Bulls, Bears & Bucks #09: Euro weer 1,58 dollar waard

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Op woensdag 26 maart 2008 16:18 schreef Perrin het volgende:
Trichet: 'Einde kredietcrisis nog niet in zicht'
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Kut tentamen

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NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Oppenheimer & Co. tripled its loss estimate for Citigroup Inc.'s (C) first quarter Wednesday, forecasting the bank could write down another $13 billion.

And with no end in sight for the credit crisis, Oppenheimer's outlook for the largest U.S. bank by assets remains grim.

"We are confident this will not be our last reduction in 2008," Oppenheimer analyst Meredith Whitney wrote in a research note to clients. "Rather as key mark-to-market indices trend lower, the housing market worsens, and the U.S. consumer comes under increasing pressure, we anticipate further downside to both estimates and stock prices."

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Op woensdag 26 maart 2008 19:08 schreef Xith het volgende:
De weerstand is dus weer gebroken, net zoals dit bij .38 en .48 begeurde :p

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Citigroup Sells 500 Million Pounds of Bonds at Higher Interest

By Shelley Smith

March 26 (Bloomberg) -- Citigroup Inc., the biggest U.S. bank by assets, raised 500 million pounds ($1 billion) by offering bondholders twice the yield spread over government rates it provided last year.

Citigroup sold 10-year bonds yielding 308.4 basis points more than similar-maturity U.K. government notes, an increase from 133 basis points over gilts on undated debt sold in June, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Investors in Europe are demanding the highest yield spreads in at least nine years to buy bonds as credit losses and writedowns triggered by the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis spiral to more than $208 billion. Citigroup is paying more than the average yield spread for investment-grade bonds in euros at 182 basis points, according to Merrill Lynch & Co. indexes.

``It is difficult to see the rationale of a bank raising 10-year money at spread levels well above those paid by lesser rated non-financial borrowers,'' said Georg Grodzki, head of credit research at London-based Legal & General Group Plc, the third-largest U.K. insurer. ``The rating agencies are unlikely to be pleased about a bank raising senior funds at spread levels well out of line with its credit rating.''

Citigroup's senior unsecured debt is rated Aa3 by Moody's Investors Service, the fourth-highest of 10 investment-grade rankings, and has an equivalent AA- grade from Standard & Poor's.

Citigroup's U.K. bond sale follows a 2 billion-euro ($3.15 billion) issue of 6.4 percent senior notes due 2013 last week at a yield 311.7 basis points above German government debt. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.

Barclays Plc, BNP Paribas SA, Credit Suisse Group and Deutsche Bank AG helped Citigroup to manage the sale.

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Op woensdag 26 maart 2008 19:18 schreef Revolution-NL het volgende:

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Als de trend hetzelfde is als voorheen laat de 1,60 nu niet meer lang op zich wachten.
Wel frapant dat je constant hetzelfde patroon terug ziet.

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Op woensdag 26 maart 2008 19:41 schreef digitaLL het volgende:

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Bron
Het einde van de credit crunch is nog niet in zicht. Citybank haalt via obligaties 500 miljoen pond uit de markt maar moet daarvoor wel een extra rentevergoeding van meer dan 3% geven. Het gaat dus om 4,4 + 3,1 = 7,5% rente in totaal. Je moet als bank wel hard geld nodig hebben om zoveel rente te willen betalen. In feite heeft Citybank hiermee zichzelf ook gedowngrade naar een BB status eerder dan AA vandaar dat rating agencies hier niet erg blij mee zullen zijn.

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Op donderdag 27 maart 2008 11:41 schreef Aether het volgende:
ECB eurokoersgrafiek.

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Op donderdag 27 maart 2008 11:44 schreef ItaloDancer het volgende:

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Handig met die custom timescale

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The past 10 days will be remembered as the time the U.S. government discarded a half-century of rules to save American financial capitalism from collapse.

On the Richter scale of government activism, the government's recent actions don't (yet) register at FDR levels. They are shrouded in technicalities and buried in a pile of new acronyms.

But something big just happened. It happened without an explicit vote by Congress. And, though the Treasury hasn't cut any checks for housing or Wall Street rescues, billions of dollars of taxpayer money were put at risk. A Republican administration, not eager to be viewed as the second coming of the Hoover administration, showed it no longer believes the market can sort out the mess.

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Germany and other industrialized nations are desperately trying to brace themselves against the threat of a collapse of the global financial system. The crisis has now taken its toll on the German economy, where the weak dollar is putting jobs in jeopardy and the credit crunch is paralyzing many businesses.

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So, what does apply? Should the state use taxpayer money to help greedy bankers repair the damage caused by their unscrupulous speculation? Should it invest billions to save ailing financial institutions, thereby engendering new risks and side effects? And should the government, to use the words of a Frankfurt investment banker, "treat a drug addict with cocaine"?

How does one explain to honest taxpayers that they should pony up their hard-earned money for a bank like Bear Stearns, whose long-standing CEO forked out $28 million (¤18 million) for a 600-square-meter (6,500 square-foot) duplex apartment on New York's Central Park shortly before the collapse of his company? Or that UBS, the crisis-ridden, major Swiss bank, fired three of its senior executives for poor performance only to turn around and pay them roughly 60 million Swiss francs (¤38 million/$59.2 million) in golden parachutes?

...

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Monolines take a long, hard look at the future

Bron : ft.com

Bond insurers, whose fate just a few weeks ago was affecting sentiment across equity and credit markets, have faded from the market's spotlight. Instead, the future of Bear Stearns and large banks and brokers have grabbed traders' attention.

Certainly, the biggest bond insurers - Ambac and MBIA - are temporarily off the hook after their crucial triple-A credit ratings were recently confirmed.

Indeed, the next focus for them is still a few weeks away: their forthcoming round of financial results, expected in May, will be closely scrutinised to see if there are any further surprises in terms of losses related to their ill-fated guarantees of bonds backed by risky mortgages.

Yet, in spite of the lack of headlines, the markets are still not certain that even these big fish will be able to hang on to their top ratings. In the market for credit default swaps which are a measure of a company's credit risk, both Ambac and MBIA still trade as distressed credits.

For the smaller bond insurers, the turbulence has continued unabated. This week, Fitch Ratings sharply downgraded FGIC and SCA. It cut the ratings for SCA subsidiary XL Capital Assurance (XLCA) to a junk rating - the first such dramatic slide for an entity once blessed with the top triple-A credit rating. Fitch is still working on its assessment of CIFG, expected soon.

"It is pretty clear that CIFG, FGIC and SCA could be headed to run-off mode," said Rob Haines, analyst at Creditsights.

The fate of the bond insurers could still have broader repercussions.

Between them, they guarantee over $2,400bn of debt, both municipal and structured bonds. Mr Haines estimates that just those three weakest bond insurers between them insure $560bn. Although US policymakers have started talking about alternative ways to help municipal borrowers to raise debt - and a growing number of them are ditching the bond insurance model altogether - the sharp drop in credit ratings could still have effects on some municipalities, particularly smaller ones.

Banks who have bought guarantees from bond insurers could also still be affected by their ratings cuts.

Already, many banks own some of the shares sold by Ambac in its recent frantic round of capital-raising. Downgrades at smaller bond insurers could hit them, too.

The financial pressure on the so-called monoline insurers is encouraging them to seek ways to exit their insurance policies, particularly the costly ones related to hard-hit collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) backed by mortgage assets.

FGIC has filed a suit in New York against IKB, the German state-owned bank, alleging it fraudulently induced FGIC to enter into a guarantee policy.

FGIC also claims it no longer needs to pay out on a policy which accounts for 75 per cent of its $1.26bn of reserves. The insurer believes the other party - French investment bank Calyon - had failed to provide certain information it was contractually obliged to, and this would therefore void the contract. Calyon declined to comment.

SCA's subsidiary XLCA insures about $18bn of mostly high grade asset-backed CDOs. It has moved to terminate $3.1bn worth of contracts it has with Merrill Lynch, a move Merrill is disputing.

"This highlights the legal technicalities that we think are going to drive much of the 'recovery' process in CDOs and impact financial firms' valuations on a somewhat unpredictable basis," said Chris Flanagan, analyst at JPMorgan. "Dealers that retained and hedged senior, triple-A CDO exposures may face greater losses if monolines are successful in shifting losses due to legal issues, or may face lawsuits from junior investors over sloppy documentation."

The legal situations are mostly without precedent, reflecting the fact that the CDO market and the insurance of such structured bonds only really took off in the last five years. The complexity of the structures also makes it harder to win such cases in court.

"When you have two sophisticated players in the market, mounting a misrepresentation case is very hard to make. The bar is very high," said Joel Telpner, partner at Mayer Brown. "These are very complicated financial transactions, and a lot of these issues are going to be hitting the court system for the first time"

The other area for concern is the growing list of consequences of downgrades.

In just one example, MBIA has recently asked Fitch Ratings to drop its ratings of the group. Fitch has said it will continue to rate MBIA. One reason: investors holding securities insured by MBIA but only rated by Fitch would be forced to sell if the ratings were withdrawn.

"Several large money market funds hold Tender Option Bonds rated by Fitch based on MBIA insurance," Fitch said. "If we withdraw our rating they may be forced sellers into a market already challenged by liquidity issues."

After Ambac and MBIA had their ratings affirmed after regulators pushed banks to back-stop financing, Eric Dinallo, the New York insurance superintendent, said he had "bought time".

Just how much will become clear in the coming weeks. However, the legal complexities afflicting the bond insurance sector are likely to continue for years, especially as the courts become involved.

Terri Mazur, a partner at law firm Mayer Brown, said it could take a long time for these cases to be resolved in the courts. "Certainly a year or two would not be unusual, and five years is not beyond the pale."