miercuri, 15 iunie 2011

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Sanity Prevails in 4-3 Wisconsin Supreme Court Decision Curtailing Rights of Public Union Collective Bargaining

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 08:42 PM PDT

On May 26 a misguided Circuit court judge voided a Wisconsin bill that ended collective bargaining rights of public union workers because the vote violated an open meeting law.

The state supreme court heard arguments from both sides on June 6th and a common-sense ruling came yesterday: Wisconsin Court Reinstates Law on Union Rights
The Wisconsin Supreme Court cleared the way on Tuesday for significant cuts to collective bargaining rights for public workers in the state, undoing a lower court's decision that Wisconsin's controversial law had been passed improperly.

The ruling was 4 to 3, split along what many viewed as the court's predictable conservative-liberal line. One of the dissenting justices even raised the specter of a "partisan slant" by the other side.

The majority of the justices concluded that a lower court was wrong when it found that the Legislature had forced through the cuts in collective bargaining without giving sufficient notice — 24 hours — under the state's open-meetings requirements. The measure passed in early March, three weeks after the State Senate's Democrats fled to Illinois to block the vote from occurring.

In its written decision, the court cited the importance of the separation of powers, and said the Legislature had not violated the state's Constitution when it relied on its "interpretation of its own rules of proceeding" and gave slightly less than two hours' notice before meeting and voting. In the end, the provision passed without the attendance of any of the Senate's 14 Democrats.
The interesting thing about the procedural move by the Democrats was that not a single Democrat voter was needed but enough senators were not present to make the vote binding. Republicans got around that with a procedural move of their own, stripping the bill of legislation that required a quorum to vote.

New Lawsuit Filed Already

That should have settled the issue but labor leaders now argue the bill discriminates against various classes of public union workers.

Please consider New lawsuit filed against Wisconsin union law.
Wisconsin state employees will start paying more for their health care and pension benefits in late August, state officials said Wednesday as a coalition of unions filed a new lawsuit against the GOP-supported plan that strips away collective bargaining rights from most public workers.

The law also requires workers to pay 12 percent of their health insurance costs and 5.8 percent of their pension costs, which amount to an 8 percent pay cut on average.

But the legal battle was not yet over. A coalition of unions filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday arguing that the law violated the U.S. Constitution by taking away union rights to bargain, organize and associate and illegally discriminates among classes of public employees. The lawsuit seeks to block portions of the law taking away collective bargaining rights, but allows the higher pension and health care contributions that the unions agreed to take to move forward.

"Scott Walker has created two classes of public sector workers and that is unconstitutional," said Wisconsin AFL-CIO President Phil Neuenfeldt. "When a legislature discriminates among classes of workers, especially when doing so has more to do with political payback than with any legitimate reasoning, the law has been violated."
Fair Solution Proposed

I am all in favor of solving the "two class" issue fairly and squarely. It's theoretically a trivial matter to ending class distinctions totally and permanently. The best way to do that is to get rid of public union workers and collective bargaining entirely.

Rather than have states battle these issues one-by-one, national right-to-work laws together with repealing Davis-Bacon and all prevailing wages laws would be a nice start.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List
Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Riots Images from Greece; Prime Minister to Reshuffle Greek Cabinet, Seek Vote of Confidence on New Government; Papandreou's Days Numbered

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 02:00 PM PDT

Amid violence and riots in Greece, it is increasingly clear Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou's days are numbered. Talk of containment is nonsensical.

Max Keiser is in Greece with excellent footage of Greek Rioting in Syntagma Square.
According to our hotel managers (all wearing gas masks) the government is jamming communications in the Square so we had to come to a friend's apartment 10 minutes away to upload.

See link for more images.

Papandreou to Reshuffle the Deck

When all else fails, leaders inevitably propose reshuffling the deck. In this case it did not take long. After coalition talks with the opposition failed, Yahoo Finance reported Greek prime minister to reshuffle Cabinet
Greece's prime minister, struggling to ensure Parliamentary approval for a crucial austerity bill, said Wednesday he would reshuffle his Cabinet and seek a vote of confidence for his new government this week.

Papandreou's announcement came after hours of negotiations on a day when central Athens was rocked once more by anti-austerity riots and the debt-ridden country came under massive pressure from markets.

"Tomorrow I will form a new government and immediately afterwards I will ask for a vote of confidence from Parliament," the prime minister said, adding that "The country is facing critical times."

Wednesday's talks "reached the point that there should be a government of national unity and that Mr. Papandreou should not remain prime minister, because he symbolizes the failure of the last 18 months," senior conservative party official Panos Panagiotopoulos said on Mega TV.
Reshuffling Deck Cannot Possibly Help

I have seen the deck and reshuffling cannot possibly help.

26 cards say "Papandreou is Out". Another 26 cards say "Greece will Default". Two Jokers picture ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet as the court jester. The caption on those cards says "Stubborn Fool".

Irony of the Day

The irony of the day comes from ECB Vice President Vitor Constancio who said "Some sort of Vienna style initiative could be conceived. It's not for us to provide solutions."

Indeed, it is not for the ECB to provide solutions. Yet, that is exactly what the ECB tried to do when Trichet foolishly stuffed the ECB balance sheet with Greek and Irish debt.

Time's Up

The market has decided that time is up. The ECB's only choice in the matter now (assuming there is a choice at all), is whether a Greek default will be orderly or disorderly.

The longer Trichet plays the fool, the more disorderly the final result.

Greek Recap


Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List
Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Opposition Tells Greek Prime Minister to Step Down; Papandreou Offers to Resign With Strings Attached

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 10:58 AM PDT

The crisis in Greece took another step forward today as opposition leader have asked Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou to step down.

In response, Papandreou offered to resign. Unfortunately, Papandreou placed strings on the offer.

Please consider Greek Prime Minister Papandreou said to be told by opposition to step down
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou's options narrowed as the opposition told him to resign, allies turned against him and police deployed tear gas to break up anti-government protests.

Papandreou, struggling to push through austerity measures demanded by international lenders, was told to step aside and let the president name a so-called technical government to renegotiate the terms of the nation's rescue package, said an official in the opposition New Democracy Party.

The political turmoil came as European Union talks on forging a new bailout to prevent the first euro-area default stalled. The impasse over the aid formula and speculation of an impending government shakeup sent Greek bonds plunging and the euro weakening today.

"When a government has so profoundly misjudged the anger, frustration and disillusionment in the population it is a matter of time until changes have to set in," Jens Bastian, a visiting economist at St. Antony's College, Oxford University in England, said in an interview. "But before a prime minister resigns, he first looks at his cabinet and considers a reshuffle."
Papandreou Offers to Resign With Strings Attached

Bloomberg reports Papandreou Offers to Quit for Unity Cabinet
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou offered to step aside to permit the formation of a unity government, as long as all opposition parties agreed to cuts required by an international bailout, said a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

Papandreou's bid, coming amid mounting popular protests and defections among his allies, countered a demand by the New Democracy opposition party that he quit and allow a so-called technical government renegotiate the terms of the rescue.
Party Defections Reduce Papandreou's Majority to 4 Votes

Papandreou's majority in parliament is a mere 4-5 votes out of 300. In recent days members of his socialist PASOK party have defected over austerity measures.

Please consider Greeks rage on austerity, aid deal seen delayed
Tens of thousands of angry Greeks massed in front of parliament on Wednesday in a sign of rising opposition to austerity and European officials said a new rescue deal for Athens might be delayed until next month.

Rising risks to the Greek budget plans and signs of deep divisions over the role private creditors should play in a new aid package pushed the euro to a two-week low against the dollar and sent bond yields of peripheral euro states spiraling up.

Doubts about the bloc's ability to solve its debt woes also hit European banking stocks.

Greek banks fell by as much as 7 percent on growing political uncertainty and shares in top French banks tumbled after credit ratings agency Moody's said it might downgrade them because of their exposure to Greece's debt-stricken economy.

Figures from the Bank for International Settlements to end-2010 show the exposure of French banks at 56.7 billion euros and those of German banks at roughly 34 billion euros when sovereign, bank and corporate debt holdings are included.

"Even if you look at the best case scenario, where we get parliamentary approval in Greece and the EU agrees a new aid package, you still have big medium-term issues," said Jacques Cailloux, an economist at RBS in London.

On Tuesday, a member of the prime minister's PASOK party defected over the plans, reducing his majority to 155 in the 300-seat parliament. Another party ally has promised to vote against the austerity.

Markets are overwhelmingly skeptical that Greece can ever repay its debt mountain, which has reached 340 billion euros or 150 percent of the country's annual economic output. Many expect a painful debt restructuring in the years ahead, regardless of what governments agree over the coming weeks.
With a slim and potentially vanishing majority, Papandreou is not in a position to be demanding much of anything. Indeed, his offer to resign with strings attached, increases the likelihood he will be forced out with no strings attached.

Much is happening in Europe today as the crisis escalates.

Emergency Session Fails: ECB Divorced From Reality; What is US Exposure to EU Mess?

Irish Finance Minister Flip-Flop: Yesterday Noonan Vowed to Screw Irish Taxpayers; Today Seeks Haircuts on Senior Irish Bonds; Lessons From Iceland

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List
Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Irish Finance Minister Flip-Flop: Yesterday Noonan Vowed to Screw Irish Taxpayers; Today Seeks Haircuts on Senior Irish Bonds; Lessons From Iceland

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 10:19 AM PDT

Irish finance minister Michael Noonan is one confused soul. Let's compare his position yesterday to his position today.

Yesterday, Bloomberg reported Noonan Says Greek Crisis to Be Resolved Without Credit Event.
Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan said European authorities will find resolution to the Greek debt crisis that isn't classed as a default.

"A satisfactory resolution will be brought about, which will not be a credit event," Noonan said in an interview on CNBC television in New York today. "But Ireland will be watching very closely."

The Irish government does not want a solution for Greece to amount to a "credit event" that could have a "contagion effect for Ireland," Noonan said. "We're totally different to Greece. We have our bank restructuring in place, we have our fiscal programs in place."
Pledge to Rape Irish Taxpayers

Those statements are tantamount to a pledge to rape Irish taxpayers. Is that what taxpayers voted for in the last election?

Noonan aims to target senior Anglo bondholders

Please consider Noonan aims to target senior Anglo bondholders
Finance Minister Michael Noonan has said Ireland will go to our European partners with a plan to impose significant losses on some senior bondholders in Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society.

He was speaking in Washington after meeting the IMF and the US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Mr Noonan said the Government will seek to impose losses on some senior bondholders in Anglo Irish Bank. He said that around €3.5 billion in senior unsecured, unguaranteed bonds issued by Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society should have losses imposed on them.

Mr Noonan said he had discussed this with the IMF, who supported the strategy.

The Finance Minister said these banks are no longer normal entities and are more like warehouses for bad debts. In that context, he would be going to our European partners to propose significant cuts in the money to be paid to the bondholders.
Pissy Starting Point

Bear in mind, €3.5 billion is a pissy starting point. Noonan should be seeking haircuts on a major portion of Irish debt.

Lesson of Iceland

The "Lesson of Iceland" is to screw the bondholders and get on with life.

Please consider Iceland's 'no bailout' stance hasn't chilled investors
Iceland's method of coping with the financial crisis had a brutal charm about it. In essence, the country hoisted its middle finger to the owners of bank bonds, and a few other people it owed money to, and walked away.

It worked. For evidence, note that Iceland made a triumphant return to the international bond markets late last week, and that its tiny economy is growing at a fair clip, both remarkable achievements when you consider its punishing economic and banking collapse in late 2008.

And therein lies a lesson. Make that two. The first is that bond holders of clapped out banks can, and should, take losses for the greater good of the recovery. The second is that keeping your own currency is a terrific idea when you're going through economic hell -- it gave Iceland the fiscal freedom that Greece, Ireland and Portugal entirely lack.

Iceland's sale of 5-year bonds raised $1-billion (U.S.) at 5 per cent, not cheap but a bargain compared to the outrageous yields of comparable Irish and Greek bonds (though neither is able to borrow and is relying on emergency European Union and International Monetary Fund loans stay afloat).

Given the way Iceland treated bondholders, it seems a miracle that the government was able to push the new bonds out the door. Three of Iceland's banks collapsed in October, 2008, shortly after the Lehman Bros. implosion tore the global financial system apart. Iceland refused to bail out the bank bond holders -- they took "haircuts," to use the argot of the debt markets.

Iceland determined that it was under no legal or moral obligation to underwrite the reckless behaviour of its commercial banks, whose assets soared to 10 times gross domestic product, making them grenades ready to explode. Ireland took the opposite view and guaranteed its banks, much to the rage of the taxpayers. As a result, Ireland's debt-to-GDP has climbed four-fold since the financial crisis.

Iceland also refused to compensate Britain and the Netherlands for reimbursing the more than 300,000 depositors of Icesave, one of Iceland's dud banks. The depositors should have received the money from the Icelandic government's depositor protection scheme, but the country did not have a kronor to spare (proceeds from the liquidation of Landsbanki are expected to meet much of the liability, which explains why Britain and the Netherlands, though angry, have not gone berserk).
Tale of Two Countries

Ireland is stuck in muck Iceland is in recovery. Noonan and Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, elected to do one thing, have done something else.

Both should be doing everything they can to lift the burden off Irish taxpayers and on to senior creditors where it belongs.

Today Noonan flip-flopped, but not in a major way, at least in terms of dollar amounts.

Noonan and Kenny are a disgrace to the voters who elected them.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List
Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Emergency Session Fails; Market Calls Trichet's Bluff; French Banks Under Downgrade Review; ECB Divorced From Reality; What is US Exposure to EU Mess?

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 02:21 AM PDT

The market is about ready to slap ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet smack across the face with a hard dose of reality regarding Greek debt restructuring.

Please consider Greek Rescue Package May Be Delayed by EU Disagreements on Investors' Role
An emergency session of finance ministers in Brussels late yesterday failed to reconcile a German-led push for bondholders to shoulder part of the cost of a new Greek aid package with European Central Bank warnings backed by France that the move might constitute the euro area's first sovereign default.

Yields on 10-year Greek bonds touched 17.46 percent yesterday, a record in the 17-nation euro area's history.

Finance ministers including Elena Salgado of Spain and Didier Reynders of Belgium stressed that any decision must satisfy the ECB's concerns. Luxembourg's Jean-Claude Juncker, who leads the group of euro-area finance ministers, said before the meeting that "all options" would be considered.

Germany and France, Europe's two biggest economies, are on opposite sides of the dispute, with France indicating backing for the ECB's view. While French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde has ruled out any action that constitutes a "credit event," her German counterpart, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, said June 10 that Europe's biggest economy "has to insist on the participation of the private sector" in Greece.

Schaeuble said yesterday's meeting produced "no result."

Greece's ports, banks, hospitals and state-run companies will grind to a halt today as the two biggest labor unions call the third general strike of the year to oppose Prime Minister George Papandreou's budget cuts and asset sales. About 1,000 protesters were demonstrating in front of the Parliament today.
ECB's Nuclear Bluff Revisited

Flashback May 19, 2011: ECB would reject Greek bonds after restructuring
Restructuring of sovereign debt in Greece would make it impossible for the European Central Bank to continue using its bonds as collateral in liquidity operations, Executive Board member Juergen Stark said.

"Sovereign debt restructuring would undermine the eligibility of Greek government bonds," an ECB spokesman quoted Stark as having said during a visit to Greece on Wednesday.

"A continuation of liquidity provision would be impossible."

ECB Executive Board member Lorenzo Bini Smaghi said on Wednesday that even a soft restructuring of Greek debt would have devastating consequences. He slammed talk of a so-called "soft restructuring" of Greek debt as "empty slogans."
Empty Slogans

The empty slogans are from the mouths of Trichet, Smaghi, Stark, Langarde, and all the clowns who insist restructuring is off the table when it clearly is on the table and in discussion now.

Does anyone think the ECB would hammer French banks and its own balance sheet by dumping Greek bonds and refusing to accept them as collateral? What would that do to banks stuck with them.

All such posturing can do is lower the value of them. Indeed, the cost of insuring Greek debt soared after Stark's statements.

Prepare for Downgrades of French Banks

Bloomberg reports BNP Paribas, Societe Generale Ratings May be Cut by Moody's on Greek Debt
BNP Paribas SA, France's biggest bank, and local rivals Societe Generale (GLE) SA and Credit Agricole SA (ACA) may have their credit ratings cut by Moody's Investors Service because of their investments in Greece.

Moody's placed the three banks' ratings on reviews that will focus on their holdings of Greek public and private debt "and the potential for inconsistency between the impact of a possible Greek default or restructuring and current rating levels," the ratings company said in a statement today.
Ex-IMF Chief Raghuram Rajan on "Containment"

Please consider Greece default fallout can be contained:ex-IMF chief economist
"One of the advantages of this long drawn-out crisis resolution process is that many private sector entities that were exposed to Greece have reduced their exposure," Rajan told reporters on the sidelines of an investment conference in Singapore.

"The extent to which banks in Europe are exposed to Greece is much more limited than it was, even say, six months or a year ago, and so the cost of a Greek default and restructuring could be absorbed by the banking sector," he said.

Rajan said a restructuring of Greece's debt looked increasingly probable as Athens lacked the political will to carry out widespread privatizations of state assets and budget tightening.

"If it (the debt restructuring) happens in a way that banks and markets are prepared for, even if not publicly but at least privately, it is very well containable," he said.
Containment Nonsense

The idea that restructuring will be contained to Greece is pure nonsense. Portugal and Ireland are on deck with Spain right behind.

What cannot be paid back won't, and that extends far beyond Greece.

Divorced From Reality

Reuters columnist James Saft's article Greek actors seek divorce from reality is an excellent summation of the current state of the Greek mess.
Greece, shut out of the capital markets, needs money, and soon, and is willing to play along with the fiction that the next tranche of aid, perhaps 90 billion euros, from the European Union, International Monetary Fund and ECB will buy them enough time.

The ECB, which is up to its eyeballs in exposure to Greek debt, steadfastly maintains that it won't countenance a soft restructuring, or default, presumably because it fears this will be too much for it, the banks, and the global financial markets to bear.

Germany, however, is insisting on just that; it maintains that the private sector will have to bear some of the costs, and while there is much discussion about "soft" restructurings featuring debt repayment extensions, no one has credibly explained how the private sector can take its lumps without it being considered a default.

The ECB has perhaps 40-50 billion euros' worth of Greek bonds on its balance sheet, and has lent about another 90 billion or so to Greek banks. It has threatened, in the event of a restructuring, to stop accepting Greek debt as collateral, a move that would be tantamount to cratering the entire Greek banking system at once. This would also deal sharp losses to the many euro zone national central banks which are exposed, potentially causing some to need additional capital.

By destroying the Greek bank sector, the ECB would, quite possibly, effect the exit of Greece from the euro zone. Depositors in Greek banks understand this, and have been withdrawing funds.

Given all of this, it seems likely that the ECB will relent, though in doing so they will seriously impair their credibility. And of course, as soon as Greece defaults, the eyes of the market would immediately turn to Portugal, Ireland and even Spain.

Rather than figuring out how to keep Greece upright without knocking over the banks, they would have been far better off figuring out how to actually make the banking system solvent and sound given Greek insolvency. That would involve huge private sector losses, inevitably, but might just have laid the groundwork for sustainable growth.

Instead we will have a sinking euro and waves of deflationary force coming out of Europe.
What is US Exposure to the EU Mess?

A pair of articles on The Street Light by Kash discusses Indirect US Exposure to the Euro Debt Crisis
As last week's new BIS data showed [see Betting On the PIGs], it appears that US banks indirectly have substantial exposure to the peripheral Euro-zone countries that are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Exactly what form that exposure takes is a bit uncertain, though it seems likely that much of it is in the form of credit default swaps (CDS) written by the US banks to provide insurance against default to the holders of bonds from Greece, Ireland, and Portugal.

But it's a bit frustrating not to have a clearer understanding of exactly what form this exposure takes. So I've been trying to see if there is any public information that can give us a hint about exactly how the big US banks have incurred such exposure.

Unfortunately, it's very difficult to get any good information about banks' derivatives exposures. The major US banks tend to downplay their exposure to the Euro debt crisis in their SEC filings.

In fact, B of A's direct exposure to Greece is listed at only about $500 million. But note that that is their direct exposure. What we learned from the BIS data is that they also have indirect exposures, which probably arise primarily through their credit derivatives purchases and sales.
Kash dives into the figures and it appears Bank of America made $9.1 billion through 12/31/2010 writing credit default swaps. But what is Bank of America's exposure to the Euro-Zone now? More importantly, what is the Greek exposure?

Kash writes ...
1. Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs are the most aggressive in terms of taking open positions on default outcomes. But we have absolutely no idea how much of those positions (if any) were with peripheral Euro assets. Also, while the last two firms don't break out income attributable to CDS activities (at least not that I could find), B of A made a huge portion of their profits in 2010 from them. (Note that Citi did not indicate how much of the CDS protection that they sold was covered by purchases of CDS insurance, so they may or may not be in that list as well.)

2. The aggregate CDS exposures of the big US banks are certainly large enough to be plausibly consistent with the BIS estimate of about $100 bn in indirect exposures to peripheral Europe. If you add up the highlighted numbers (and make a guess at Citi's position), it seems reasonable to guess that the total net open positions on CDS protection sold to third parties by the big US banks is between $1,500 and $2,000billion. Attributing $35 bn of that (about 2%) to Greece, which has certainly had one of the most active markets (proportionally) for CDS contracts over the past year, doesn't seem to be a stretch.

3. Banks do not have to provide much detail about the indirect credit exposures that they take on when they sell default insurance through the CDS market. We have incredibly scant information about the positions that US banks take through default insurance, and therefore no idea about how any individual bank will be affected by a Greek default.

Finally, a note about the risk this poses to the US banking system. The big US banks are well-capitalized now, and can fairly easily absorb losses of several billions of dollars in the event of a Greek default. But two serious concerns remain. First, I fear that this may have the potential consequence of exacerbating the flight to safety that will happen in the event of Greece's default; if you have no idea who is really going to be on the hook and ultimately liable for CDS payments, your best strategy may be to trust no one. I don't think that triggering post-traumatic flashbacks of the fall of 2008 is going to do good things to the market or the economy. Second, I wonder if there's a public relations disaster just lying in wait for the big US banks. After all, how will you feel (assuming you don't work on Wall Street) when you read the headline that Big Bank X lost money because it sold billions of dollars of credit default insurance while it was on taxpayer life-support? Rightly or wrongly, I'm guessing that Big Bank X will not be very popular for a while.
Bank of America Daily Chart



click on chart for sharper image

Is Bank of America collapsing under the weight of now imploding CDS positions, collapsing because of losses associated with Countrywide Financial, or collapsing because of general weakness in the banking sector?

Regardless, that is one pathetically weak stock. Contrast to JP Morgan.

JPMorgan Daily Chart



click on chart for sharper image

Bank of America is down about 30% from its recent high. In contrast JPMorgan is down about 12% and is essentially flat for the year.

The market clearly does not like something about Bank of America, but it's a guess about what that is.

Derivatives and Off Balance Sheet Mess

That we are guessing about such stuff is a testament to the pathetic nature of progress regarding bank structural reforms.

There has been no progress on mark-to-market accounting or on forcing off balance sheet SIVs and other garbage on bank balance sheets where it belong.

More Fundamental Question

Is writing CDS on Greek debt a core U.S. bank function? If not, why is Bank of America involved in this practice in the first place?

Banks should be banks, not leveraged-playthings with taxpayers taking the hit when things blow up, and bank executives making hundreds of millions of dollars when they don't.

When do we put an end to this nonsense?

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List
Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.
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