I´m Visiting The Epicenter Of The European Housing Bubble....

I´m off to the UK . I´ll probably back online in early March.

Ich werde die nächsten Tagen in UK verweilen. Denke das ich Anfang März wieder online sein werde.

Porsche draws on €10bn pre-crunch loan / Porsche führt Hausbanken vor

Lets hope that this won´t backfire at some point in the future...... But nevertheless the story is just too good to be ignored and i would have like to see into the bankers face during the moment he received the call from Porsche :-) . With daily news like this Dresdner offers $ 18.2 billion support to K2 SIV the action designed and powered by Porsche is hurting bank balance sheets....

Ich bin mir nicht sicher ob sich dieses Verhalten in Zukunft nicht noch einmal rächen wird...... In jedem Fall ist das ein Posting wert und ich hätte zugerne das Gesicht der zuständigen Bänker gesehen als Porsche den Kredit in Anspruch genommen hat..... :-) . Wenn man das ganze dann noch mit Meldungen wie dieser Dresdner offers $ 18.2 billion support to K2 SIV anreichert kann man sich leicht ausrechnen das Aktionen wie die von Porsche ganz besonders weh tun....

Porsche draws on €10bn pre-crunch loan FT
Porsche showed it has as much financial opportunism as the bankers who buy its sports cars on Wednesday when it drew down a standing €10bn ($14.7bn) credit line that was about to see time called on its highly favourable terms.

Like a sharp-eyed arbitrageur, the German sports carmaker has spotted that the huge shifts in risk appetite that have rocked the credit markets since last summer means it can earn more from low-risk investment now than it costs to borrow the money.

The move could spell trouble for banks, some analysts believe, because they already face significant constraints on their balance sheets and the availability of funding – particularly if many other companies have negotiated similarly easy credit lines.

“This has to be a worrying thing for the banks involved,” said one London-based analyst.

“If others are also doing this it will be adding an extra strain to banks balance sheets, on top of which you’d have to ask – does Porsche know what it is doing with the investments its going to make?”

Porsche declined to comment on how it would invest the proceeds of the loan. Originally, €35bn in credit was provided by a consortium of ABN Amro, Barclays Capital, Merrill Lynch, UBS and Commerzbank to finance a complete takeover of Volkswagen but Porsche deliberately made a low-ball offer designed to fail. However, it kept open the €10bn credit line to help it finance lifting its stake in VW from 31 per cent to more than 50 per cent.

Porsche agreed to pay interest of 20 basis points, or 0.2 percentage points, more than the euro interbank offered rate for the loan, which matures on June 27, according to Bloomberg.

The move is another example of Porsche’s use of financial trades to hunt for profit, which led to it last year making more than three times as much money – €3.6bn – from trading share options as it did from building cars.

Porsche also made large amounts of money from currency hedging earlier this decade and some analysts have suggested that it is behaving more like a hedge fund than a carmaker.

Although Porsche denied its action had any bearing on its plans for Volkswagen – which have been thrown into confusion by the German government proposing a law protecting Europe’s largest carmaker – it will give it a war-chest on top of its considerable cash reserves to buy further shares when it pleases.

Porsche führt Hausbanken vor
Der Autobauer Porsche düpiert die Banken in deren Kerngeschäft. Das Stuttgarter Unternehmen teilte mit, eine Kreditlinie von 10 Mrd. Euro voll auszuschöpfen, um das Geld nun "risikofrei" und "gut verzinslich" anzulegen. Damit hatten die Geldhäuser nicht gerechnet.

Eigentlich hatten die Banken den Schwaben den Kreditrahmen gewährt, um einen möglichen Kauf von VW-Aktien abzusichern. Mit dem Deal tummelt sich der Sportwagenhersteller erneut jenseits seines Hauptgeschäfts, um stattdessen auf dem Finanzmarkt Geld zu verdienen. Bereits im vergangenen Jahr hatte Porsche mit Optionsgeschäften auf VW-Aktien 3,6 Mrd. Euro Gewinn gemacht. Finanzchef Holger Härter hatte bei den damaligen Wetten auf den VW-Kurs die Spezialisten der Finanzbranche geschlagen.

Wenn Porsche die günstig geliehenen 10 Mrd. Euro nun zu besseren Konditionen anlegt, bereichert sich der Konzern schon wieder auf Kosten der Banken - darunter die Frankfurter Commerzbank. Die Experten der Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW) schätzen, dass Porsche mit einem Zinsvorteil von 0,2 bis 0,3 Prozentpunkten rechnen kann - was in einem Jahr einen Gewinn von 20 bis 30 Mio. Euro ergeben würde. "Geld leihen und anlegen ist eigentlich Bankgeschäft und gehört nicht originär zu einem Autohersteller. Aber Porsche hätte Geld verschenkt, wenn sie das nicht gemacht hätten", sagte LBBW-Analyst Frank Biller.

Allerdings könnte der Deal das Klima zwischen den Stuttgartern und ihren Hausbanken belasten. "Das kann sich nur ein sehr solides Unternehmen mit guten Beziehungen zu seinen Banken leisten", sagte Willem Sels, Leiter der Kreditanalyse von Dresdner Kleinwort.

Die von Porsche jetzt gezogene Kreditlinie war im Frühjahr 2007 ausgehandelt worden - vor dem Ausbruch der internationalen Finanzkrise. Damals waren die Konditionen deutlich günstiger. Offenbar nutzen derzeit neben Porsche auch andere Unternehmen die Möglichkeit, einstmals günstig ausgehandelte Kreditgarantien zum Nachteil der Banken zu verwenden. "Von Investoren war zu hören, dass es Firmen gibt, die das Gleiche tun", sagte Sels.

Leidtragende sind die Banken: Sie müssen den Unternehmen Kredite zu Billigkonditionen gewähren, am Kapitalmarkt aber sehr viel höhere Zinsen bieten, um an Geld zu kommen. Angesichts des scharfen Wettbewerbs um gute Firmenkunden können sich die Institute kaum dagegen wehren - juristisch ohnehin nicht, aber auch nicht durch Nachverhandlungen.

Der Kreditrahmen von Porsche lag ursprünglich bei 35 Mrd. Euro. ABN Amro, Barclays Capital, Merrill Lynch, UBS und die Commerzbank hatten die Kreditlinie arrangiert. Mit dem Geld sicherte Porsche sein Pflichtangebot für VW-Aktien ab, nachdem die Stuttgarter ihren Anteil an VW Ende März 2007 auf 31 Prozent erhöht hatten. Durch das Überschreiten der 30-Prozent-Schwelle war die Pflichtofferte zwingend. Mit einer rechtlich zwar korrekten, de facto aber viel zu niedrigen Offerte hatte Porsche das Pflichtangebot absichtlich scheitern lassen, um nicht viele Milliarden auf einen Schlag ausgeben zu müssen.

Weil der Autobauer die 35 Mrd. Euro schwere Kreditlinie damit nicht mehr benötigte, senkte man die Garantien auf 10 Mrd. Euro herab. Dabei handelte Porsche mit den Banken eine Umwidmung auf "allgemeine geschäftliche Belange" aus; dadurch war das Darlehen nicht mehr an den Kauf von VW-Aktien gebunden.

Porsche hält derzeit 31 Prozent an VW, hat sich aber mit Optionen den Kauf weiterer Anteile gesichert. Bisher gibt es noch keinen Aufsichtsratsbeschluss, über die 50-Prozent-Schwelle zu gehen. LBBW-Analyst Biller glaubt nicht, dass die nun angelegten 10 Mrd. Euro für den Kauf von VW-Anteilen genutzt werden: "Porsche wird den jährlichen und risikofreien Gewinn mitnehmen und sich gegebenenfalls einen neuen Kredit holen."

Bring On The Fire Sales....Whistlejacket one day from MTN default

Finally..... Somebody has to start..... Maybe someone should have told them that it isn´t a good strategy to fund long term maturities with short term debt..... If you combine this with leverage and often enough "questionable" assets you have a recipe for disaster.....

Hat ja auch lange genug gedauert..... Einer muß ja den Anfang machen..... Evtl. hätte denen mal einer sagen sollen das es selten gut geht langlaufende Anlagen mit kurzfristiegn Schulden zu finanzieren....... Wenn man das ganze dann auch noch mit einem zusätzlichen Hebel und häufig genug "fragwürdigen" Papieren mixt bekommt man unweigerlich einne wenig erfolgversprechende Mixtur ( fragt nach bei bei der IKB, West LB, Bayern LB, Sachen LB etc ).....

FT Alphaville So either they couldn’t make it work, or in the end they didn’t want to. Nine days ago, Standard Chartered withdrew the liquidity support promised (conditionally) to its $7bn Whistlejacket SIV, after the vehicle breached its net asset value trigger, and appointed a receiver, Deloitte.

The U-turn by the bank raised the prospect of the kind of rapid firesale - and subsequent contagion through spread-widening across the SIV sector - that banks such as HSBC and Citi have moved to avoid by taking their respective vehicles onto their balance sheets.

On Wednesday, though, Standard Chartered withdrew the proposals it had made to Deloitte to help avoid a wind down of Whistlejacket and expressed its disappointment that it had been “unable to find a viable solution to ensure flexibility for Whistlejacket due to these changes in circumstances.”

This is as a result of a number of factors, including the pace of continuing deterioration in the market for certain asset classes and the impracticality of completing any proposal within the confines of the receivership as it has evolved.

Oh dear. This looks doubly bad. Whistlejacket tripped its trigger because the value of its assets fell below 95 per cent of par - or 50 per cent of the face value of the notes after leverage - triggering automatic receivership and liquidation.
Standard Chartered was thought to have made two offers to Deloitte. Firstly that it could buy Whistlejacket’s assets as they mature and transfer them to a separate vehicle, which it would manage. That though is rather the status quo - and as asset values continue to fall would presumably merely transfer the problem to a new structured vehicle.

> BRILLIANT.......

The second option was that it could buy all of Whistlejacket’s assets at current market prices, which would allow investors to realise what remains of their investments and get them more than in the event of a firesale, but would presumably leave Standard Chartered entirely exposed to the downside of those assets going forwards.

Either way, continuing rapid falls in asset values was going to prove problematic. Moody’s latest update on the SIV sector in January showed how average NAVs had fallen precipitously, the average reaching 52.6 per cent last November. The deterioration has continued apace since then.

While Deloitte say that a firesale is not an option (”absolutely categorically no need“), and that is still seeking other solutions, time is getting tight. The receiver elected last Friday not to pay the medium term notes maturing that day. S&P lowered its rating on the notes to CCC-, and its issuer rating on Whistlejacket, as a result - and said that as the notes have a three-day grace period payment default will take place on Thursday 21. Or tomorrow.

> It looks like the statement via Ft Alphaville SIVs don’t rollover, they die isn´t far off the mark....... And the chart might give an impression what still needs to be refinanced......

> Es sieht so aus als wenn die Aussage von Ft AlphavilleSIVs don’t rollover, they die das ganze recht treffend zusammenfaßt.....Der nachfolgende Chart gibt einen ganz nettenn Überblick über die kommende Refinanzierungswelle die mehr denn je in den Sternen steht......

What A Difference A Week Made....Credit Suisse Discovers Another $ 2.85 Bilion "Fair Value Reduction"

As one who has listened to the entire conference call from Credit Suisse just one week ago i can assure you that this will spook the markets. Credit Suisse was besides Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs viewed as one of the big winners during the turbulence. But there was always doubt that their numbers might be too good to be true...... Credit Suisse is proving that this might be the case..... Should be very bad news for the confidence in the marketplace overall...... I assume the "arrogance" from the Credit Suisse management won´t be as obvious as during the last call...... Stock tanking 7 percent......

Als einer der sich vor einigen Tagen die Telefonkonferenz angehört at bin ich mir sicher das diese Meldung hohe Wellen schlagen wird. Bisher galt die Credit Suisse zusammen mit der Deutsche Bank und Goldman Sachs als einer der Gewinner der Marktturbulenzen. In der Vergangenheit sind immer wieder Zweifel aufgekommen ob "die Zahlen nicht zu gut sind um wahr zu sein" ...... Credit Suisse liefert hier eine Steilvorlage für diese Vermutung......Ich bin mir zudem sicher das die "Arroganz" von Seiten des Managements während der nächsten Telefonkonferenz sicher nicht wieder so ausgeprägt sein wird wie letzte Woche .... Aktie zur Eröffnung 7% tiefer......

Thanks to Randy Galsbergen

Credit Suisse Further to its commitment to provide transparency, Credit Suisse today announced that in connection with the operation of ongoing control processes, it has undertaken an internal review that has resulted in the repricing of certain asset-backed positions in its Structured Credit Trading business within Investment Banking.

The current total fair value reductions of these positions, which reflect significant adverse first quarter 2008 market developments, are estimated at approximately USD 2.85 billion (having an estimated net income impact of approximately USD 1.0 billion).

In the first quarter to date, we estimate we remain profitable after giving effect to these reductions. The final determination of these reductions will depend on further results of our review and continuing market developments. We will also assess whether any portion of these reductions could affect 2007 results. Finally, our internal review, which has identified mismarkings and pricing errors by a small number of traders in certain positions in our Structured Credit Trading business, is continuing.

> Here the Full Year Results from Feb. 12th & Webcast

Qatar was maybe a little bit premature....

Sieht ganz so aus als wenn einige Investoren heute leicht erhöhte Temperatur haben werden.....

Qatar fund buys Credit Suisse stake

The QIA’s move comes after Credit Suisse posted robust fourth-quarter results underscoring its resilience during the credit crisis,......

Stimulus Plan Humor

Have a nice weekend. Allen ein schönes Wochenende

Hat tip to Clay Jones

Thanks to Matt Davies


Thanks to Mike Keefe

Securitisation "Fear and loathing, and a hint of hope" Economist

Nice summary from the Economist. I´m pretty sure that lots of this financial alchemy will never return to the markets. At least for a few years........ ;-) . Here is an excellent take via Naked Capitalism Securitization Reform: Don't Hold Your Breath

Nette Zusammenfassung vom Economist. Bin mir sicher das wir einen Großteil dieser Finanzakrobatik demnächst nicht mehr ertragen müssen. Zumindest für einige Jahre..... ;-) . Hier ein extrem lesenswerter Artikel von Naked Capitalism Securitization Reform: Don't Hold Your Breath


Economist Not all is lost for the structured-finance business. But it faces further discomfort before it can start to recover some of its past sheen

The limits of gonzo finance
Securitisation has greatly enhanced the secondary market for loans, giving originators, mainly banks, more balance-sheet flexibility and investors of all sorts greater access to credit risk. Both have embraced it. By 2006 the volume of outstanding securitised loans had reached $28 trillion (see chart 1). Last year three-fifths of America's mortgages and one-quarter of consumer debt were bundled up and sold on.

Along the way, banks cooked up a simmering alphabet soup. The ingredients included collateralised-debt obligations (CDOs), which repackage asset-backed securities, and collateralised-loan obligations (CLOs), which do the same for corporate loans, as well as structured investment vehicles (SIVs) and conduits, which banks used to keep some of their exposure off their balance sheets.

The breakneck growth of this business went into reverse last summer, when it became clear that defaults would undermine the structures built around America's mortgage markets. So tarnished has the subprime-mortgage market become, because of shoddy loan underwriting and fraud, that investors are likely to shun securities linked to it for months if not years. Securitisation of better-quality “jumbo” mortgages—too big to be bought by government agencies—is also at a near-halt. “Mortgages were traditionally seen as very safe assets. Now all but the very best are stamped with a skull and crossbones,” says Guy Cecala, of Inside Mortgage Finance, a newsletter.

CDOs are unlikely to regain a following in a hurry (see chart 2). Still less popular are CDO-squareds (resliced and repackaged CDOs) and higher powers. CLOs have also been battered as the leveraged loans they are linked to have tumbled in value. However, their collateral is sounder than that backing subprime CDOs, being based on company financials rather than the blandishments of mortgage brokers.

The prospects for SIVs are bleaker still. SIVs borrow short-term to invest in long-dated assets; and investors will no longer tolerate such mismatches in vehicles shielded from standard banking regulation. With the disappearance of the SIVs' funding sources, notably asset-backed commercial paper, banks had to bring over $136 billion-worth onto their books. That comes on top of over $160 billion, so far, of subprime-related write-downs, over a third of which has come at three banks: Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and UBS.

Though few bankers worked in structured finance, it was a huge earner, accounting for 20-30% of big investment banks' profits before the crisis, according to CreditSights, a financial-research firm. Banks such as Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley, which bought or built mortgage-origination businesses to fuel the securitisation machine, have rushed to close or pare them. Merrill, whose fees from CDOs alone peaked at $700m in 2006, said recently that it would stop packaging mortgages altogether.

Alongside the banks, the “gatekeepers” who were supposed to lend stability and credibility to the new originate-and-distribute model of finance have also been found wanting. Rating agencies' models underplayed the risk that loans from different lenders and regions could turn sour at the same time. Bond insurers, too, misjudged the risks lurking in CDOs. That failing has undermined the worth of their guarantees and strained their own credit ratings—and hence financial markets.

George Miller, the ASF's executive director, accepts that this crisis of confidence will lead to a degree of “re-intermediation” for a time, as some banks go back to balance-sheet lending. But he insists that it highlights the dangers of lax lending standards in a particular market rather than fundamental faults in securitisation itself.

A study by NERA, an economic consultancy, commissioned by the ASF before the crunch, offers some support for this view. Preliminary results, based on data from 1990 to 2006, suggest that increased securitisation leads to lower spreads in consumer credit and softens interest-rate shocks for banks, especially smaller ones. On the other hand, in a recent paper two economists at the University of Chicago's business school conclude that securitisation encouraged mortgage originators to lend to dodgy borrowers.

Stresses and strains
What is not in doubt is that the subprime crisis has exposed four deep flaws in the practice of securitisation. The first is that by severing the link between those who scrutinise borrowers and those who take the hit when they default, securitisation has fostered a lack of accountability.

A debate has been rumbling over how to ensure that lenders have more “skin in the game”. Some think they should set aside a sliver of capital even for loans they sell on. Andrew Davidson, a structured-finance consultant, suggests an “origination certificate”, guaranteeing the quality of the underwriting, issued by the lender and broker, which stays with the loan. Alex Pollock of the American Enterprise Institute thinks that securitisers should be required to guarantee the quality of their loan pools, as are America's government-sponsored mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Others counter that most such exposures can be neutralised these days through derivatives markets.

The second flaw is the sheer lack of understanding of some instruments. Not long ago investors took too much on trust. They are now clamouring for more “transparency”. Some want a central trade-quoting facility for lumpy asset-backed products: regulators have approached the New York Stock Exchange. CME Group, which runs the world's largest futures exchange, is also looking to expand its clearing of over-the-counter securities.

Yet reams of information already accompany mortgage-backed securities sold in public markets. Even SIVs provide a steadier stream of data to investors than most of the banks backing them. So some interpret calls for greater disclosure as whimpering by investors who did not do their homework.

However, more information about the performance of loans after origination would help, particularly those in leveraged structures such as CDOs. This opens up opportunities: fewer banks were at the ASF conference this year, but more data-analytics firms turned up. Clayton, the largest mortgage-surveillance company, unveiled a partnership with Experian, an information-services firm, that will help mortgage-servicers to package subprime loans for modification under a plan backed by the ASF and America's Treasury. Later, it hopes to offer a swathe of data to buyers of structured products.

Understanding the underlying assets is, or should be, at the core of securitisation. Securitisation is really an arbitrage: with surplus collateral, assets can be bundled into an entity with a supercharged credit rating. But if investors fail to spot the jiggery-pokery with credit scores and the outright fraud that permeated the subprime market, that cushion of safety quickly disappears. Witness the speed with which losses have spread into supposedly safe, “super senior” tranches of CDOs.

This points to the third flaw: that some securities were poorly structured, often because their risks were not fully understood. The upper layers of a well-designed securitisation vehicle should be all but impervious to loss. But poorly structured deals, like those stuffed with subprime and marginally less iffy “Alt-A” loans in 2006 and early 2007, have crumbled as the weakness of the collateral becomes clear.

The fourth flaw was the market's over-reliance on ratings as a short cut to assessing risk. In the go-go years, people wrongly assumed that an AAA-rated mortgage bond—even one with a high yield—would never lose value. But the rating agencies, paid for their appraisals by the seller not the buyer, were compromised from the start. Moreover, their quantitative models appear to have ignored “fat-tail” risks—the possibility that large losses are likelier than standard statistical models predict.

Though the agencies do not have to suffer giant write-downs, they have paid a high price. Before the market imploded, almost half the revenue of Moody's, a leading agency, came from structured finance. Now the agencies are revising their rating criteria in a bid to head off tougher regulation. “Either deals get less complex or we have to find a better shorthand for measuring risk,” says Ron Borod of Brown Rudnick, a law firm. The rating agencies say they were never supposed to substitute for investors' own due diligence. That is disingenuous, given their past self-assuredness. Still, wise investors will take future ratings with a pinch of salt, as most hedge funds have long done.

As the market grapples with change, some is likely to be imposed from above. Separately, international regulators and the President's Working Group (comprising America's Treasury, the Federal Reserve and others) are looking into securitisation's part in the crisis. By co-operating over loan modifications, the ASF may have gained favour with the working group.

The industry is more worried about two bills in America's Congress. Securitisers can live with much of the one that has been passed by the House of Representatives. What alarms them is an “assignee liability” provision that would hold them partly responsible for lax lending by originators. This, they say, would send a chill through secondary markets, cutting credit to thousands of worthy borrowers. Precedent is on their side. Georgia introduced assignee liability, only to back-pedal after the state's subprime market started to seize up. Not all bankers are against it: in Las Vegas, Bianca Russo of JPMorgan Chase argued that some form of it was needed to counter the perception, if not the reality, that securitisation was harmful.

The other bill would allow bankruptcy judges to alter the terms of struggling borrowers' mortgages. The industry argues that this would be an intolerable violation of the sanctity of loan-pooling contracts. In addition, securitisers face probes by several state attorneys-general, the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department, as well as lawsuits from investors and a rising number of stricken municipalities.

Bankers will tell you that the subprime meltdown was just that: the product of irresponsible lending to, and borrowing by, flaky consumers, not a broader crisis of securitisation. Maybe, but the severity of the credit crunch points to broader pain ahead. More will come from housing: much of the 30-40% of American home-equity loans that have been securitised looks wobbly, as does a growing chunk of the $800 billion of Alt-A paper outstanding. Loans for offices are an even bigger worry. The spread on the AAA tranche of an index tracking bonds backed by commercial mortgages has tripled since the turn of the year. New issuance is frozen.

Trouble is also brewing for securities tied to non-mortgage consumer assets, such as credit-card debt, car loans and student loans, which make up a good slice of the asset-backed market (see chart 3). Credit-card delinquencies are creeping up as the economy turns down. The sharp slowdown in card borrowing, reported recently by the Fed, will mean less raw material for securitisation. Standards for car loans dropped in 2006-07, though not as dramatically as they did for mortgages.

One ominous sign is that structured instruments tied to student loans are coming unstuck, although the loans typically carry a federal guarantee. Recent auctions of such securities by Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and others have failed. Normally the banks would have bought in whatever did not sell. But they have declined, because they dare not cram even more assets onto their already strained balance sheets.

Yet securities of these types should be more resilient than those tied to subprime loans. Their structures are tried and tested, having evolved, along with performance data in their markets, over many years. In contrast, subprime mortgages with only a short record were shoved into many-layered structures that depended on house prices holding up. “They started from the other end entirely, asking how can we create CDOs, backed by mortgage-backed securities, themselves backed by collateral with barely any history, and their stress tests assumed house prices would be stable and the loans in the pools uncorrelated,” says Mr Borod.

Encouragingly, credit-card receivables are still being bundled and sold. There are even shoots of hope in the mortgage market, thanks to a refinancing mini-boom in the wake of interest-rate cuts—though most new deals are backed by the giant agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, not Wall Street (see chart 4).

> A reader points correctly out that this comment from the Economist could easily come from "the Socialist"

> Ein Leser weist mich zurecht darauf hin, das dieser Passus eher dem"Sozialisten" und nicht dem "Economist" gut zu gesicht stehen würde.

"Also, I don't see it as "encouraging" that debt risk is being concentrated in the GSEs, with their implied taxpayer guarantees. Especially now that they've upped the conforming limit. This is just another variation of socialized costs."

Thanks/Danke !
Saunter down the strip
It is also worth remembering that securitisation has not been confined to consumer and corporate loans. In the past decade financial engineers have found ways to package and sell tobacco-settlement and mutual-fund fees, sports and fast-food franchise rights, life-insurance premiums, intellectual property, music royalties and much more. Hollywood studios use securitisation to help finance film-making. With intangible assets accounting for an ever-growing share of corporate value, this trend looks likely to continue.

That may be scant consolation to the banks whose bets have gone so spectacularly wrong. Their fingers are still being singed by mortgage-backed securities and CDOs that continue to burn. Those hoping for a recovery face a long wait, maybe 18 months or more for out-of-favour collateral such as non-agency mortgages. Some once-enthusiastic cheerleaders are turning gloomy: Bear Stearns said recently that its net short position on subprime loans and bonds had risen to $1 billion. Others are redeploying staff and capital to fee businesses that don't put a strain on the balance sheet, such as merger advice.

But it would be a mistake to write the obituary of structured finance. Even its sternest critics accept that securitisation has brought real economic benefits, and that it would be wrong to throw away the whole barrel because of a few subprime apples. Some students of financial innovation think the market will come back even more inventive after scorching its less attractive pastures. “As with past forest fires in the markets, we're likely to see incredible flora and fauna springing up in its wake,” says Andrew Lo, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Laboratory for Financial Engineering.

So it may just be a matter of hanging on. As any punter in Las Vegas will tell you, every losing streak ends eventually, if you can only stay solvent for long enough.

I Want My Buyback Back ..."Daimler Edition"

Look at the chart what $ 3.5 billion have done for the stock.... They bought at an average price close to € 70...... This adds up to a loss of € 750.000.0000 in just 6 month..... Needless to say that they bought close to historic highs for the stock and the "return to sharholders" is a whopping negative 21 percent....... With the next € 4 billion now ready to "maximize share holder value" the averaging down can begin.......

Seht Euch den Chart an was satte 3,5 Mrd € zur Performance beigetragen haben....... Daimler hat zum Durchschnittskurs von 70 € zugekauft...... Das ganze sumiert sich binnen 6 Monaten mal eben zu einer Wertvernichtung von 750.0000.000 €...... Überflüssig zu erwähnen das ein Großteil der Käufe nahe der historischen Höchststände der Aktie praktiziert worden ist und die anvisierte Optimierung zugunsten der Aktionäre hat mit minus 21 Prozent nicht ganz die Erwartungen erfüllt....Mit den nächsten 4 Mrd € kann das Verbilligen jetzt ja losgehen........

Share buyback program Daimler

In order to optimize its capital structure, the Group initiated a share buyback program in August 2007. In this context, it was announced that up to €7.5 billion would be applied to buy back nearly 10% of the company’s own shares. By the middle of December 2007, 50 million shares had been acquired for €3.5 billion. These shares were canceled by the end of the year. The share buyback program will be continued today.

At least they hadn´t to issue new debt to finance this "smart" move.....

Immerhin muß Daimler im Gegensatz zu anderen diese Transaktion nicht mit neuen Schulden finanzieren....

IKB Bailout Hatrick

Click here to read my earlier rants on the IKB mess.... Here comes another good rant from the FT Let it fail, Mitteleuropa edition

Klickt bitte here um sich meine vorherigen Tiraden zur IKB anzusehen.... Hier als Nachschlag noch ein deftiger Kommentar der FT Let it fail, Mitteleuropa edition

Comment from the anual report before the troube began.....

Auszug aus dem Konzerngeschäftsbericht 2006/07 der IKB / PDF als die Welt noch in Ordnung war ......

The capital released through our securitisation activities over recent years has been used to expandour national and international lending business. Additionally, the capital has also been used to investing international loan portfolios. Two thirds of our investments are focused on US investment-gradeportfolios (including, for example, credit card claims,mortgage loan claims and corporate loans), with theremaining third being invested in similarly structured European portfolios.

Das durch die Verbriefung während der letzten Jahre freigesetzte Kapital haben wir für die Ausweitung unseres nationalen und internationalen Kreditgeschäftes genutzt. Darüber hinaus haben wir dieses Kapital verwendet, um in internationale Kreditportfolien zu investieren. Unsere Investments konzentrieren sich zu zwei Dritteln auf mindestens Investmentgrade-geratete US-Portfolios (wie zum Beispiel Kreditkartenforderungen, Hypothekenkreditforderungen sowie Unternehmenskredite) sowie zu einem Drittel auf europäische Portfolien mit ähnlichen Strukturen.

This "adventure" combined with incompetence from the board, management and oversight has cost the German taxpayer now close to € 7 billion....... It´s almost like MBIA, Ambac & Co that earned easy money with their muni bond insurance and got greedy..... IKB was once the leading German Mittelstandsbank with superior knowledge and a very high reputation. But they have decided to leave their core business....

Dieser "Ausflug" kombiniert mit totaler Inkompetenz vom Management, Aufsichtsrat und der Aufsicht hat den deutschen Steuerzahler mal eben die Kleinigkeit von 7 Mrd € gekostet......Man kann das wohl mit MBIA, Ambac & Co vergleichen die ebenfalls auf einer Art Gelddruckmaschine saßen und dann zu gierig wurden und den Bereich der öffentlichen Anleihen verlassen haben. Die IKB war einst die führende Mittelstandsbank in Deutschland mit erstklassiger Expertise und einem ausgezeichneten Ruf. Nachdem man sich entschieden hat anstelle des Mittelstandes lieber waghalsige US Hypotheken und Konsumenten zu unterstützen sollte der tiefe Fall nicht weiter überraschen. Schade nur das für Banken offenbar andere Maßstäbe als für die restlichen Branchen gelten......

NYT FRANKFURT — The German government said on Wednesday that it would participate in a third bailout of IKB Deutsche Industriebank, the lender whose near-collapse in July heralded the arrival in Europe of the crisis stemming from the faltering subprime mortgage market in the United States.

The German finance minister, Peer Steinbrück, said in Berlin that the federal government would contribute two-thirds of a rescue package totaling 1.5 billion euros ($2.2 billion). The question of where the remaining euros would come from was open, he said, but a government spokesman said that private banks were expected to contribute.

Mr. Steinbrück spoke after a lengthy meeting of the board of KfW, the state-owned bank that is the largest shareholder in IKB.

The rescue package aims to resolve the problems at IKB, based in Düsseldorf, which was once a conservative corporate bank but became a global symbol of risky excess.

Like many banks, IKB speculated in securities linked to American mortgages. But the market value of those investments has fallen significantly, forcing KfW, which owns 38 percent of the bank, and a consortium of private banks, to recapitalize the lender.

As it became clear that IKB was close to using all of the 5.65 billion euros previously committed to cover losses, discussions began about how to permanently rescue the bank. .....

KfW primarily focuses on development projects abroad and selected lending programs in Germany. It has been able to finance previous rescues of IKB — the last one was in late November — from its existing resources, but needed more money from Berlin to both support IKB and keep up its other work.

The prospect of direct state support for IKB generated cries that the banking industry, having profited from speculation in subprime-linked securities, was now handing the German taxpayer the bill for its losses.

Bund stützt IKB mit Staatsgeld FTD

Steuerzahler müssen IKB retten FAZ

Staat pumpt erneut Milliardensumme in IKB Handelsblatt

Irish Property Crashes / Bubble World Tour

Together with Spain & UK Ireland is the posterchild for the housing bubble in Europe. It looks like the next hangover won´t be caused from Guiness.......

Zusammen mit Spanien & UK ist Irland unzweifelhaft die Speerspitze des europäischen Immobilienwahnsinns. Sieht so aus als wenn der nächste Kater nicht vom Guiness kommen wird.....

Global Property Guide The Irish property crash is worsening. Prices paid for second-hand apartments in Dublin fell by as much as 17% in 2007, and house prices in Dublin dropped by an average of 10% on the year, according to a review by the Irish Auctioneers and Valuers Institute (IAVI) (However Sherry Fitzgerald, an agent, reports a more moderate fall of 6.8% in 2007 on second-hand Dublin properties).

In the new apartment market, developers have been giving away cars, bathroom and kitchen suites in a vain effort to hold up prices. That is now starting to crack, as in January, two developers dropped prices 20% on two different developments. .....

Previously, house prices in Ireland had risen further and faster than those of any other country for which figures are reported, except Estonia, having risen for 17 years without a break.

Since 1996, when the surge began in earnest, national house prices rose from €75,000, to €287,664 (end-2006), i.e., a rise of 283% in nominal terms. House prices in Dublin rose even more during the same period, with a 366% rise from €82,400 (1996) to €384,247 (end-2006).

These price rises had one major explanation, the exceptional growth of the Irish economy. In 2006, Ireland experienced 5.6% real GDP growth, and 6.5% real GNP growth. Ireland’s economic growth has been way beyond EU average growth. Ireland experienced average GDP growth of 9.8% during the six years 1995-2000, with no less than 10.7% real GDP growth achieved in 1999, and 11.7% in 1997. Unemployment has fallen from 15% in the early 1990s, to around 4.4% today. There will be an estimated 4.75% GDP growth in 2007, with 3.25% growth forecast for 2008 (Central Bank Bulletin Q4 2007). Inflation is significant, at 4.9% for 2007.

There are two key causes of the slowdown:

Interest rates have risen in tandem with the rest of the Eurozone, moving from 2.25% in December 2005, to 4.0% in June 2007.

Yields across Ireland have averaged 3.1%, according to the most recently bi-annual Daft Report (update expected February). These yields are comparatively speaking very low.

There has also been significant overbuilding. The numbers of dwellings completed has risen very sharply, more than doubling from 30,000 in 1995 to nearly 81,000 in 2005. A third of current housing stock has been built since 1992. During 2007, the stock of houses for sale rose 62%, and transaction volumes fell drastically, according to the most recent Daft report.

The developers have responded, and in 2007 the number of new homes started fell 47% compared with last year. For December, only 925 new homes were registered, down 60% on the same month a year earlier - the lowest monthly figure since records began in 1995.

Gross yields in Dublin are somewhat higher than elsewhere in Ireland, at around 4%. Is this a crisis level?

Readers will know that the Guide gets uncomfortable when yields drop below 5%, significantly uneasy at 4%, and really worried by yields dropping to 3%.

In much of Ireland, current yields levels are at levels which worry us.

True, Ireland is a stable developed country (historical yield figures are unavailable, so it is hard to see whether there has been significant yield compression), its growth and stability justifies somewhat low yields. Central Dublin’s per square meter prices of €3,750 to €5,000 are also high, but arguably not perilously so.

But such low yields make a market very exposed when interest rates rise, especially when the market is largely floating rate. And interest rates have risen – and the market has responded.

Most mortgage loans are variable interest rate (78%). Most fixed-interest mortgages are for periods less than three years (60% of the total). Such high proportions of variable and short-term fixed rates are inherently dangerous.

ECB To The Rescue....... Bubble World Tour : Spain

No wonder why gold is shining...... I suggest to read ECB A Dumping Ground for Financial Toxic Waste from Lee Adler and especially to watch the video to understand that this kind of collateral is indeed way too often "toxic".....

Kein Wunder das Gold sich trotz zwischenzeitiger $ Stärke weiter gen Norden stürmt..... Ich empfehle zudem noch ECB A Dumping Ground for Financial Toxic Waste von Lee Adler zu lesen sowie zwingend den Clip anzusehen. Sieht so aus als wenn diese Hypotheken zum Teil jetzt bei der EZB lagern......


Spanish banks' reliance on ECB funding surges FT
The European Central Bank has in effect funded new lending in Spain in recent months, replacing banks' use of wholesale capital markets, which have been strangled by the global credit crunch.

Spanish banks doubled their share of the ECB's weekly funding auctions in the final quarter of last year, taking their borrowing up to €44bn ($64bn) in December from a running average of about €20bn over the previous 15 months, according to the most recent data from the Bank of Spain.

This extra lending of almost €24bn outstrips the quarterly amounts raised previously by Spanish banks from securitisation markets, which is an important comparison because the banks have increasingly used mainly mortgage-backed securities as collateral with the ECB.




The market for securitised debt and for mortgage-backed bonds in particular has been almost entirely shut since the credit crunch hit last summer and investors began shunning all kinds of complex, structured debt.

The Spanish banking system is second only to the UK in Europe in its use of mortgage-backed bond markets and other securitisations to fund lending.

However, the Bank of England did not accept mortgage-backed debt as collateral in similar lending operations until after the run on Northern Rock.

Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the ECB, last week insisted the central bank had not been bailing out banks in Spain, but said that there had been a marked increase use of securitised bonds as collateral by Spanish banks and others.

Bank of England lending to UK banks grew by about £6.2bn over the same period, but there is no data on the collateral used. In the US, the Federal Home Loan Bank has pumped $750bn into the system by extending longer-term funding direct to mortgage lenders, such as Countrywide.

The big difference is that European banks must re-raise this funding every week and the mortgage- backed bonds pledged at the ECB eventually will have to find their way to the capital markets, which many analysts believe could mean that markets such as Spain are potentially storing up problems for the future.

While markets for securitised debt remain closed, it is difficult to put a price on European mortgage-backed securities and banks in the region can be much slower to mark down the value of holdings of such bonds. By accepting them in exchange for cash, the ECB may be delaying the repricing of risk that analysts believe is necessary for the orderly resumption markets in such debt.

"The credit markets have been on heroine and while the US solution is put them through cold turkey, the Europeans want to put them on methadone," said one London-based economist.

> Toro has some more thoughts & data on spain

> Toro hat noch weitere Gedanken und Detail zum Thema Spanien

IKB Bailout Now Topping € 8 Billion

Another day, another frustrating event in the German banking sector. One day after the € 5 billion West LB fiasco the IKB is hitting the news once again with another € 2 billion risk that needs to be stuffed mainly through the state owned KfW ( already on the hook for € 5 billion and with close to 40 percent the major shareholder ). There are talks to get more money from commercial German banks ( so far € 500 Mio ) but i doubt that they will step in and provide this kind of incompetence any further. The situation has gotten so worse that the KfW / Pdf is in danger to run out of money to provide the German Mittelstand with financing...... Here is more on the IKB saga....

Ein neuer Tag und natürlich eine neue Hiobsbotschaft aus dem Reich der Inkompetenz. Ein paar Tahe nach dem 5 € Mrd West LB fiasco schickt sich die IKB an erneut 2 Mrd. € an Steuergeldern zu vereinnahmen um den längst fälligen Niedergang aufzuhalten. Wie bei den bereits bisher zugesagten Summen ist auch hier die KfW / Pdf und damit der Steuerzahler wohl für fast die gesamte Summe verantwortlich. Inzwischen ist die Lage aber selbst bei der KfW so angespannt das hier Finanzierungslücken im ursprünglichen Geschäft der KfW drohen. Bleibt zu hoffen das zumindest der deutsche Mittelstand nicht noch mehr darunter zu leiden hat das ein paar unfähige Herren bei IKB ( im Zusammenhang mit Aufsichtsrat und Aufsichtsbehörden ) im großen Stile wahnwitzige US Hypothekenfinanzierungen ermöglicht haben.......Hier ein paar ältere Posts zur IKB.

Dank an Hartgeld

Handelsblatt FRANKFURT. Die angeschlagene Mittelstandsbank IKB braucht erneut eine milliardenschwere Kapitalspritze, um das Überleben der Bank zu sichern und die Kapitalbasis zu stärken. „Die Situation ist kritisch“, sagte ein Insider. Es gehe um ein drittes Rettungspaket in Höhe von bis zu 1,75 Mrd. Euro.

Noch gebe es aber keine Einigung der Beteiligten: "Alles ist im Fluss." Am Mittwoch tagt Finanzkreisen zufolge der 37-köpfige Verwaltungsrat der KfW, die mit rund 38 Prozent der größte Anteilseigner der IKB ist.

Das neue Rettungspaket ist Finanzkreisen zufolge aktuell Gegenstand von Verhandlungen zwischen KfW, der mit knapp zwölf Prozent beteiligten Stiftung Industrieforschung sowie den privaten Banken, die im Bundesverband deutscher Banken (BdB) organisiert sind. Unklar sei aber, ob nicht auch der Bund einspringen müsse. So spreche die KfW auch mit der Regierung über eine mögliche Unterstützung. Grundsätzlich reiche das Eigenkapital der KfW zwar aus, um entsprechend ihrem Anteil die IKB erneut zu retten, hieß es. Seit der letzten Unterstützungsaktion nähere sich der Kapitalbedarf aber der Grenze, ab der es nicht mehr hundertprozentig auszuschließen sei, dass die IKB -Krise den Eigenkapitalanteil, mit dem die ERP-Mittelstandsprogramme abgesichert sind, berühren könnte. Der Bund solle sicherstellen, dass dies nicht passieren könne.

Vorsitzender des Verwaltungsrats der KfW ist seit Jahresbeginn Bundeswirtschaftsminister Michael Glos (CSU). Das Wirtschaftsministerium wollte sich auf Anfrage nicht zur neuerlichen IKB -Krise äußern. Auch IKB, BdB und KfW lehnten eine Stellungnahme ab.

Die IKB war wegen milliardenschwerer Engagements im US-Subprime-Markt in die Krise geraten und konnte im Juli vergangenen Jahres nur durch das Eingreifen der deutschen Kreditwirtschaft vor dem Zusammenbruch gerettet werden. Seither wurden der Düsseldorfer Bank Garantien über sechs Mrd. Euro gewährt, rund fünf davon trägt die staatliche KfW. Der BdB kommt auf etwa eine halbe Mrd. Euro, auch Sparkassen und Genossenschaftsbanken sind beteiligt. Diese hatte aber bereits nach der letzten Rettungsaktion klar gemacht, für weitere Hilfen nicht zur Verfügung zu stehen. Als privates Institut wäre bei einem Zusammenbruch der BdB rein formal - neben den Eigentümern - ohnehin in der Hauptverantwortung.

Finanzkreisen zufloge wäre eine Pleite der IKB mittlerweile günstiger, als die langwierige und aufwändige Rettung des Institut. Aus politischen Gründen sei dies jedoch nicht akzeptabel. "Es wäre ein sehr schlechtes Zeichen für die Märkte, wenn eine deutsche Bank pleite geht", sagte ein Insider.

€ 5 billion Taxpayer Baliout for West LB........€ 23 Billion "Outsourced" In Special Conduit......

Paulson, Bernanke, King & Co have every reason to be jealous....No sovereign wealth funds or orchestrated takeovers like CFC/BAC needed....We have the German taxpayer to bail this stupid bankers, the non existent boards & oversight out....Make sure you read the summary of German banking incompetence to get a grip how disastrous the situation is. I assume when you combine all the guarantees, fresh capital etc backed by the "German taxpayer" it would be easily enough to kick UBS from 3rd place in the ranking of the biggest write downs so far.....

Paulson, Bernanke, King & Co platzen sicher vor Neid.... Nur gut das wir keine Ölscheichs und Staatsfonds benötigen... Der deutsche Steuerzahler ist stets zu diensten um vollkommen amoklaufende Bänker, überforderte Aufsichtsräte und eine Bankenaufsicht die Ihren Namen nicht verdient hat rauszuhauen..... Wer sich das ganze Ausmaß ansehen möchte der sollte mal einen Blick auf die Zusammenfassung der Inkompetenz werfen. Ich vermute das wenn man alle von Staatsseite unterlegten Rettungspakete zusammenadiert es reichen sollte der in dieser traurigen Rangliste der UBS konkurrenz zu machen .

West LB

The owners of WestLB AG have reached an agreement to ring-fence substantial risks in the Bank´s structured portfolios. Securities with a nominal volume of roughly € 23 billion will be ring-fenced off the Bank´s balance sheet in a special purpose vehicle.

The financing of the special purpose vehicle will be secured by a guarantee from the owners of up to € 5 billion to cover any payment defaults. The owners will meet any possible losses from these securities portfolios in line with their shareholdings in WestLB up to an amount of € 2 billion, in compliance with their statement of January 20, 2008. Any further losses up to € 3 billion will be borne by the State of North Rhine-Westphalia

West LB

Die Eigentümer der WestLB AG haben beschlossen, die Bank von wesentlichen Risiken aus ihren strukturierten Portfolien zu befreien. Dazu werden die Papiere in einem Volumen von etwa nominal 23 Mrd. € in einer Zweckgesellschaft außerhalb der Bank gebündelt

Die Finanzierung der zu gründenden Zweckgesellschaft wird durch eine Garantie der Eigentümer für tatsächliche Zahlungsausfälle in Höhe von bis zu 5 Mrd. € bgesichert. Die Eigentümer tragen etwaige Verluste aus diesen Wertpapierportfolien entsprechend ihren Anteilen an der WestLB bis zur Höhe von 2 Mrd. € in Erfüllung ihrer Erklärung vom 20.1.2008. Darüber hinaus gehende Verluste von bis zu 3 Mrd. € werden vom Land NRW getragen

Quote December West LB related to the SIV / Zitat Dezember West LB

“We are also convinced that the assets that Kestrel and Harrier have could be more highly valued, but that the market is not ready for that.”

LOL!!!!

WestLB Owners Agree to Bailout as Bank Seeks a Merger Bloomberg

Steuerzahler muss für WestLB-Rettung bluten FT Deutschland

A new monoline exposure for banks: CLO negative basis trades

Another day another problem for banks, "pirate equity" and financials...... It feels like more and more pillars of the "alchemy of finance" are crumbling down.....

Ein neuer Tag und mal wieder neue Probleme für Banken, "Pirate Equity" und Finanzwerte im allgemeinen.... Es sieht so aus als wenn immer mehr Pfeiler der "Finanzalchemie" beginnen wegzubrechen....

FT Alphaville Banks’ exposures through bond insurers, or monolines, is far from limited to mortgage-related MBS and muni bonds. There’s a third big exposure - to leveraged buyout loans - that banks will have to deal with if monolines hit the rocks.

Negative basis trades have been around for a while. A bank buys a bond - say it’s AAA - and then it takes out a CDS against that bond with a monoline. Since spreads in the CDS market for such tranches have been typically much lower than in the cash market, the bank pockets the difference.

But as well as banks’ much-dissected CDO exposures, there have been two other big markets for that kind of trade: on infrastructure bonds and - most interestingly - in structured finance, on CLOs (collateralised loan obligations) - CLOs being the vehicle of choice in which to park massive buyout loans.

Monolines, of course, are no longer in a position to be writing new contracts for banks to use as one half of their negative basis trades. The consequence of that has been that banks have stopped buying AAA tranches of CLOs. Unable to sell those, CLOs have faltered and banks in turn, have found themselves with lots of big buyout loans stuck on their books. No new financing is available for private equity deals.

According to Euroweek, 90 per cent of all CLO AAA-tranches have been bought and then wrapped in negative basis trades. Which begs a second question. What of all the AAA CLO and infrastructure paper that banks already have on their books? None of it, of course, shows up as exposures in filings because, net, there is no exposure. Assuming, of course, your CDS counterparty is safe. Err…

> Deutsche Bank was very optimistic in yesterdays call to unload all the € 21 bln loans with no losses. They argue that the quality of the loans is high and that it is and has always been the policy from Deusche to take 10 percent of the structured loans onto their books to signal that they have full confidence in their underwriting standarts. I think they are way too optimistic.....

> Die Deutsche Bank has sich gestern in der Analystenkonferenz extrem optimistisch gezeigt das sie die knapp 21 Mrd € an Unternehmenskrediten die sich in Folge des Private Equity Übernahmewahnsinns angehäuft haben ohne Verluste weiterreichen kann. Argumentiert wird das die Qualität hoch sei und das es seit jeher Politik der Deutcshen Bank ist jeweils 10 % der so strukturierten Verkäufe in die eigenen Bücher zu nehmen. Damit soll unterstrichen werden das man vollstest Vertrauen in die Kreditprüfung hat. Löblich...... Denke trotzdem das hier sicher noch einige gewaltige Abschreibungen kommen werden.

Even if monolines don’t crash and burn, banks will still have to make writedowns on these trades. As the value of the CDS written by the monoline decreases, so, too, will banks exposure to CLOs, and through them LBOs, have to increase. And higher exposures will also, of course, put pressure on capital.

And one final point: having set up one negative basis trade, it hasn’t been uncommon for banks to take out a CDS against the CDS counterparty in that trade. As Paul J Davies points out in today’s FT, through negative basis trades, banks’ monolines exposures have often been hedged with other monolines.

Update: The WSJ has an interesting number crunching piece on the state of the LBO industry - and the amounts banks are finding themselves stuck with.

Chapeau! Deutsche Bank Has Manage To Avoid The Torpedoes

It is not often that i write something positive about banks. But you gotta give Deutsche credit for navigating through this tough environment. And reporting "only" write downs from $ 2.3 billion in 2007 is quite an achievement..... Especially when you look how their Peer Group have done so far......Lets hope that they are not "too good to be true"...... That their guidance is probably way too optimistic and the credit books is still loaded with tons of problems is subject to another post

Es geschieht wirklich nicht oft das ich etwas positives in Sachen Banken zu bloggen habe. Aber ich denke im Falle der Deutschen Bank ist das durchaus angebracht. Wenn man als eine der Top Investmentbanken für das gesamte Jahr 2007 lediglich 2,3 Mrd $ als Abschreibung zu verbuchen hat und das mit den Summen der Peer Group vergleicht erkennt man recht schnell wie gut Ackermann´s Bänker sich geschlagen haben..... Bleibt zu hoffen das die Zahlen nicht "Too Good To Be True" sind.......Das der Ausblick immer noch viel zu optimistisch und das Kreditbuch trotz allem mit Problemen beladen ist soll uns heute nicht weiter beschäftigen....Diese Thematik kommt sicher noch früh genug.....

Deutsche Bank reports net income of EUR 6.5 billion, up 7%, for the year 2007

“In the fourth quarter, we again demonstrated the quality of our risk management. We had no net write-downs related to sub-prime, CDO or RMBS exposures. Those trading businesses in which we reported losses in the third quarter produced a positive result in the fourth quarter. In leveraged finance, where we had significant write-downs in the third quarter, net write-downs in the fourth quarter were less than EUR 50 million.”

Unfortuantely both presentations from the analysts call fail to provide much further details on how they have to manage to avoid the losses.

Leider vermögen es auch die beiden Präsentationen von der Analystenkonferenz nicht mehr Lcht ins dunkel zu bringen wie genau die Deutsche Bank es geschafft hat so gut abzuschneiden.

Presentation CEO

Presentation CFO

No Kidding....Cramer Sees A Housing Shortages 12 Month From Now.....

This one is too outrageous to pass.... Every time you think Cramer has hit a new low ( see label for numerous examples ) he comes out with another piece of ( lets put it mildly) garbage...........It should be no surprise that he made his comments at the end of last week when especially the homebuilders have recovered some of massive losses ( largely due to short covering ). For a realistic picture see the charts via Calculated Risk on how stock market driven this guy is....... After the slump over the past 2 days i assume he is already revising his forecast..... And the woman from bubblevision is calling him "character of integrety"....... They really should switch to the Comedy Channel... Here we go Cramer Video .

Das ist einfach zu unverschämt um das durchgehen zu lassen.... Immer wenn man denkt das einer der bekanntesten US Börsenkommentatoren sein Tief bereits erreciht hat ( siehe Label für zahlreiche tragisch-komische Beispiele) wird eine neue Sichtweise aus dem Hut gezaubert die man wen man höflich ist als bodenlose Fechheit titulieren muß.....Es sollte nicht überraschen das seine Aussagen Ende der letzten Woche gemacht worden sind als insbesonders der Homebuilderindex massiv an Wert gewonnen hat ( in erster Linie getrieben durch Shorteindeckungen) . Für ein realistisches Bild genügt ein Blick auf die Charts von Calculated Risk . Ebenfalls wenig verwunderlich das die Moderatorin ihn als "integeren Charakter bezeichnet".... Die wäre auf dem Comedy Channel wirklich besser untergebracht.....Hier ist da gute Stück Cramer Video ....

"Absolutely Optimistic...." Colbert Translating Bush

Compared to "Wall Steet Finest" Bush is sounding rather conservative....Hat tip to Barry Ritholtz

Im Vergleich zu "Wall Steet Finest" klingt Bush sogar noch moderat......Dank an Barry Ritholtz