Trying to confuse us??? I’ve noticed the word derivatives isn’t being said anywhere…nor the fact that they weren’t insured by AIG… hey…they knew the bet…don’t blame us!!! ~jude
* EU Commission wants G20 to debate issue
* CDS speculation worsens Greek woes, politicians say
* Proposals on derivatives, market abuse seen this year
STRASBOURG, France, March 9 (Reuters) – The European Commission will consider banning the naked selling of contracts that investors use to hedge against countries defaulting on their debt, its chief said on Tuesday.
Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the European Union’s executive would like the G20 group of developed and developing nations to discuss speculation in credit default swaps (CDS), a form of insurance against default.
Naked selling involves selling a CDS to a buyer who does not hold the underlying sovereign bond.
Barroso’s statement to the European Parliament followed claims by European politicians that speculation in credit default swaps on Greek debt worsened the country’s financial problems.
“A new, ad hoc reflection is needed on credit default swaps regarding sovereign debt,” Barroso said.
“In the short term, we must achieve the necessary coordination to ensure that Member States act in a coordinated fashion, most particularly for ‘naked’ practices. cont…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/8981221
BY DARRELL A. HUGHES
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The U.S. government sold its warrants to purchase shares of Washington Federal Inc. (WFSL) stock for $15.4 million, the Treasury said Wednesday.
The Treasury received warrants in several financial institutions as a means of maximizing returns on a $700 billion government effort to rescue the financial sector.
Treasury said it has commenced secondary public offerings of 1,707,456 warrants to buy stock of Washington Federal.
Treasury sold Washington Federal’s warrants with a strike price of $17.57 a share for $9.15 each. Bidding on those warrants, which expire in November 2018, started at $5 a share.
Prices for those warrants came below the upper end of the range expected by Linus Wilson, a University of Louisiana at Lafayette finance professor who has been tracking Treasury warrant auction data. Wilson projected the warrants would fetch between $5.92 and $9.94 a share.
BY BRETT PHILBIN
NEW YORK — Citigroup Inc. plans to roughly double the size of its private banker force in North America over the next several years.
In an interview with Dow Jones Newswires, Citi Private Bank’s North America Chief Executive Peter Charrington said he would like the unit, which boasts 130 bankers, to reach a total of about 260.
Building up the private bank, which targets investors with a net worth of at least $25 million, is an important growth area for Citi after the bank formed a joint venture with its Smith Barney brokerage and http://bit.ly/9kgXAN)
Posted by Karl Denninger
In what I can only describe as a self-serving piece for keeping banking “exactly as it is” (which is inherently unsustainable and thus can’t be) IRA tries to refute the value of mark-to-market with a stunning piece.
Finally, on April 2, 2009, FASB allowed banks to use “cash flow” to value bonds when the market was illiquid – exactly like Bernanke said last week. This fixed the immediate problems in the system, and the economy and financial markets have been on the mend ever since. In fact, the stock market bottomed on March 9, 2009 – the very day markets found out that Representatives Barney Frank and Paul Kanjorski would hold a hearing to force FASB to change the misguided accounting policy.
No it didn’t.
- Remember FHLB Seattle again? Their “at market” losses on a portfolio of trash, er, loans was some $300 million. They claimed that the real loss to be realized over time was in fact $12 million, using model-based accounting. After all, these loans, while deeply underwater, weren’t really impaired.
Or so they told Congress. I remember the testimony well.
But now, one year later, they are suing the banks that packaged up all this dog squeeze. Among the pieces of trash being sued over are the very same securities against which they said that a model-based valuation system showed a tiny $12 million loss.
Are they suing for $12 million?
No.
That “tiny $12 million loss” in fact is some $311 million – almost exactly what the market price predicted it would be.
Financial Warfare Exposed – Soros, Goldman Sachs,
Hedge Funds Attack Greece To Smash Euro
By Webster Tarpley
3-4-10
It has been evident for some time that the ongoing speculative attack on Greece, along with such other countries as Spain, Ireland, Portugal, and Italy, was not primarily a reflection of their economic fundamentals, nor yet a spontaneous movement of “the market,” but rather an orchestrated action of economic warfare. The dollar had been relentlessly falling through the late summer and autumn of 2009. It obviously occurred to various Anglo-American financiers that a diversionary attack on the euro, starting with some of the weaker Mediterranean or Southern European economies, would be an ideal means of relieving pressure on the battered US greenback. Since these degenerate elites are incapable of directly solving the problem of the dollar through increased production, full employment, and economic recovery, one of the few alternatives remaining to them is to create a situation in which the euro is collapsing faster, leaving the dollar as the beneficiary of some residual flight to quality or safe haven reflex.
By Richard Teitelbaum
Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) — When a congressional panel convened a hearing on the government rescue of American International Group Inc. in January, the public scolding of Treasury SecretaryTimothy F. Geithner got the most attention.
Lawmakers said the former head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank had presided over a backdoor bailout of Wall Street firms and a coverup. Geithner countered that he had acted properly to avert the collapse of the financial system.
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