Hedge Fund Herding Into Citigroup............

Either the "Too Big Too Fail Moral Hazard Play" is still alive & kicking or they are just averaging down..........Probably both.... SCHADENFREUDE that at least so far the timing was "subpar"...... ;-) .... Just as a reminder Citi has still a marketcap of $ 100 Billion! But this cannot stopp Dick Bove to give a price target of $ 8.5, bringing the market cap close to $ 250 billionen.......Even the $ 100 billion would be far bigger than any German company listed in the DAX..... Not bad for a bank that Chris Whalen calls the "queen of the zombie dance party".....

Entweder die "Too Big Too Fail & Moral Hazard Karte" wird von den Big Boys weiter heftig gezogen oder hier wird schlichtweg "verbilligt".....Wahrscheinlich eine Kombination von beidem..... Kann die Schadenfreude bei dem bisherigen Kursverlauf nicht wirklich verhehlen...... ;-) Verweise zusätzlich nochmal darauf hin das Citi aktuell einen Börsenwert von knapp 100 Mrd $ auf die Waage bringt.....Überflüssig zu erwähnen das Dick Bove bereits ein KZ von 8,5 $ ausruft.... Also mal eben schlappe 250 Mrd $..... Bereits 100 Mrd $ wären deutlich mehr als jedes im DAX gelistete Unternehmen ..... Nicht übel für ein Institut das Chris Whalen als queen of the zombie dance party" adelt......


Citigroup Proving Irresistible to Hedge Funds Led by Paulson Bloomberg

Firms run by John Paulson, Eric Mindich and George Soros purchased almost half a billion shares in Citigroup Inc. last quarter as more than 120 hedge funds said they bought stock in the bank.

Paulson & Co. reported a stake equal to 506.7 million shares in New York-based Citigroup, up from about 300 million at the end of the third quarter, according to a government filing yesterday. Mindich’s Eton Park Capital Management LP acquired 138 million shares, making the company its largest holding. Soros Fund Management LLC reported 94.7 million shares worth $313.4 million.

Citigroup stock bought by hedge funds outnumbered the amount sold by a ratio of more than 10 to 1 in the October-to- December period, with about 1.2 billion shares added on a net basis, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings compiled by Bloomberg.

The shares traded for an average of $4.10 in the quarter, 24 percent above its closing price yesterday of $3.31, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The company had 28.5 billion shares outstanding as of Dec. 31, the data show.

I doubt that they all bought at the low during the Monster stock offering ( see Citi prices $17 billion stock offering at $3.15 a share; Treasury not selling its shares )....

Kann mir kaum vorstellen das hier alle am Tief im Rahmen der Megakapitalerhöhung zum Zuge gekommen sind ( siehe Citi prices $17 billion stock offering at $3.15 a share; Treasury not selling its shares ) ........

Taxpayers still own 7.7 billion Citigroup shares....

Citigroup has had to issue almost 23 billion new shares to bolster a weakened capital base. Investors who were shareholders prior to the financial crisis were left with about one-fifth their original stakes.

Let´s hope they will still be there when Citi has to issue another round of new shares....... This would be for a change good news for the taxpayer......

Bleibt zu hoffen das die bei den zukünftig regelmäßig nicht unwesentlichen anstehenden Kapitalerhöhungen immer noch an Bord sind....... Wäre für die Steuerzahler ausnahmsweise mal ne gute Nachricht....

UPDATE:



Thanks CHRIS!

A Few Goldman Highlights........

More risk, more leverage ( & some kind of "creative accounting" - see end of the post ) ....... Brilliant!

Mehr Risiko, höherer Hebel ( & ein klein wenig "kreative" Buchführung - siehe Ende des Postings ) ..... Hat ja in der Vergangenheit erstklassig funktioniert.... Rechnet man mal die Jahre 2007 und 2008 heraus......

Reuters

A measure of the bank's trading risk, average daily value-at-risk, surged to $ 240 million in the first quarter of 2009, compared with $157 million for the three months ended February 28, 2008, implying that the bank took more trading risk

Goldman also disclosed that it has set aside $168,901 per employee on average for compensation in the quarter, almost 35 percent more than in the first quarter of the previous fiscal year

Bloomberg

Total assets on the balance sheet rose 5 percent from the end of November to $925 billion as of March 27. Of that, about $59 billion qualified as “Level 3” assets, which are the hardest to value, down from $66 billion at the end of November

For more details see Goldman Sachs Press Release

Für weitere Details bitte einen Blick in die Goldman Sachs Press Release werfen.

This from Zero Hedge fits perfectly.....

Diese Beobachtung von Zero Hedge paßt wie die Faust aufs Auge.......

A very interesting data point, also provided by the NYSE, implicates none other than administration darling Goldman Sachs in yet another potentially troubling development. The chart below demonstrates the program trading broken down by the top 15 most active NYSE member firms. I bring your attention to the total, principal, customer facilitation and agency columns.larger/größer

Key to note here is that Goldman's program trading principal to agency+customer facilitation ratio is a staggering 5x, which is multiples higher than both the second most active program trader and the average ratio of the NYSE, both at or below 1x.

The implication is that Goldman Sachs, due to its preeminent position not only as one of the world's largest broker/dealers (pardon, Bank Holding Companies), but also as being on the top of the high-frequency trading/liquidity provision "food chain", trades much more often for its own (principal) benefit

Also on the same topic via EconompicData

Zum gleichen Thema von EconompicData

If Goldman's Selling... Beware of Buying

Goldman's principal trading amounted to 20%+ of all program trading reported on the NYSE, up from between 3-5% one and two years back. In other words, leading up to a period when Goldman may be issuing several billion dollars in an equity offering, their own principal trading has amounted to 4-5x more volume than what had been typical, in an illiquid market, potentially driving up the value of financial equities in the process... interesting.

larger/größer

I think this comment from Jesse´s Cafe Americain nails it....

Ich denke der nachfolgen Kommentar von Jesse´s Cafe Americain faßt es ziemlich gut zusammen......

The bulk of their profit purportedly came from speculative trading for their own accounts, using 'cheap FDIC guaranteed funds.

There will be no recovery in the real economy until the financial system is reformed and banks are restrained into productive functions within our society.

Make also sure you visit this piece from Floyd Norris and his commensts from the conference call ( seeThe Case of the Missing Month ) or this little rant via Barry Ritholtz How to Puff Up Earnings, Goldman Sachs Style.......

Denke das ein Blick in den Kommentar von Floyd Norris zum Conference Call auch nicht schaden kann ( siehe The Case of the Missing Month). Um das "positive" Bild von Goldman abzurunden noch ein kleiner Rundumschlag von Barry Ritholtz ( siehe How to Puff Up Earnings, Goldman Sachs Style )......

Goldman’s 2008 fiscal year ended Nov. 30. This year the company is switching to a calendar year. The leaves December as an orphan month, one that will be largely ignored. In Goldman’s news release, and in most of the news reports, the quarter ended March 31 is compared to the quarter last year that ending in February.

The orphan month featured — surprise — lots of writeoffs. The pre-tax loss was $1.3 billion, and the after-tax loss was $780 million.

No surprise to hear this update on via Norris......

Diese Erläuterung hinsichtlich der Aufsicht im Update von Norris dürfte keine wirkliche Überraschung sein.....

What About That Other $28 Billion?

Goldman Sachs, as you know by now, wants to return that $10 billion in TARP money it got. And what about the $28 billion it borrowed in the credit markets with a guarantee from the federal government?

A spokesman tells me that Goldman has no plans to pay that back early. Nor will it say if it would have been profitable had it reported on the quarter ended in February, as it traditionally has.The spokesman did tell me something I would have included in my earlier Goldman blog had I known it, that the change in fiscal year was required when it converted to a bank holding company.

The bank regulators did not, however, force Goldman to avoid any mention of the December orphan month in the text of its earnings release, instead relegating it to a table deep in the announcement.

> What esle do you expect from a regulator that is labeling a giant hedge fund like Goldman as a bank.... ;-)

> Was soll man auch anderes von einem Regulierer erwarten der einen gigantischen Hedge Fonds wie Goldman Sachs den Bankenstatus zuspricht.. ;-)

Congratulation ( NO SARCASM ) to Goldman for placing the shares at $ 123 Goldman Sachs Raises $5 Billion to Repay TARP Funds The same kind of "creative" accounting in 2008 and the stock would have tanked 50 percent withing a day...... But at least this time it is the so called smart money ( lets hope not too many pension funds are involved.... ) and not the taxpayer on the hook.....Clearly a sign that the euphoria level is close to a peak ( Here is more evidence of some kind of exuberance ) .....

Man muß Goldman zu der Dreistigkeit gratulieren ( Diesesmal ohne Augenzwinkern ). Die haben es tatsächlich geschafft Ihre Aktien zu 123 $ zu platzieren ( siehe Goldman Sachs Raises $5 Billion to Repay TARP Funds ). Hätten die es noch vor einem Monat gewagt eigenmächtig Bilanzierungszeitrahmen abzuändern und so den äußerst verlustreichen Dezember praktisch aus dem Blickwinkel der Öffentlichkeit zu "verbannen" hätte sich die Aktie wohl binnen 24 Stunden halbiert...... Hoffe inständig das es noch weitere Unternehmen schaffen private Gelder mit welchen Methoden auch immer an Land zu ziehen..... Dann ist zumindest der Steuerzahler ( vorausgesetzt die Pensionskassen haben sich zurückgehalten ) nicht allein der Dumme....... Denke das zeigt einmal mehr das die aktuelle Marktstimmung etwas zu euphorisch ist Hier ein weiterer Beleg für eine zumindest "ausgelassene" Stimmung.......

This Ponzi Scheme Won´t Get A Bailout.......

Unlike others...... I still hope that at least the $ 50 billion number won´t be confirmed but it really looks like this story has the potential to rival the failed auto bailout. Even if the real number is only a fraction this will send shockwaves trough the hedge fund industry and could lead to much more forced selling..... At least the players now burned with billions call themselves "smart money" so we really shoulnd´t feel any mercy ( especially after you have read the "Cassandra Does Tokyo" or "Ft Alphaville" link. Naked Shorts back in 2001 questioned this how "Bernie" Madoff "created" his performance Madoff tops charts;skeptics ask how ).... On the auto topic it wouldn´t surprise me if we will see a TARP solution for the automakers during the next few days..... Wouldn´t be the first u turn from Paulson... :-)

Das wird ein Schneelballsystem sein das im Gegensatz zu anderen an Wall Street nicht rausgehauen wird..... Ich hoffe insgeheim immer noch das die Summe von 50 Mrd $ nicht bestätigt wird aber nichtsdestotrotz hat diese Geschichte das Zeug selbst den gescheiterten Rettungsversuch der US Autoindustrie zu toppen. Selbst wenn die Summe um einiges geringer ausfällt wird dieser Vorfall zu einem weiteren massiven Vertrauensverlust und einem Run auf die Hedge Fonds und damit zu weiteren massivsten Zwangsverkäufen führen...... Dab zu den Geschädigten wohl in erster Linie andere Hedge Fonds gehören hält sich mein Mitgefühl aber sehr in Grenzen ( besonders nachdem man den Insiderbericht von "Cassandra Does Tokyo" & "FT Alphaville" Link gelesen hat die klar belegen das die ausgewiesenen Gewinne seit Jahren nicht stimmig sein können. Siehe auch diese Schlagzeile aus dem Jahr 2001 von Naked Shorts Madoff tops charts;skeptics ask how)........In Sachen Autoindustrie würde es mich nicht wundern wenn plötzlich ( binnen der nächsten Tage ) doch noch eine Lösung im Rahmen der TARP Gelder gefunden wird..... Wäre ja nicht die erste 180 Grad Wendung von Paulson & Co......

Bernie Madoff: The Indictment Original Filing / Original Anklagegeschrift via Henry Blodget / Clusterstock A MUST READ!

He Madoff with how much??? FT Alphaville

“This guy has managed to produce 1-1.2% PER MONTH, year after year after year…” Quote from a ( now money losing ...) client on May 2 2008 ...... via FT Alphaville

Madoff ‘Big Lie’ Hits Fairfield Sentry, Kingate Funds Bloomberg

A $50 Billion Fraud? So Where is the Money? Naked Capitalism

Ex-Nasdaq-Chef wegen Milliarden-Betrugsverdacht festgenommen Der Spiegel

The Madoff Complaint Calculated Risk

Bernie Comes Out of the Closet Cassandra Does Tokyo

> Hard to believe that this "likable" person has probably committed the "mother Of All Ponzi Schemes"....

> Fällt einem schwer zu glauben das dieser "sympatische" ältere Herr die "Mutter aller Schneeballsysteme durchgezogen hat.....

> Too bad that Madoff couldn´t hide his losses under some kind of level 3 accounting......

> Zu dumm das im Gegensatz zu den Banken Madoff seine Verluste nicht hinter der Level 3 Bilanzkosmetik verschleiern konnte......

"Cowboy Hedging" Leads To $ 2 Billion Trading Loss....But Compared To Jerome Kerviel.........

Peanuts for Societe Generale...... :-) This might gives us a hint what kind of blowups we can expect from hedge funds or trading desks from financials. The only difference is that this time the trade was "without proper authorisation" ( for an example of a "normal" hedge that went wrong see `KIKO' Hedges Slay Korean Exporters, Threaten Banks )...... Got Gold?

Societe Generale wäre für einen so geringen Verlust wohl dankbar gewesen...... :-) Denke das dieses Beispiel einen leichten Vorgeschmack auf das gibt was demnächst von Seiten der Hedge Fonds und den Tradingabteilungen der Finanzinstitute noch auf uns zurollen wird. Der einzige Unterschied wird dann sein das diese Trades nicht "unauthorisiert" gewesen sind ( hier ein Beispiel einer "normalen" Hedgingtransaktion `KIKO' Hedges Slay Korean Exporters, Threaten Banks )...... Got Gold?


Citic Pacific Slump on Possible $2 Billion Forex Loss
Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Citic Pacific Ltd. tumbled the most in 18 years in Hong Kong trading after predicting HK$15.5 billion ($2 billion) in losses from unauthorized currency bets.

The unit of China's biggest state-owned investment company dropped as much as 47 percent to HK$7.70 at 11:14 a.m. local time. The company ousted Financial Director Leslie Chang and Financial Controller Chau Chi Yin and said yesterday in a filing its parent would help to arrange a $1.5 billion loan.

``The company may face bankruptcy if it doesn't secure the loan from its parent as banks probably won't dare to lend money to it under the current credit crunch,'' said Liu Yang, managing director at Atlantis Investment Management Ltd., which oversees about $2 billion in China assets. ``The incident shows the company has real problems in risk management.''

WSJ The hit to Citic Pacific's bottom line could reach 14.7 billion Hong Kong dollars ($1.89 billion), the company said. That is roughly a third more than the company earned in 2007. The size of the loss won't be known until Dec. 31, when Citic Pacific plans to mark to market its positions in currency-derivative contracts

Citic Pacific's bet that the Australian dollar would rise incurred losses as the currency tumbled about 30 percent against its U.S. counterpart from a 25-year high reached in July. This may be the biggest derivatives loss reported by a Chinese company, almost four times the 2004 sum incurred by China Aviation Oil (Singapore) Corp. betting on jet fuel.

The shares drop, the most since 1990, cut the company's market value to HK$17.3 billion and takes the year's loss to 82 percent.

Citic Pacific's potential loss would beat other wrong bets by Chinese companies. China Aviation Oil triggered Singapore's biggest derivatives scandal after revealing a $550 million trading loss. Liu Qibing, a Chinese government trader, made wrong copper bets resulting in an estimated $300 million in losses in 2005.

Citic Pacific bought currency contracts to fund an A$1.6 billion ($1.1 billion) iron ore mine in Australia, the company said yesterday. The hedging transactions weren't approved by the company's Chairman Larry Yung, the company said.

A loss of HK$808 million has been incurred from terminating some leveraged currency contracts, and an additional HK$14.7 billion in losses are possible, Citic Pacific said yesterday.

Strike Price
The possible losses are based on an exchange rate of 70 cents to the Australian dollar, $1.35 to the euro and 6.84 yuan to the dollar, it said. The outstanding Australian contracts, for monthly delivery until October 2010, have a weighted average strike price of 87 cents to the Australian dollar, it said.

The Australian dollar traded at 69.65 U.S. cents at 12:17 p.m. in Sydney.

``Citic had only A$1.6 billion in capex requirements, however, it is now interested in more than A$9 billion,'' Anil Daswani, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Citigroup, said in a report. The ``cowboy hedging policy sees Citic sitting on unlimited potential losses,'' Daswani said.

Citic Pacific on Aug. 28 said its first-half profit fell 12 percent to HK$4.38 billion as material costs rose and part-owned Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. posted a loss. At the end of June, the company had net debt of HK$31.2 billion as well as HK$30.2 billion in cash and available committed loan facilities.

UPDATE: Big Currency Bets Backfire WSJ

Hedge-Fund Guy Is Up SIV Creek Without a Paddle: Mark Gilbert

Marc Gilbert rocks! Click here to read more from him. Hilarious!

Marc Gilbert ist einfach genial. Klickt hier um weiter Episoden von ihm zu lesen. Einfach köstlich!

(Bloomberg) Dear investor, we'd like to update you on this year's performance of our hedge fund, Short-Term Capital Mismanagement LLP.

Actually, we'd prefer not to. We'd rather disappear. We read somewhere that Panama is a really nice place to retire to, but our lawyer says that would be a bad idea. So here goes.

This has been without doubt the most turbulent period we have experienced in our 15 minutes of multistrategy, multiasset- class, Bentley-driving hedge-fund manager fame.

Our Widows & Orphans Enhanced Money-Market Fund is under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission. It seems our use of the word ``enhanced'' is deemed incompatible with ``real sorry we gambled that dollar you gave us for safekeeping on collateralized-debt obligations and ended up losing a cent or seven. Or 20. We're not entirely sure yet.''

Our Structured Investment Vehicle has burst its tires and looks like it was designed by a teenager on acid after seeing one too many documentaries about Frank Gehry. Our off-balance sheet conduits have maxed out their MasterCards and every time we try to value them, we are reminded that some things in life really are priceless. Our only investment that made money in December was our long position in Led Zeppelin concert tickets.

Nevertheless, we are proud, nay, ecstatic, nay, absolutely flabbergasted to report that our fund is still sashaying on the dance floor, which looks less and less like a ballroom and more like the aftermath of a frat party.

Kayaking to Panama
Admittedly, we broke a heel an hour ago, the rip in our tutu threatens to reveal more about us than money ever can, and the sick, dizzy feeling has nothing to do with the seventh banana daiquiri and everything to do with yearend money-market rates. We can still hear music, though, even if it does sound increasingly like a funeral march.

Frankly, there have been times when we've considered leaving a pile of clothes on the beach, climbing into a shiny red kayak and paddling away for five years. Did we mention what a nice retirement destination Panama is? It's just a shame that we lost the paddle when we headed up SIV creek all those months ago.

You know the saying ``pay peanuts, get monkeys''? It isn't true. We have been paying our traders peanuts since the fund's inception, and it turns out that the annual rate of nut inflation is killing us at 11.5 percent given how low our investment returns have been.

Memory Chimps
So we're shifting to bananas to hire some real chimps. Not just any chimps, though. Memory chimps. You may have seen some on television recently, thrashing college kids in memory tests. Hell, these chimps can buy and sell and eat a banana simultaneously, whereas Bob, our recently departed mortgage-bond trader, couldn't even walk and chew gum at the same time without blowing the P&L on some cockamamie subprime-debt security.

We figure these 5-year-old chimps might have a better chance of remembering stuff like Russia's default or the savings-and- loan crisis or the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management, from their financial-market history classes. They can't be any worse than the monkeys who decided to bet on the creditworthiness of U.S. bond insurers last month.

Still, we remain optimistic about the coming year. That's mostly because while Santa Claus only pops down the chimney once a year with his sack of presents, Helicopter Ben Bernanke flies by every six weeks and showers us with bags of cash in the form of lower interest rates.

Under Ben's Umbrella
God bless the policy makers at the Federal Reserve. As Grammy-nominee Rihanna would undoubtedly have sung if she only knew of our plight, ``They're gonna cut their rates forever, now that it's raining more than ever, so we can stand under Ben's umbrella, ella, ella, eh, eh eh.''

Not like those monetary fascists at the European Central Bank. Just because inflation is running at a six-year high and money-supply growth is the fastest in almost three decades, they didn't just close the lending window, they slammed it shut on our grasping hands. How can they contemplate an interest-rate increase at a time like this?

Finally, a cautionary tale. It is customary at this festive time of year for our schedule to be even busier than usual, as our brokers escort us to the finest establishments in town and ply us with drink in gratitude for this year's business and in anticipation of the trades that will flow their way next year.

Oddly, the telephone hasn't rung and the mailbox is bereft of embossed invitations. It seems our relationship managers are too busy schmoozing their new clients in Dubai and Singapore and Shanghai and Abu Dhabi to bother with their old hedge-fund customers.

Fine. Don't come crying to us, Mr. Hokey-Cokey Bank, when the combination of a plummeting share price and a devalued dollar makes your institution a takeover target for some Sovereign Wealth Fund turbocharged by petrodollars.

Yours, Hedge-Fund Guy.

LTCM: Lessons Learned? via iTtulip!

I think i know the answer......Too bad that this time the problem is not "contained" to hedge funds......Big hat tip to Rajiv and iTulip for a reminder of this important history lesson of the fall from LTCM

Ich glaube die Antwort zu kenne......Dumm nur das heutzutage nicht nur die Hedge Fonds betroffen sind....Großes Kompliment an Rajiv und iTulip um uns dieses "Mißgeschick" mit dem Namen LTCM in Erinnerung zu rufen

American Investment Banks "Shots In The Dark" Economist

I think that not even the best accounting magic can hide that the earnings and the balance sheet will take major hits down the road and have deteriorated significantly. There goes the low multiple....... This was always one of the main bull arguments, now they already had switch to book value (see comment further down), next......

Ich denke das nich einmal die größten Bilanzierungstricks verschleiern können das sich sowohl der Gewinnausblick als auch die Bilanzstruktur erheblich und wohl auch auf längere Sicht verschlechtert hat. Soviel zum niedrigen KGV das seit jeher als Kaufargument herangezogen worden ist. Nun wird bereits auf den niedrigen Buchwert hingewiesen (siehe Kommentar weiter unten), demnächst.......

Wall Street pays for its opacity

STOCKMARKET investors come in all shapes and sizes, but in the current turmoil they agree on one thing: if in doubt about a financial firm, shoot first and ask questions later.

> And when you have committed liquidity guarantees as shown in the table from the Handelsblatt to conduits/SIV´s it is no wonder that you dump the shares first.......

> Und wenn man Zweckgemeinschaften lt. dem Handelsblatt solch großzügige Liquiditätsgarantien gemacht hat würde ich auch schnellstmöglich meine Bankaktien auf den Markt schmeißen.......

> John M from Housing Doom has found this via Minyanville

Through the conduits’ convoluted structures, banks were able to “lend” huge amounts off-balance sheet and collect fees on no-capital-required lines of credit. No one - and I mean no one - ever expected these conduits to move from off-balance sheet back on-balance sheet and I don’t think the market yet understands the earnings, capital and liquidity impact of this migration.

If you figure you need anywhere from 6-8% capital per dollar of loans, then a move of $1.0 trln from off-balance sheet to on requires $60-80 bln in additional equity capital. I don’t know about you, but I don’t see this kind of free capital sitting around.

> Exellent find John M! Maybe we should forward this info to the rating agencies.... ;-)

> Nochmals besten Dank für diesen Fund an John M. Evtl- sollte man diese Erkenntnis an die Rating Agenguten weiterleiten....;-)

State Street, a big money manager, is the latest to stumble into the line of fire. Its shares slumped this week on unsubstantiated rumours that it faced big losses in asset-backed commercial paper.

> More details on State Street from Mish

But it is the investment banks that continue to take most of the bullets. They helped drag stockmarkets down on August 28th after Merrill Lynch downgraded a number of its peers, citing exposure to toxic credit, a day after Goldman Sachs had done the same. An unseemly squabble over jurisdiction in a bankruptcy case against two defunct Bear Stearns hedge funds ´probably didn't help to calm nerves. It hurts all the more to fall from a great height. Until a couple of months ago the investment banks were flying. Profit records were smashed quarter after quarter. Bonus pools looked more like lakes. Valuations climbed to three times book value, implying sustainable returns on equity of over 30%, when even 25% is rare in the industry.

As long as the money rolled in, no one seemed to mind that much of the business was cloaked in mystery.

Investment banks are now paying for that opacity, even though their management of risk has improved since the last credit crisis in 1998. They are suffering from their decision to do less moving and more storing of assets: they hold a lot more illiquid, hard-to-value paper these days, and have more capital tied up in lumpy private-equity deals. Worse, some of Wall Street's most lucrative recent creations, such as conduits and CDOs, are suddenly out of favour. This is part of what one analyst, Deutsche Bank's Mike Mayo, calls “dis-disintermediation”: the return of more traditional forms of finance, to the benefit of universal banks like Citigroup.....

Thanks to iTulip

All except Bear are still trading well above book value, the level at which they are generally considered cheap.

> Reminds me of the discussion from the "value" guys that came up with book value to measure the stock as dirt cheap... Until this sector turned to an impaired industry

> Die ganze Argumentation mit dem Buchwert erinnert mich sehr stark an dieselbe Diskussion mit den Homebuildern. Nachdem das KGV zu hoch war bzw. keine Gewinne mehr vorhanden waren kam plötzlich das Argument von sog. "Valueplayern" (LOL) das gemäß den Buchwerten die Aktien praktisch geschenkt sind.....Das war bevor der Sektor eine einzige Abschreibungsruine geworden ist......

Tellingly, while executives at other financial firms piled into their own shares in August, believing them oversold, there was scant buying among investment bankers.

The key now will be to reassure markets that the exotic assets on bank balance sheets are worth something. Investors are waiting with bated breath for Wall Street firms' third-quarter results, beginning in the second week of September. They may try to get as much bad news out as they can while sentiment is at rock bottom.

Mr Hintz sees it as an encouraging sign that none of the investment banks issuing bonds in the second half of August pointed to new “material” risks, as required when a company raises debt. This suggests that, while things are undoubtedly bad, the banks see no further nasty surprises in the short term.

bigger / größer

Thanks to Kevin Duffy / LewRockwell

The debate over how to value elaborate securities, less pressing in good times, is now taking centre stage. Most credit instruments have to be held at the value a buyer might pay for them, not cost. But judging that is more art than science. The Securities and Exchange Commission, the investment banks' regulator, is examining the issue following rumours that Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs were too optimistic in their marking. “This is a chance for the SEC to show leadership on a crucial issue. We desperately need an umpire to ensure consistency and restore confidence,” says one senior banker.

At least investment banks are in better shape than they were going into past crises. Their capital structures are more stable: they increased long-term funding by $200 billion in the past year alone, making them less vulnerable when capital markets dry up. They are also more diversified. They have piled into commodities trading and wealth management, which remain attractive. Their proprietary trading desks, once predominantly credit-focused, now trade lots of equities too. All except Bear Stearns now earn roughly half of their non-retail revenues outside America. ....

Peter Nerby of Moody's, a rating agency, points to two further advantages (though his rivals at Standard & Poor's are not so sanguine). The banks have become better at making money in tough times, he says. Thanks to hedging, trading volume and volatility are now bigger earnings drivers than the level or direction of markets.

> Really? Wasn´t it just 2 weeks ago that the Fed bends rules to help two big banks that had to step in for their brokerage affiliates.... And when you look at the leverage the guy from Moody´s is overly confident. The bond market has a much gloomier view on Goldman & Co

> Wirklich? Ist es nicht gerade ein paar Tage her das die Fed Ihre Grundsätze über Bord geworfen hat um 2 Investmentbanken vor dem Kollaps zu retten.....Der Anleihemarkt sieht die Lage von Goldman & Co weniger entspannt...... Second, good first-half results will help to bail Wall Street firms out, as half of their accrued bonus pools can be taken back to cover second-half losses. A generous pay structure can come in handy if markets falter at the right time of the year.

Bear and Lehman Brothers are likely to suffer more than the rest, partly because they are smaller and partly because they are more exposed to asset-backed nasties (see chart). If conditions worsen, they may even have to buy back securities peddled to clients, as they are obliged to make markets in some of them.

The tables may yet turn. Merrill, Goldman and Morgan Stanley are more exposed than Bear or Lehman to the $300 billion overhang of unsold debt from leveraged buy-outs. This week the bankers fought back, forcing Home Depot to cut the price on the sale of its supply division and the trio of private-equity buyers to swallow higher interest rates on the debt. A bigger test of nerves will come in the next couple of weeks, when buyers are sought for more than $20 billion of loans to finance the takeover of First Data, a transaction-processing group. Were that or another big upcoming deal to collapse, the investment banks could expect a hail of bullets.

> And with appetite for junk like this coming to a halt it is likely that they will have to hold far more toxiy loans than planned.....

> Und nachdem der Junkmarket praktisch zum erliegen gekommen ist ist es sehr wahrscheinlich das die Banken einige ungewollte Kredite in Ihrer Bilanz behalten müssen......

Eleven junk-rated borrowers have sold bonds since the beginning of July, compared with an average of 41 a month in the first half of the year, Bloomberg data show. Three found buyers in August.

Some of them are desperately trying to find a way out..... But with onlyJust three of the 40 biggest pending LBOs have an escape clause that lets the buyer back out if funding can't be arranged this could be very expensive

Einige von Ihnen versuchen bereits verzweifelt sich aus einigen Deals freizukaufen..... Da aber nur 3 der 40 Deals eine Klausel beinhalten das man vom Kredit zurücktreten kann könnte das eine extrem teure Geschichte werden.....

Not So Smart "In an era of easy money, the pros forgot that the party can't last forever "

What a difference 6 month made..... It was in early February when Business Week ran this cover story It's A Low, Low, Low, Low-Rate World .

Looks like the "Cover Story Indicator" has worked once more.....

Was doch 6 Monate für einen Unterschied ausmachen.....Anfang Februar hat Business Week noch die folgende Titelgeschichte It's A Low, Low, Low, Low-Rate World gebracht.

Es sieht so aus als wenn der "Cover Story Indicator" mal wieder ganze Arbeit geleistet hat.
Not So Smart / In an era of easy money, the pros forgot that the party can't last forever

The boasting and bluster that marked the just-ended era of easy money varied depending on the speaker and his stake in the boom. But the underlying message was consistent: This time it's different. When it came to the hazards associated with borrowing, the old rules no longer applied.

The titans of home loans announced they had perfected software that could spit out interest rates and fee structures for even the least reliable of borrowers. The algorithms, they claimed, couldn't fail. With similar bravado, buyout firms bid up private equity deals, arguing that investors had an insatiable appetite for the increasingly risky and mammoth loans used to fund them. "I don't think it's a bubble," David M. Rubenstein of Carlyle Group told the Financial Times in an interview last December. "I think really what's happening now is that people are beginning to use a different investment technique, and this investment technique, private equity, adds real value."

> This chart from Bespoke shows how well timed the "Low, Low......Rate World" cover was.....

> Dieser Chart von Bespoke zeigt wie gut die Titelgeschichte "Low, Low, ..Rate World" abgepaßt war.

Hedge funds were all too happy to enable the leverage arms race. They, too, borrowed to the max so they could gorge on the debt that financed the housing and buyout booms. "The consumer has to be an idiot to take on those loans," John Devaney, chief executive of United Capital Asset Management, said in May, referring to dicey adjustable-rate mortgages. But since there were plenty of "idiots" out there, and legions of lenders eager to serve them, Devaney and other hedge fund managers eagerly devoured the securities confected by investment banks from batches of dubious home loans. This securitization, the argument went, would spread the risk far beyond banks and mortgage companies. In March, Devaney bragged that mortgage-backed securities were one of his "best-performing investments.

"It didn't work out that way. In June, Devaney's Horizon funds booked a loss of more than 30%, according to Hedge Fund Alert. Shortly after, United Capital suspended redemption requests by investors trying to pull out. Devaney did not return calls for comment.

> maybe he is the guy on the cover.......:-)

> ist wahrscheinlich der Typ auf dem Cover :-)

Making sense of this mess is daunting. One good place to start: the ways various financial players indulged in layer upon layer of leverage, much of it far from transparent. Mortgage lenders threw out common sense underwriting standards. Wall Street sliced and diced the loans, creating the illusion that risk somehow disappeared in the process. Hedge funds then multiplied the leverage by borrowing copiously to buy securities based on the rearranged mortgages. In their version of the game, private equity firms used loads of debt to launch unprecedented buyouts.

bigger / größer

> Looks "contained"´to me....

> Sieht für mich ziemlich "contained" aus......

What some of the smartest guys in each of these fields seemed to forget is that new paradigms can crumble suddenly. Many miscalculated how long the period of easy credit would persist.

Mortgage companies argued their algorithms provided near-perfect precision. "We have a wealth of information we didn't have before," Joe Anderson, then a senior Countrywide executive, said in a 2005 interview with BusinessWeek. "We understand the data and can price that risk."

PRIVATE EQUITY: `A GOLDEN AGE'
As recently as April, buyout legend Henry Kravis proclaimed a "golden age" of private equity. Perhaps he should have called it a golden age of CLOs—collataralized loan obligations.

Like mortgage lenders, the giants of private equity have relied on complicated investment pools to fund their binge. CLOs are cousins of collateralized debt obligations. Managers of the investment pools buy groups of risky, junk-rated loans from banks that have financed buyouts by Kravis and his competitors. The CLOs package the loans, then divide them into risk levels. While the individual loans carry low credit ratings, three-fourths of the securities marketed by CLOs magically boast AAA marks. (That's because some investors give up extra yield in exchange for better protection against losses.)

The financial alchemy has allowed private equity firms to attract a whole new base of investors, including pension funds and insurance companies that never would have bought those risky loans outright. U.S. CLOs raised $100 billion in 2006, quadruple the amount two years earlier.

Buyout firms have generally fronted 30% of the equity in recent deals, vs. just 15% two decades ago. But that doesn't mean firms have been more cautious. Steeled by the seemingly insatiable demand for CLOs, they became bolder and bolder in the deals they pursued. After Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Texas Pacific Group's $44 billion bid for Texas energy giantTXU in February, analysts began putting odds on imagined future megabillion-dollar targets like Home Depot Inc. (HD )

As private equity firms bid up the prices for ever-larger LBOs, the transactions began getting riskier. A key measure of leverage, a company's total debt divided by operating earnings, skyrocketed from 4.7 in 2004 to 7.0 in the second quarter of 2007, according to Standard & Poor's (MHP ) LCD. Meanwhile, the ability of companies to cover the interest payments of that debt dropped sharply; the ratio of profits to interest fell from 3.4 to 1.8 in that period.

> It is getting worse if you consider that profit margins are close to record highs and the economy is now tanking.... So there is almost no room for error.....

> Das ganze wird noch dramtischer wenn man berücksichtigt das die Firmen momentan noch Gewinnmargen nahe der historischen Hochs haben und die Wirtscahft sich gleichzeitig abschwächt bzw. wie in den USA sogar abschmiert.... Nicht viel Raum für Fehler......

At the same time, loan terms got looser. For example, in the buyouts of Freescale Semiconductor and retailer Claire's Stores (CLE ), LBO firms peddled bonds that allowed the companies to postpone interest payments until the bonds matured—a previously unheard of feature. Such stipulations applied to 10% of all junk bonds sold in 2007, vs. virtually none 18 months earlier, according to Lehman.

The red-hot demand for even the junkiest of loans allowed many firms to delude themselves into thinking they could endlessly pursue deals. In the three months through July 31, firms announced $254 billion in buyouts, as much as in 2004 and 2005 combined, according to Thomson Financial (TOC ). One credit crunch later, the market for LBO financing has evaporated. Investors won't buy the loans at current prices, leaving banks on the hook for $300 billion in loans to buyout artists.

So far, no big deals have collapsed. The hope is that the credit environment will improve in the fall, and stalled deals will move through the LBO pipeline. But there may be more pain ahead.

HEDGE FUNDS: STEALTH DEBT
Hedge funds helped power the mortgage and buyout booms by hungrily consuming securitized subprime debt and loans used to fund buyouts. By borrowing much of the money they invest, in some transactions up to 90%, hedge funds add another potentially dangerous layer of indebtedness to already highly leveraged markets. Because hedge fund disclosure is limited, huge pockets of leverage are barely visible. This stealth debt helped cause the problems in the subprime market to spread far beyond the housing sector.

One example: the hundreds of billions of dollars in so-called repurchase lines of credit, or repo loans, that Wall Street banks have lent to hedge funds. Disclosure of these esoteric agreements is murky at best, so their precise value can't be quantified. Another tool that pumps up leverage by untold billions is the total return swap. These arrangements allow a hedge fund to capture the gains of a security without having to buy it outright and with only limited collateral.

For some funds, extreme leverage became an acute problem when the mortgage crunch caused banks to doubt the value of the subprime bonds and CDOs the funds held. Banks pulled their lines of credit, forcing funds to come up with the full value of those assets. That caused dire consequences because, in some instances, the funds paid as little as 10 cents on the dollar and now had to come up with the remaining 90 cents. Many funds, including ones from Goldman, Sachs & Co. (GS ) and Renaissance Technologies, were forced to sell better-performing bonds, stocks, and commodities to pay back nervous bankers. ....

Related links from Business Week to the cover story

Main Street Is Fed Up

Bruce Wasserstein: "Expect Lots More Embarrassment"

It's Out Of Bernanke's Reach

Kass: 'Don't Fight the Fed.' How Quaint

'Don't Fight the Fed.' This phrase will from now on put on the table almost every day from CNBC, Cramer, Wall Street etc. And with the macro news getting worse days by day it it probably their only argument for a long time to come. Remember that this new "Mantra" will be coming from the same guys that didn´t see the housing bubble, then said housing is contained, talked about a "Private Equity Put", said the market is cheap, there is cash on the sidelines, will come up with the Fed Model...

So it is good that Doug Kass is providing some "anti spin". The only thing that might dampen the slump a little bit is that the world economy is much stronger than during the past. But this won´t save the US from going into a recession.

'Don't Fight the Fed.' Diese Redewendung wird uns die nächsten Monate unweigerlich jeden Tag von Seiten CNBC, Cramer, Wall Street usw. begegnen. Und da sich die Marcodaten Tag für Tag verschlechtern bleiben aus Bullensicht natürlich auch nicht mehr allzu viele Argumente übrig. Man sollte dabei jedoch bedenken das dieses neue "Mantra" von denselben Leuten kommt die erst keine Immobilienblase erkannt haben, dann das Immobilienproblems als isoliert bewertet haben, die einen "Private Equity Put" gesehen haben, die steif und fest behaupten der Markt wäre günstig (trotz 30-40 % Finanzgewichtung), die Tonnen von Cash an der Seitenlinie vermutet haben, die das sog.Fed Model bemühen.........

Da tut es gut wenn Doug Kass wie üblich zum "Anti Spin" ausholt. Das Einzige was evtl. den Verfall etwas abmildern könnte ist die noch immer rund laufende Weltwirtschaft die sich so stark wie noch nie präsentiert. All das wird aber die USA nicht vor einer happigen Rezession schützen.

On Friday night, I appeared on CNBC's "Fast Money" and was asked a critical question: Why fight the Fed in maintaining a cautious market view? After all, the markets soared after the Fed eased in response to the Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) bailout in 1998.



I'll answer that question now.

Back in 1990-1992 and 2001-2003, the Fed lowered interest rates 100 basis points, secure in the belief that it had thwarted a recession. Both times, the Fed was wrong: A recession commenced, and a bear market in equities followed. For example, the DJIA soared nearly 3% with the surprise January 2001 interest rate cut. Three months later, the markets made new lows and ultimately fell 20% from the highs.

Seven years ago, the economy was soaring with real gains of about 4%, productivity was unprecedented, technology was in the midst of a renaissance, and the consumer was in fine shape. The LTCM issue was fairly contained; it was an isolated liquidity crisis in a hedge fund that was forced by the misuse of leverage and the insolvency of a relatively small economy, Russia.

The result was a 75-basis-point reduction in the fed funds rates, which restored calm in the financial markets in a matter of weeks.

Things are far different today.

Today, we face an economy that has far less promise with participants (consumers, hedge funds and borrowers of all kinds and shapes) all hocked up. Unlike 1998, today's housing market is in a sustained downturn, which will not likely recover until 2010. The consumer is at a tipping point, hedge funds don't hedge, and the world's economy faces a broad credit crunch. What was a liquidity issue seven years ago is both a liquidity and solvency issue today.

I have argued that, in the current credit cycle, nontraditional lenders have proliferated by circumventing Regulation T and banking reserve requirements, serving to soften or even dull the Fed's role in monetary policy. In turn, this systemic change has led to unusual borrowing in the form of interest-only and teaser adjustable-rate mortgage loans and levered quant hedge funds.

Furthermore, growth in the derivative market ran amok, serving to underwrite the sale of a broad-based group of products (such as motorcycles, automobiles, furniture, etc.) and also serving to brighten the markets for private equity.

This added liquidity from nontraditional lenders also buoyed the credit market, allowing companies that should have failed to tap large sums of equity and bonds. This created the feeling that all was well with the business world as stock markets rallied around the globe and corporate default rates hit all-time lows in 2006.

> Here are more charts that shows how deep the US consumer is in trouble

> Here mehr Charts die eindrucksvoll zeigen wie tief der US Konsument inzwsichen im Schuldensumpf steckt

But this was an illusion.

With credit being extended to everyone, the consumer -- already having ponied up to the Credit Bar Saloon -- went further into hock by loading up on ARMs and "no-money-down" durable (and nondurable) purchases. The hedge funds, in this period of mispricing of risk, got into the act by levering up in order to capture unsustainable returns. (According to Merrill Lynch hedge fund assets now approach $10 trillion, which is supported by less than $1.5 trillion of equity.)

The "hot money" provided by nontraditional lenders eventually led to what we have today and what I have described as a tightly wound financial system vulnerable to any interruption or negative event. The subprime mess was the event that triggered a chain reaction and a reassessment and repricing of risk; it was a ticking credit time bomb that most ignored -- until recently.

Pushing on a String
Pushing on a string means that the positive impact of lower interest rates is overwhelmed by the reduction in credit availability and the desire to borrow, as lenders try to improve the quality of their loan book and repair their balance sheets.
> I think the chart for corporate loans in 2006-2007 is looking similar

> Ich denke das der Chart für gewerbliche Kunden in 2006-2007 wohl ähnlich aussehen dürfte

The 50-basis-point reduction in the discount rate will likely be followed by further easing by the Fed, but it will do little good

The combination of stressed and stretched individual mortgage holders, a consumer levered far greater than in 1998, crippled nontraditional lenders, grossly extended hedge funds and debt-heavy subprime companies will exacerbate the downturn in the domestic economy in a far more severe manner than during the LTCM crisis. The two periods, quite frankly, are not even comparable in terms of how secure or shaky the economic foundation is.

Regardless of the Fed's actions, the odds favoring a 2008 recession have been increasing daily and until recently have been almost entirely ignored.

Political Consequences
After the LTCM mess in 1998, the Republican Congress was firmly in control and so was the security of lower taxes for both individuals and corporations. This is not the case in 2007, as the rising odds of a recession and the possible perception that the Fed is working as an agent for corporate America to bail out the hedge funds and troubled lenders already follows the Democratic midterm election victories of 2006.

Also, the growing schism between the haves and the have-nots in 2007 over 1998 will likely serve to give the Democrats the 2008 presidential election on a silver platter -- and with it, the headwinds of rising trade protectionism and higher taxes.

"Don't fight the Fed," a phrase promulgated by Marty Zweig, is one of those nonrigorous "truisms" that may no longer be useful. The markets in August 2007 have had the expected and Pavlovian reaction by immediately soaring; this is just what occurred on Jan. 3, 2001, after another surprise rate cut.

Back then, the Fed and the markets briefly thought that the threat of recession had been eliminated. It had not; we entered a recession soon thereafter. Today, the financial system is far more levered (and stressed) than in 2001, and a reduction in interest rates would simply ease a small portion of the pain of the debt excesses since 2000.

Our investment eyes need to be washed by tears once in a while so that we can see the markets and economy with a clearer view again. From my perch, we are in one such period. Everybody is going to hurt.

Fight the Fed.

Carry Trade & Economist Summary

The Economist has a good sample of what happened during the last weeks. As an example i have taken the report on the carry trade. I hope the links work without subscription. O top off this you can click at the labels to get more on last weeks topics. Please leave a comment if a certain Link doesn´t work.

Der Economist hat eine ziemlich gute Übersicht was in den letzten Wochen abgegangen ist. Beispielhaft habe ich mir mal den Report zum Carry Trade herausgepickt. Ich hoffe das die Links auch ohne Abo funktionieren. Hinterlaßt bitte einen Kommentar wenn ein bestimmter Link nicht abzurufen ist.
Banks in trouble
A liquidity squeeze "Bankers' mistrust"
Funding difficulties "A conduit to nowhere"
Hedge funds "Behind the veil"
Financial contagion "Mortgage flu"
Should central banks act as buyers of last resort?

Not-yet-desperate housewives
Is Mrs Watanabe doing her bit for global stability?

IN MOST of the world in the past week, attention has been on highly leveraged hedge funds that have been forced to dump assets bought on margin. In Japan, however, a different species of margin trader has—until now, at least—stood firm: the housewife. On her shoulders may lie responsibility for some of the stability of the global financial system.

On August 15th the Japanese currency climbed to a 4½-month high against the dollar and continued to surge against the New Zealand dollar, raising concerns about the sustainability of the carry trade, through which investors borrow in cheap yen to buy higher-yielding assets elsewhere. This had made fortunes for international investors but, lately, Japanese retail investors had become the carry trade's greatest enthusiasts.

> The latest strenght of the Greenback is worth mentioning and if the $ will sustain these trend it will be unusual. I doubt that that this will last. Brad Setzer is also wondering The dollar, still a currency that you run to?

> Die Stärke des US $ in den letzten Wochen des Chaos ist zumindest wenn dieser Trend anhält recht ungewöhlich. Ich glaube das dies nicht von Dauer sein wird. Brad Setzer stellt sich die gleiche Frage The dollar, still a currency that you run to?

The metaphorical Mr and Mrs Watanabe account for around 30% of the foreign-exchange market in Tokyo by value and volume of transactions, according to currency traders, double the share of a year ago. Meanwhile, the size of the retail market has more than doubled to about $15 billion a day.

One reason for the surge is margin trading. Brokers are offering leverage of as much as 200 times the down-payment (though the average is more like 20 to 40 times).

In July Japanese retail investors' short positions on the yen (a bet that it would fall) exceeded the amount taken by traders on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a foreign-exchange trading hub. “The gnomes of Zurich were accused in their day of destabilising markets. The housewives of Tokyo are apparently acting to stabilise them,” boasted Kiyohiko Nishimura, a Bank of Japan board member, in July.

Strikingly, as the yen appreciated, retail traders, rather than dump their positions, saw a buying opportunity and sold yen for other currencies, softening its rise. “The Japanese government has not intervened—they've not had to, because the Watanabe-sans have been selling yen for them,” says James Gow of FXOnline Japan, a retail broker.

Short-Term Capital Mismanagement LLP. / Must Read :-)

Brilliant! Excellent Stuff from Marc Gilbert! One for the "Hall of Fame". On top of this i recommend How To Speak Hedgie from Dan Gross via Barry Ritholtz

Geniales von Marc Gilbert. Passend dazu empfehle ich How To Speak Hedgie von Dan Gross via Barry Ritholtz

WARNING:

Make sure you have no coffee in your mouth.....

Ihr solltet besser keinen Kaffe bei der Lektüre im Mund oder in der Hand haben.....

Aug. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Dear investor, we'd like to take this opportunity to update you on the recent performance of our hedge fund, Short-Term Capital Mismanagement LLP.

As you know, market selection for the entire fund is guided by a proprietary investing tool we like to call ``a dartboard.'' Once the asset classes are decided, individual security selections are generated by digitizing our unique hexagonal cuboid models.

Unfortunately, it transpires that our hexagonal cuboids are not as unique as we thought. Hundreds of other hedge funds possess identical dice. The technical term for this is a ``crowded trade.'' You may also see it referred to as ``climbing on a bandwagon already headed for the wall.''

As our alpha generation collapses, our beta has turned negative, our delta hedging has gone toxic and, trust me, you do not want to hear about our gamma. We can't even find our epsilons in the dark with both hands.

You will appreciate that accurate pricing is essential for evaluating our investment strategies. This has proven to be extremely challenging in recent days. Previously, we have relied on Bob, the sales guy at Hokey-Cokey Bank. Bob assured us the securities were still worth 100 percent of face value, so everything was cool. Bob sold the collateralized debt obligations to us in the first place, so he knows what he's talking about.

Bob, however, appears to have had a nervous breakdown, judging by the maniacal laughter that greeted our requests for price verification this week. Our efforts to implement an in- house CDO valuation framework, using a technique the ancients knew as ``making things up,'' proved unsatisfactory.
Where's the Bid?
Currently, all of the portfolios we manage are undergoing a rigorous screening known as ``crossing our fingers and praying that we don't have to try and find a bid in the market.'' This is supplemented by a cross-market statistical analysis originally developed by the U.S. military called ``don't ask, don't tell.'' This ``unmarking-to-unmarket'' procedure has been the benchmark for the hedge-fund industry for the past, ooh, 72 hours.

We have, of course, been in touch with the rating companies to update our default-probability scenarios, particularly on the AAA rated investments we own. They recommended a forecasting method using stochastics to regress the drift-to-downgrade timescales for the past 100 years and throw them forward for the next five minutes. The technical term for this is ``induction,'' though those of you of a less quantitative bent may know it as ``guessing.''

AAA or Toast?
We are pleased to report that, contrary to what current market prices might suggest, all of our top-rated securities remain absolutely AAA. Provided, that is, the future performance of the underlying collateral is identical to its history. Otherwise, the rating companies say our investments are likely to be reclassified as ``toast.''
We have also been checking our back-up credit lines with our friends in the investment-banking world. As soon as they return our calls, we'll be able to update you on our emergency liquidity position. We are sure they are fine.

Some of you have written to us asking for your money back, citing clauses in the fund documentation called redemption rights. Frankly, we never expected you to actually read that prospectus, which came prepackaged when we bought the Microsoft Hedge-Fund Guy software. We certainly have no idea what all those long words mean.

We have filed your letters in a special drawer in the filing cabinet marked ``trash'' for now. Do you have any idea how much trouble you all would be in if we actually sold this stuff in the market today? At these crazy prices? Fuhgeddaboudit. You'll thank us later.

Not a Rescue
Speaking of crazy prices, we know you'll be thrilled to learn that we've invited a bunch of our rich pals into the fund to participate in this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But this is not a rescue. Do not even think the word rescue. This is an opportunity. Not a rescue. An opportunity.

In fact, we think this is such a fantastic opportunity, we've agreed to forgo our usual management fee, and we'll only take half our usual slice of the profits. Provided there are any profits to slice. You, of course, are absolutely invited to participate in this offer by sending us yet more of your money on exactly the same revised terms as our rich pals.

Finally, a word for all of you who have been kind enough to inquire about my personal financial situation. I am relieved to report that my directors and officers insurance is fully paid up. Furthermore, my Bentley Continental was paid out of the 2 percent fee we levied when you wrote your first check to us, so I will still be able to trundle into the parking lot each morning in an open-necked shirt to ignore your telephone calls and e-mails. Yours, Hedge-Fund Guy.