils down to the market has had every chance to correct and it has failed to do so. Last month I speculated that we were On the Brink of an Asset Explosion. Well, we may not be on the brink anymore. We may very well be moving into the heart of the explosion right now.

Derivatives might be useful, but when 5 American banks have most of 'em - and are insisting they not be made transparent - recipe for disaster ...

Many is the time I would review a write-up of a new deal and scribble in the margins, "Get to the bleeping point!'' Unless you can articulate, up front, exactly what assets we would be lending against, and what circumstances would cause us to lose money (i.e. a quick-and-dirty breakeven analysis), you don't really know what you're talking about. And if you don't have a good grasp of that issue, everything else you have to say is superfluous, a waste of time. This lack of common sense is pervasive, extending far beyond the financial services industry. (When, over the last seven years, have you ever heard a journalist ask, "How many troops do we have to replace those currently deployed in Iraq?") In certain markets, most notably, CDOs, this lack of common sense was institutionalized. It's evident in the deal book for Abacus 2007 AC-1, at the center of the S.E.C.'s case against Goldman. What risks are investors assuming? The presentation doesn't say. There's a reference portfolio of 90 subprime mortgage bonds, on pages 55 and 56, which ostensibly would be insured via credit default swaps for the benefit of Goldman. But, as the small print says, "Goldman Sachs neither represents nor provides any assurances that the actual Reference Portfolio on the Closing Date or any future date will have the same characteristics as represented above." According to my bias, everything else in the 66-page presentation is superfluous. And the real reference portfolio for Abacus 2001 AC-1 remains, to my knowledge at this point in time, hidden from public view.

When I make a mistake I will admit it.

In my analysis of consumer spending I asserted that the sources of increases in spending were (1) a draw-down of savings and (2) the redirection of defaulted mortgage payments to spending. I was half-right which another way of saying I was half-wrong.

I missed one the basic laws of economics, Bastiat's "Broken Window Fallacy." Ouch!

In our last quarterly we said that Australia could be one of the unexpected victim of the next downturn. We received plenty of questions on the subject so we have decided to write an ad hoc research on the subject which you will find attached. The Australian Dollar is the most overvalued G20 currency and we feel that the economy is mainly dependent on the continuation of the nascent Chinese credit bubble and an increase of domestic leverage and real estate prices. The later being nearly 50% above fair value they will sooner rather than later mean-revert. The Chinese connection makes its resources sector a good proxy to express potential negative view on China. - Damien Cleusix