Mmhhm…, ‘ne Menge Leute reden momentan davon, dass der Markt temporär seinen Boden gefunden haben soll, allein das könnte ebenfalls schon wieder stutzig machen ;-)
Da werden Trendlinien ab 2003 vorgebracht, auf Oversold-Konditionen hingewiesen, MACD im S&P bei -26, Percentage of Stocks > than 200 Day Moving Average, usw., usw.
Ein Rebound in der nächsten Woche scheint ja somit fast eine ausgemachte Sache zu sein, also wenn die Börse so einfach wäre ….
Ambac Insurance Loses AAA Ranking at Fitch Ratings
Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Ambac Financial Group Inc. became the first bond insurer to lose its AAA rating after Fitch Ratings downgraded the company.
Ambac Assurance Corp. was lowered two levels to AA and may be reduced further, New York-based Fitch said today in a statement. The downgrade ``reflects the significant uncertainty with respect to the company's franchise, business model and strategic direction,'' Fitch said.
Without its AAA rating New York-based Ambac may be unable to write the top-ranked bond insurance that makes up 74 percent of its revenue. Ambac may quit the business or sell itself, said Robert Haines, an analyst at CreditSights Inc., a bond research firm in New York. The downgrade throws doubt on the ratings of $556 billion in municipal and structured finance debt guaranteed by Ambac.
``This makes Ambac insurance toxic,'' said Matt Fabian, senior analyst and managing director at Municipal Market Advisors in Westport, Connecticut. ``The market has no tolerance for a ratings-deprived insurer.''
Ambac, the second-largest bond insurer, fell 4 cents to $6.20 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The company today abandoned plans to raise $1 billion in capital after a 70 percent plunge in its shares in the past two days.
Moody's Investors Service and Standard & Poor's, the two largest ratings companies, are reviewing Ambac's ratings for a possible reduction. Moody's said this week it may also cut the ratings of MBIA Inc., the largest bond insurer.
`Matter of Time'
``The likelihood is quite high the others will follow,'' said John Tierney, credit market strategist at Deutsche Bank AG in New York. ``Barring some significant development on new capital, it's just a matter of time before S&P and Moody's act on MBIA and Ambac.''
The seven AAA rated bond insurers place their stamp on $2.4 trillion of debt. Losing those rankings may cost borrowers and investors as much as $200 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The industry guaranteed $100 billion of collateralized debt obligations linked to subprime mortgages, $22 billion of non-prime auto loans and $1.2 trillion of municipal debt.
New York-based Merrill Lynch & Co., the world's largest brokerage, yesterday took $3.1 billion of writedowns on the value of default protection from bond insurers.
Ambac-Insured Bonds
Fitch, following its downgrade of Ambac Assurance, adjusted ratings accordingly for 137,990 municipal bonds and 114 non- municipal issues insured by the company. Bonds with underlying ratings higher than Ambac's will remain above the bond insurer's level, Fitch said today in a statement.
Fitch last month demanded the company raise $1 billion by the end of January. Ambac on Jan. 16 slashed its dividend 67 percent and said it would sell stock or convertible notes to bolster its capital. The plan provoked a boardroom dispute and led to the departure of Chief Executive Officer Robert Genader.
Ambac's interim CEO, Michael Callen, 67, this week said the company planned to raise capital in ``an accelerated time frame.''
Moody's said this week it may cut Ambac's ratings after the company forecast writedowns of $3.5 billion on subprime-mortgage securities. Standard & Poor's today said it may cut Ambac's rating because its capital-raising options are ``impaired.''
The sudden increase in scrutiny by Moody's, a month after the company affirmed the ratings, sparked tension with Ambac and MBIA.
Ambac yesterday described Moody's decision to place its ratings on review as ``surprising.'' MBIA issued a statement today saying it had started a capital raising plan ``in good faith reliance'' on Moody's stated requirements.
`Exceeds Requirements'
MBIA raised $1 billion last week in the sale of surplus notes and last month entered a deal to sell $1 billion of stock to private-equity firm Warburg Pincus LLC. Both companies slashed their dividends and took out reinsurance on some securities to help shore up capital.
``We believe our capital plan meets or exceeds the requirements previously outlined by Moody's and the other two major rating agencies,'' MBIA Chief Executive Officer Gary Dunton said in the statement.
MBIA's surplus notes plunged as low as 70 cents on the dollar today, indicating a yield of about 25 percent, traders said. MBIA fell 67 cents, or 7.3 percent, to $8.55 on the New York Stock Exchange, taking its decline to 48 percent this week.
Ratings companies, which affirmed their assessments a month ago, are scrutinizing bond insurers to ensure they have enough capital to protect against losses. S&P yesterday said industry losses on subprime securities will be 20 percent more than it initially forecast.
Ambac has a capital shortfall of about $400 million under the new assumptions, S&P said.
Ambac Bonds
Ambac's 6.15 percent bonds due in 2037 have plunged by 25 cents on the dollar this week to 35.4 cents on the dollar, according to Trace, the bond-price reporting system of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. The yield has soared to 17.6 percent from 10.5 percent and the extra yield investors demand over government securities with similar maturities has widened 7.2 percentage points to 13.4 percentage points.
Prices for credit-default swaps that pay investors if MBIA can't meet its debt obligations imply a 71 percent chance it will default in the next five years, according to a JPMorgan Chase & Co. valuation model. Contacts on Ambac imply 72 percent odds.
Bond Protection
Contracts tied to MBIA's bonds have risen 10 percentage points the past two days to 26 percent upfront and 5 percent a year, according to CMA Datavision in New York. That means it would cost $2.6 million initially and $500,000 a year to protect $10 million in MBIA bonds from default for five years.
Credit-default swaps on Ambac, the second-biggest insurer, rose 11.5 percentage points to 26.5 percent upfront and 5 percent a year yesterday, prices from CMA Datavision show. They were unchanged today.
Credit-default swaps are financial instruments based on bonds and loans that are used to speculate on a company's ability to repay debt. They pay the buyer face value in exchange for the underlying securities or the cash equivalent should a borrower fail to adhere to its debt agreements. A rise indicates deterioration in the perception of credit quality; a decline, the opposite.
Ambac agreed to guarantee almost $200 million of bonds sold so far this year, or 6 percent of the market for new insured issues, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Ambac's market share was 22.5 percent as of Sept. 30, 2007, according to a Dec. 13 report from Bear Stearns Cos.
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