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Posted
Sep 09 2008, 06:24 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
In community college Economics 101 students learn that there can be dips in bull markets. Usually these are caused by a single event like a change in the party that runs Congress. The same holds true for bear markets. Suckers jump in on one piece of news or another. The market spikes up. A week later, it's gone.
The Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rescue pushed the market higher and may do so for a few days. In Asia, they know better. The rally never made it beyond the first 24 hours. Markets turned down in Day Two.
The overwhelming evidence is that almost no one benefited from the government taking over the agencies. The rest of the economy is in the toilet. A lot of data has come out in the last day underscoring that point.
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Posted
Sep 11 2008, 09:01 AM
by
Andrew Horowitz
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 I have written on this topic several times before, but I would like you to take extra care and really absorb this today as I can't help to feel that between the energy fiasco and Fannie/Freddie, we have been ripped off. Later this week we will find out just how bad as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFC) will be releasing a report on oil market speculation.
If you have been a regular reader of MSN TopStocks over the past several months, I have been talking, writing, yelling and ranting about the obvious and rather incredible speculation that has occurred within the energy futures markets. It is remarkable how during that time, there has been a never ending stream of naysayers who have been confident that supply and demand is the only rationale for the parabolic rise of crude oil.
Now mind you, this comes from some pretty smart people who have been certain that in the short span of only a few months the world's supply was being outstripped due to the massive industrialized growth within China and India. Then, just as fast, that all changed because (as the tale goes) the price escalation actually dampened global consumption. Come on fellas, do we really look that stupid
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Posted
Sep 16 2008, 03:15 PM
by
Andrew Horowitz
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Since when do we rely on government to intervene in every case of a failing business? If anyone wonders why we have such a mess on our hands, look no further than our boneheaded government that has obviously forgotten its way. Think of this week's action within the financial markets as a result, not the cause of our problems.
AIG is in a battle for its very existence, Merrill has been absorbed and Lehman is bankrupt. And we're only part way through the week. What's next?
These days, many people are wondering what our government will do to stop the insanity. Yet, in a capitalistic society that relies on a free market system, we should only look to the government to guide and regulate against fraud and the manipulation of the system. Sometimes known as a laissez-faire philosophy, the government has a role, but it
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Posted
Sep 18 2008, 11:22 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Times must be tough for Freddie Mac CFO Anthony "Buddy" Piszel. The New York Post reports that he's selling his vacation home on Maryland's Eastern Shore for $5 million.
The three-story mansion is named "Rigby's Lott," and has six bedrooms and six bathrooms. (Why do mansions have their own name?) The Huffington Post has pictures of the home here.
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Posted
Sep 22 2008, 01:05 AM
by
Anthony Mirhaydari
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The United States government successfully popped the commodities bubble and brought down oil prices just in time for the election season, according to the latest rumor spreading around Wall Street trading desks.
Market strategist Donald Coxe from Canada's BMO Capital Markets discussed this idea in a note to clients last week. In his words, Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson, trapped between commodity-fueled inflation and a tumbling financial sector, took "the pressure off the heavily-levered banks by putting pressure on the heavily-levered speculators and hedge funds that were short the banks and the dollar, and long the commodities."
They accomplished this in July by announcing the U.S. Treasury would extend Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac a line of credit while holding open the possibility of
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Posted
Sep 26 2008, 12:19 PM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The bailout of the financial system has officially become a typical Washington dog-and-pony show. Partisan politics, it turns out, do in fact trump economic expediency and our elected officials' desire to act in the best interests of their constituency.
Meanwhile, back in reality, the short-term money market -- the oil that greases the gears of the financial system -- is coagulating.
According to the Wall Street Journal, cash is flowing out of the commercial paper market at an alarming rate. In the past two weeks, the market contracted by $113 billion, the largest Minyanville's Why Wall Street Will Never Be the Sameamount since last summer when the Federal Reserve was forced to take unprecedented steps to unfreeze credit markets.
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Posted
Oct 08 2008, 10:32 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Shorts will be returning to the game for the financials, which could have played a role in the massive sell-off in that sector. In the meantime, shorts are chomping at the bit.
The Financial ETF closed in unchartered territory on huge volume. Even with the 500-point decline on the Dow, old-school market watchers will tell you it wasn’t capitulation; volume was under 2 billion, when it should have been over 3 billion. Volume was massive in the financials yesterday, because there was no clear-cut reason for the move. Sure, Bank of America is going to raise money and cut its dividend, but why was Morgan Stanley beaten to a pulp?
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Posted
Oct 09 2008, 06:43 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Henry Paulson watched the Brits come up with a new plan to save the banking system before he did. He is probably embarrassed by that. He and Bernanke seemed to have a big lead over everyone else in building Lego models for saving the financial world.
The latest idea if for the Treasury to actually buy equity in banks thereby mainlining capital into large financial institutions in the hope that they will then lend that money out.
It would be a fabulous and daring program if it made any sense. According to The New York Times,"Having tried without success to unlock frozen credit markets, the Treasury Department is considering taking ownership stakes in many United States banks to try to restore confidence in the financial system."
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Posted
Oct 13 2008, 10:37 AM
by
Minyanville
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
I guess what's happening now is the financial equivalent of the Normandy Invasion that was the beginning of the end of Nazi aggression in World War II. Today's villain is a complex situation that gets worse as it gets worse. The more people that lose their homes the worse the economy becomes and the worse the economy becomes… the more people lose their homes.
According to the International Monetary Fund the eventual tally to banks from the housing/CDO collapse will eclipse $1.4 trillion. The good news is half has already been written off and accounted for; the bad news is the actual total could be more. (It's funny, at the beginning of the year I though IMF projections were excessive, now they seem conservative.) Although, there is a chance the tally could be lower, depending on the success of global intervention.
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Posted
Oct 13 2008, 11:42 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Amazon's biggest institutional investor has reduced its holdings of the company. Legg Mason Capital Management is now down to 5.7% of the company from 8.5% earlier this year. Amazon's been on a steep slide in the last month, dropping from above the $80 mark to $59.35 today (although shares are up more than 5% today from Friday). Has Bill Miller lost his crystal ball? Miller, the chairman and chief investment officer of Legg Mason, is the only fund manager to beat the S&P 500 for 15 straight years. That stopped in 2006. Miller's seeing some severe losses at his Legg Mason Value Trust fund, Reuters reports. The fund has sunk nearly 24% in October and is down 52% so far in 2008. It ranks at the bottom of the large-cap growth funds. The fund has been down to about $8 billion, from about $20.6 billion in June of last year.
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