The private-public partnership scheme announced by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner this morning would seem to offer the big hedge fund and institutional investors allowed to invest in it a great deal.
They can borrow at low cost from the government up to 97 percent of the money used to buy assets from banks. If the values go up, they can pay off the loans and profit from the upside. If the values keep dropping, they can walk away from their debt.
But will that deal stick?
In the aftermath of the AIG bonus debacle, investors must be a bit nervous about getting involved in a deal with Treasury. We’re sure that Geithner has already lined up PIMCO and other big buyers for the assets but the political backlash over the AIG investments may limit participation.
Here are the two risks that Geithner cannot control or reduce for investors:
If assets lose value. If a year or two from now it becomes obvious that investors paid too much for the troubled assets and they are now facing loses, many will be tempted to cut their losses by defaulting on the FDIC debt and the Treasury department. That’s how the program was designed to work: taxpayers get stuck with the bill of everything but the tiny percentage of money put up by the private investor.
How will politicians react to this? There will be anger at the taxpayer losses. Some of this will be directed at the Obama administration officials who set the program. But some will no doubt come to rest on the private partners who chose to pay the elevated prices. Special taxes could be levied against "hedge funds that recklessly overpaid for assets knowing their own risks were limited."
Hedge fund pay structures could make that anger even more intense. Say Citadel bids on assets priced at 50 percent of par. Those assets wind up being worth just 20% on the dollar. Citadel cuts its losses and stops paying on the non-recourse debt, handing the junk assets back to the government. The lenders collect their piece of the loans from the FDIC. But if Citadel is otherwise having a good year, it may pay hundreds
Treasury Secretary Geithner’s Public-Private Investment Program has been a long time coming – the market was anticipating the unveiling at the end of February, and it is finally upon us. Softening rhetoric on executive pay should combine with Geithner’s plan to spark a rally…lets see how long it lasts.
The Public-Private Investment Program will purchase real-estate related loans from banks and securities from the broader markets. Banks will have the ability to sell pools of loans to dedicated funds, and investors will compete to have the ability to participate in those funds and take advantage of the financing provided by the government.
The funds established under this program will have three essential design features. First, they will use government resources in the form of capital from the Treasury, and financing from the FDIC and Federal Reserve, to mobilize capital from private investors. Second, the Public-Private Investment Program will ensure that private-sector participants share the risks alongside the taxpayer, and that the taxpayer shares in the profits from these investments. These funds will be open to investors of all types, such as pension funds, so that a broad range of Americans can participate. WSJ, Tim Geithner
Geithner explains it all in the Wall Street Journal, which might be a better choice than the New York Times, which botched its first attempt to explain the plan, according to Brad DeLong’s FAQ on the matter.
And note the plan has an unexpected wrinkle – The five new joint venture funds would be able to draw on Fed Talf financing. This is a surprise concession by the Fed, which has maintained that the Talf was to finance new lending rather than legacy assets.FT
Treasury Department Releases Details on Public Private Partnership Investment Program US Treasury
We discussed the details of the Geithner plan in our Weekend Reading post and my take was "On the whole, it’s pretty clever." This morning it seems global investors are in agreement as we have a heck of a pre-market rally in progress so we are having another manic (as opposed to depressive) Monday although, maybe I shouldn’t say "just another" as it’s been a while. Manic Mondays were a habit during the rally but have been such a rarity this year that, IF we stay positive, this would only be our second green Monday of the year.
Green Mondays are good. Once upon a time we had "Merger Mondays" in which some sector or another would fly up on an uber-merger announcement and these announcements often came over the weekend because companies were so busy during the week that it was the only time they had to sit down with lawyers and get a deal done. Having great Monday’s leads to an atmosphere of fear among the bears, who dread going into a weekend with short positions. This causes them to cover into Friday’s close and gives us a positive end to the week, which makes all our charts look pretty and keeps people in a good mood.
Paulson was well aware of this and that’s why, in the fall, we had a series of big government announcements over the weekend, aimed at keeping the bears at bay (plus they even banned short selling at one point) but the bears have run rampant over Geithner as he struggles to find his groove in his first 60 days. Geithner is scheduled to release a briefing at 8:45 but enough details have now been leaked that we’re getting a big, early push.
As I mentioned in our special Weekly Wrap-Up, where we reviewed all 43 trade ideas that were posted for the week, we went with selling naked FAS $5 puts for $1.20 because, as I said to members during Friday’s chat session: "How many times will you watch in disbelief as it hits $7.50 before you buy some at $5? You can sell naked Apr $5 puts for $1.20, which should leave you with about $1.10 in margin used for a double and hell yes, we’d be happy to own them at $3.80."
Keep in mind that just because we love our financials when they…
Mar. 19--Lenders have become so overwhelmed by the foreclosure crisis that they are starting to unload properties in bulk to investor groups at steep discounts. Investors then flip the properties for a profit without necessarily improving the home.
For example, a unit of Citigroup, the troubled financial giant, sold a foreclosure in Temecula to an Arizona investment firm for $139,000 when comparable homes in the area were selling for $240,000 to $260,000.
The firm listed the home for $249,000, received multiple offers and the property has entered escrow, said Amber Schlieder, the real estate agent who handled the listing.
The Temecula foreclosure was first listed for sale by Citigroup in May 2007 for $420,000, according to Multi-Regional Multiple Listing Service, a real estate posting site used by real estate agents.
The property was listed on the site for 19 months before selling to the investors in a bulk sale in December 2008. The lowest price it was listed for was $314,000.
"It should have been listed for less," said Craig Finlayson, a real estate agent in the area who listed the property for Citigroup. "But it would have sold for more than 139 (thousand); 139 was a giveaway price."
CR Capital was the firm that flipped the Temecula foreclosure property, an investment group based in Tucson, Ariz. Calls to CR Capital were not immediately returned.
Incompetence In Pricing
The house never sold because Citigroup had it priced way above market. That is incompetence, lack of concern, an overworked unit or a combination of the above. I vote for the latter.
In November, the government agreed to limit Citigroup’s losses on a portfolio of $301 billion of troubled assets. Last month, the government issued a similar guarantee to Bank of America covering $118 billion in troubled assets. In both cases, the companies agreed to absorb an initial increment
It’s going to be interesting to see how quickly Congress and the administration caves in to banks and Wall Street after expressing so much indignation about bonuses over the last week.
Here is the backdrop.
Senator Chuck Grassley said AIG "Sucking The Tit Of The Taxpayer".
President Obama said "It’s hard to understand how derivative traders at AIG warranted any bonuses, much less $165m in extra pay"
Obama pressed Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to "pursue every single legal avenue" to block the bonuses.
The Senate plans to vote next week on steep levies on employee bonuses after the House overwhelmingly approved a 90 percent tax on bonuses at American International Group Inc. and other companies receiving bailout funds.
The Senate’s proposal on companies that got federal money would place a 70 percent tax on the bonuses. Half that amount would be paid by employees, half by the companies.
The 328-93 House vote came amid a national outcry over $165 million AIG paid in bonuses last week after receiving $173 billion in bailout funds as part of the government’s efforts to stabilize credit markets. President Barack Obama said he was “stunned” by the bonuses and vowed to recoup the money. Nineteen state governments have begun probes of the AIG bonuses.
“Paying excessive bonuses to the same group of folks that helped get us into this crisis is simply unacceptable,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus said in a statement. “Millions of Americans continue to struggle to get by, counting their dollars, and Congress needs to do the same.”
The House measure would cover companies receiving 75 percent of federal bailout funds, according to the Ways and Means Committee. The Senate proposal would affect a larger pool of workers and the chamber may vote on it next week, said its primary sponsor, Baucus, a Montana Democrat.
Meanwhile, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank proposed legislation late yesterday to ban payments at companies getting U.S. aid until the government is repaid.
The global economic crisis isn’t about money – it’s about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution
It’s over — we’re officially, royally fucked. no empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step too far. It happened when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was forced to admit that he was once again going to have to stuff billions of taxpayer dollars into a dying insurance giant called AIG, itself a profound symbol of our national decline — a corporation that got rich insuring the concrete and steel of American industry in the country’s heyday, only to destroy itself chasing phantom fortunes at the Wall Street card tables, like a dissolute nobleman gambling away the family estate in the waning days of the British Empire.
The latest bailout came as AIG admitted to having just posted the largest quarterly loss in American corporate history — some $61.7 billion. In the final three months of last year, the company lost more than $27 million every hour. That’s $465,000 a minute, a yearly income for a median American household every six seconds, roughly $7,750 a second. And all this happened at the end of eight straight years that America devoted to frantically chasing the shadow of a terrorist threat to no avail, eight years spent stopping every citizen at every airport to search every purse, bag, crotch and briefcase for juice boxes and explosive tubes of toothpaste. Yet in the end, our government had no mechanism for searching the balance sheets of companies that held life-or-death power over our society and was unable to spot holes in the national economy the size of Libya (whose entire GDP last year was smaller than AIG’s 2008 losses).
So it’s time to admit it: We’re fools, protagonists in a kind of gruesome comedy about the marriage of greed and stupidity. And the worst part about it is that we’re still in denial — we still think this is some kind of unfortunate accident, not…
Michael Panzner reports on the fraud being uncovered in the wake of the financial meltdown and the likelihood that it’s only the tip of the iceberg. - Ilene
In Financial Armageddon, I warned that a great deal of ugliness would come to light once the Great Unraveling was underway (from Chapter 10, "Financial"):
Newfound transparency in the wake of the unfolding financial crisis will expose a scale of fraud, corruption, and self dealing that many will find almost impossible to comprehend. Day in and day out, reports will surface about hidden losses, false accounting, inflated appraisals, sizable off-balance-sheet obligations, valuation discrepancies, unregulated offshore entities, phantom profits, insider trading, and businesses bled dry to enrich a few individuals at the expense of employees, investors, bankers, and bondholders. Other revelations will reinforce the idea that companies, governments, and individuals are in far worse shape than people had assumed only a few years earlier. Much like the child watching the royal parade in Hans Christian Anderson’s tale, "The Emperor’s New Clothes,” they will be bewildered by the starkness of businesses lacking any real substance.
Yet despite all the chicanery that has been exposed so far, it looks like there is plenty more to go if the following Financial Times report, "Watchdog Fears Market ‘Ponzimonium,’" is anything to go by.
US federal regulators have warned of a “rampant Ponzimonium” as they disclosed they are investigating “hundreds” of possible scams in the aftermath of the $50bn fraud allegedly perpetrated by Bernard Madoff.
Bart Chilton, a commissioner at the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, the US regulator, said the watchdog was “seeing more of these scams than ever before” in commodities and other futures markets.
Mr Chilton said the CFTC, which patrol commodities and financial futures markets such as derivatives on stocks and foreign exchange, was investigating “hundreds of individuals and entities, many of which were related to Ponzi scams”.
The CFTC has filed charges against 15 alleged Ponzi schemes so far this year, compared with 13 during the whole of 2008. If the rate were sustained, the regulator could end the year filling more than 60 cases, officials said.
Here’s a fun chart that illustrates why I like gold. Don’t take it too seriously but do take seriously that this is exactly what happened to the US when we got embroiled in the Vietnam war and Nixon took over and the country plunged into debt and we cut taxes to the rich and dropped the gold standard. The ratio of the Dow to gold dropped from 47:1 to 2:1 but the middle of Reagan’s first term. During the Clinton years, as we moved towards a budget surplus, the ratio of Dow to gold jumped from 7:1 in 1993 to 40:1 in 2002 but, since then, has dropped back to 15:1. The bottom line is: If you are worried about the markets – buy some gold. If you are worried about the dollar – buy some gold. If you are worried about terrorism – buy some gold.
I still think we should get a correction in gold back to $875 (no longer $850 as the trendline has been yanked up) but we’re not hedging gold because we are worried it will hit $1,000, we are hedging because we are worried it will hit $2,000. That means that the difference between buying gold at $850 or $950 is not a big enough deal to stay completely out of it now. We would LIKE to be in the 2011 $70 calls for $20. Sadly, they are $32.25 at the moment. Here is how you can use a rolling plan to enter something high and still be happy when it’s low.
We pick a target amount of gold. Say 10% of our virtual portfolio and say that’s $10,000.
We scale in so we buy $2,500 at a time (roughly)
We FIRST look at what rolls cost. The roll from the $120s to the $115s is $1. Well that’s silly, we’d pay that now. The roll from the $75s to the $70s is $3 so let’s say we’ll be happy to spend $1.50 a roll. THEREFORE we buy in at the first strike we CAN’T roll down for $1.50, which is the 2011 $100s at $19.
If we plan on spending $1.50 per $5 roll down as gold falls, it will cost us $9 ($1.50 x 6 rolls) to get down to the 2011 $70s. That would put us in for $28 total dollar and now the question is –
I really can’t take all this AIG talk in the media anymore.
I’m not looking to defend the bonuses or argue the point but gee America, can we move on? We have TONS of problems that need solving yet the "finest minds" the media can assemble spend all day long on TV discussing whether or not to punish AIG workers retroactively. On top of that, turning this into a referendum on Tim Geithner after 60 days on the job is simply ridiculous.
I mentioned Friday that the real problem is Congress passing retroactive tax laws, which will do far more economic damage to this country than the 90% of $165M they are using the legislation to go after. What really cracks me up is the LACK of outrage at the 85 REPUBLICAN Congressmen who voted for the 90% clawback tax. I’m outraged at the Democrats, this is ridiculous populous pandering and if this bill actually goes through I’ll be very, very disturbed about what is happening in this country. I am still hoping cooler heads do prevail.
I put in my mandatory Fox viewing time this morning (their "Cost of Freedom" block) and, if you wonder why people are still worried about the economy, all you have to do is spend a half hour listening to these talking heads ramble on for a segment and you too will be heading down to the nearest bomb shelter will all the canned food, guns and gold you can carry before the government comes to take it all away from you! What I have learned this morning from Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News is that Geithner must resign now because he knew about the bonuses on March 3rd, not on March 10th as he indicated when he said "last Tuesday." I also learned that no one who voted for TARP read the bill and that that is Obama and Geithener’s fault – even though they weren’t in office at the time. I learned that our deficit is really $3.6Tn, not $1.7Tn and that Obama hates the handicapped.
I know all of this is true because the people who agree with these points are much louder than the people who disagree. Also, Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal agrees as well and that legitimizes the whole thing, right? My favorite part is the girl who keeps interrupting in the deficit segment saying "this is supposed to be fair and balanced" to justify the fact…
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Deflation simply means falling prices. The 4-pack below reflects that the bond players believe in the deflation theme as the yield on the 10-year note breaks below the 2009 and 2011 lows.
Speaking of deflation and falling prices, the CRB has now broken below last summer's lows, the CRX is at last summer's lows, and Crude Oil finds itself on key rising support.
With the only real catalyst on the horizon not due for nearly one month - that would be the Greek elections of June 17 which while presented as the make or break event for the Eurozone, we believe will be once again inconclusive, resulting in no actual government, but merely more elections down the road - here is the daily sequence of events of what we can expect: i) Europe releases definitive rumor that everyone is preparing for a Greek exit full of bombastic jargon and details of how Greece will be annihilated if it does exit the EMU; ii) immediate election polls are...
China Automotive Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CAAS) oday announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Great Genesis Holdings Limited, has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its equity interest in Zhejiang Henglong & Vie Pump-Manu Co., Ltd, to the Zhejiang Vie Group Great Genesis's joint venture partner in Zhejiang. This transaction is subject to local regulatory authority approval.
Founded in 2002, Zhejiang, which designs, manufactures and markets power steering pumps, is located in Zhuji City, Zhejiang Province. According to the Agreement, Great Genesis will sell its 51% stake in Zhejiang to Vie Group for RMB52 million, which represents a 24% premium as compared to the May 20, 2012 estimated net book value of approximately RMB42 million. According to unaudited accounting information, Zh...
The small Mediterranean country of Greece has been more than a thorn in Europe’s (NYSEARCA:VGK) back for the past eighteen months; it has been the focal point of foreign press on Europe, and in this case all press is not necessarily good press. To truly understand the scope of the Greek debt crisis, one must analyze the Greek economy and its overall importance to the Euro. As ever more countries bid to enter the Euro, now Greece appears to bid for an exit, the first ever in the Euro’s history. A Greek exit from the Euro has been likened to a w...
Top 5 RisersStockRatingAnalysisWDCSTRONGBUYWestern Digital is one of the top candidates projected to achieve both higher than previously projected earnings in the short run and a higher earnings growth rate in the long run.KROSTRONGBUYKronos Worldwide is gaining higher expectations and its recent history of its earnings increases is significant.URIBUYProjected value continues to rise for United Rentals while long term increases in earnings growth are also becoming more widely expected.SWHCBUYAn increasingly attractive expected long term growth rate and a significantly higher projected valu...
The market remains a mess right now as we are back to the environment of latter 2011 and middle 2010 where random comments from officials across the Atlantic move everything en masse. Today the market was hit by word that preparations for Greece's exit from the EU are being considered.
Of course a denial by another official would send the market up 1% immediately. Rinse, wash, repeat – year #3.
The bigger picture right now is all stocks are moving as one asset class as our massive correlations return. Until that changes it is very difficult to bother to be a stock picker.
EXPR - Express, Inc. – Shares in apparel retailer, Express, Inc., dropped nearly 30.0% today to a new 52-week low of $16.38 after the company projected full-year earnings below those expected by analysts. Options on EXPR are far more active than usual today, with overall volume on the stock currently at 4,460 lots, up nearly 2,000% over the stock&rsq...
To learn more, sign up for David's free newsletter and receive the free report from All About Trends - "How To Outperform 90% Of Wall Street With Just $500 A Week." Tell David PSW sent you. - Ilene...
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In this article, please revisit an article written two years ago titled, "The Calm Before the Storm." This article focused on the patent cliff that was looming in the pharmaceutical industry, that was later picked up by the New York Times and several other bloggers! Subsequent articles were written about big pharma company's revenue streams, and the pros and cons of of their later stage pipelines. Other articles have also attempted to identify smaller biotechs with the potential to reap big reward...
My last weekend update is dated from January 30 so after a long hiatus, here is an update of our virtual portfolio. Since the last update, we have closed the AA Money portfolio due to a lack of enthusiasm (and activity) and I have stopped tracking the FAS strangle as the low VIX makes it hard to get rewarded for the risk! But we have added a small $5KP virtual portfolio which does not use any margin.
FAS Money
We have had to recover from a big move up by FAS and a low VIX which keeps option prices low. But the portfolio has gaine about 10% since the last update.
Last update P&L - $5499.00
IWM Money
Not a lot of activity in this portfolio where the main focus is on the large IWM BCS. But the portfolio has grown over 20% since the last update.
Last update P&L - $1998.00
$5KP Portfolio
This is the virtual portfolio that replaced the AA Money portfolio. It does not use margin and we will keep holdings under $5K.
AAPL $50K P...
Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
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The private-public partnership scheme announced by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner this morning would seem to offer the big hedge fund and institutional investors allowed to invest in it a great deal.
How will politicians react to this? There will be anger at the taxpayer losses. Some of this will be directed at the Obama administration officials who set the program. But some will no doubt come to rest on the private partners who chose to pay the elevated prices. Special taxes could be levied against "hedge funds that recklessly overpaid for assets knowing their own risks were limited."
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Paulson was well aware of this and that’s why, in the fall, we had a series of big government announcements over the weekend, aimed at keeping the bears at bay (plus they even banned short selling at one point) but the bears have run rampant over Geithner as he struggles to find his groove in his first 60 days. Geithner is scheduled to release a briefing at 8:45 but enough details have now been leaked that we’re getting a big, early push.
Incompetence In Pricing
- 
Yet despite all the chicanery that has been exposed so far, it looks like there is plenty more to go if the following Financial Times report, 
We pick a target amount of gold. Say 10% of our virtual portfolio and say that’s $10,000.
I really can’t take all this AIG talk in the media anymore.
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
(