Der USA Bären-Thread

The financial crisis has left behind a "slow disease" that is eating into financial markets, and this is obvious in stock prices and currencies, but less so in bonds for the moment, Mohamed El-Erian, CEO and co-chief investment officer of Pimco, told CNBC Tuesday.

 

"The standing of our financial markets is getting eroded every day, volume gets thinner. It's like a slow disease," El-Erian said.

The same thing is obvious in currency markets and in commodities, while "the bond market is pricing in the impact of someone with a printing press being a buyer," he added.

Minutes of the latest Federal Open Market Committee meeting will be released later Tuesday and investors will get a chance to see how close the Federal Reserve is to launching a second round of asset-buying, or quantitative easing.

The minutes will show if the Fed has revised its growth projections lower for the US economy, and by how much, and the minutes will also indicate where the central bank is on its path to more money printing, according to El-Erian.

"I suspect that, on the whole, the FOMC is ready is move on with (more quantitative easing) in November," he said.

 

But investors should look for the details of quantitative easing as well, such as whether the Fed will extend the class of assets it buys or whether it will proceed in small steps, El-Erian said.

Last week, St. Louis Fed president James Bullard told CNBC that the next FOMC meeting on whether to launch the second round of quantitative easing will be a "tough call."

"I think it's a reflection that people know that QE2 will not be fully effective," El-Erian said, adding that "in a perfect world the Fed wouldn't be doing all the heavy lifting by itself."

The International Monetary Fund meeting at the weekend, which ended without any clear resolution regarding the race to devalue currencies across the world, shows that there is no will to solve the problem, he said.

"What this weekend told us is that the only response is to kick the can down the road," El-Erian said.

"I worry more about the global standing of the dollar … you can't beat up a reserve currency forever," he added.

A dollar demise could lead to a fragmentation of asset allocation by world investors and "a more fragmented system works less well globally," El-Erian said.

 

Last Friday's worse-than-forecast nonfarm payrolls report served to show how big the challenge to achieve a sustained recovery is, he said, adding that structural reforms and dealing with the debt overhang are critical parts of boosting the economy.

"We did really well in winning the war against world depression but we're having problems securing the peace," El-Erian said.

Hmm....

>>>So rechnen in Deutschland inzwischen 48 Prozent der Befragten in den nächsten sechs Monaten mit steigenden Aktienkursen. Das ist ein Plus von 17 Prozentpunkten gegenüber dem zweiten Quartal des Jahres 2010. Kursrückgänge befürchten dagegen nur noch 14 Prozent, nach 36 Prozent noch im Vorquartal. Konstante Kurse dagegen erwarten 29 Prozent , nach 25 Prozent im Vorquartal. Die meisten Befragten rechnen auch mit einer Verbesserung der wirtschaftlichen Situation in Deutschland. Dies zeigt eine Umfrage von Union Investment zum Anlegerverhalten im dritten Quartal 2010.<<<

Mich hamse nich befragt. Euch wohl auch nicht.

---

MMn wird sie eskalieren. Nur Geduld. Könnte schon in der 2. Hälfte 2011 so weit sein.

Neues vom Bankhaus Rott.

Aus dem schönen England und den angegliederten Segmenten des Vereinigten Königreichs kommen erneut unschöne Meldungen. Nein, es dreht sich nicht um die Qualifikationsspiele der Three Lions, vielmehr ist der seit längerem schlingernde Immobilienmarkt unglücklich auf das Gaspedal gefallen. Die Preise wechselten bei eingelegtem Rückwärtsgang auf die Überholspur.

(Bloomberg) — U.K. house prices plunged in September by the most since records began a quarter of a century ago amid “renewed uncertainty” about the British economy, Halifax said.

Immerhin, im September beschleunigte sich der Rückgang der Hauspreise und erreichte ein monatliches Minus von erklecklichen 3,6%. Das ist in der Tat der stärkste Rückgang seit Beginn der Datenerhebung durch Lloyds TSB im Jahre 1983. In Zahlen ausgedrückt bedeutet dies einen im Mittel um knapp €10.000 gesunkenen Preis. Nicht schlecht, das macht rund €330 pro Tag. Dabei ist der britische Markt noch weit entfernt von den Korrekturen, die in anderen Ländern zu beobachten sind. An besseren wirtschaftlichen Voraussetzungen kann dies allerdings nicht liegen. Die folgende Grafik zeigt die Veränderungen der vorangegangenen Jahre.
[...]
bankhaus-rott.de/wordpress/

Musste mich erstmal über "Kapitalverkehrskontrollen" informieren.
Sehr kompliziert.

www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/10/...ffic-at-2008-levels.html

Haben die Groß- und Einzelhändler in der Hoffnung auf ein gutes Weihnachtsgeschäft ihre Lager mit Importwaren zu stark aufgefüllt? Es wird sich zeigen.

Most Federal Reserve members appear ready to launch a new round of monetary easing soon because of expectations that the US economy will remain weak through 2011, according to minutes of the cental bank's September meeting.

 

Minutes of the closed-door deliberations, released Tuesday, suggest Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues were closing in on a consensus to launch more asset purchases—known as quantitative easing.

Members, however, didn't settle on how big the program should be or exactly how it should be structured.  Such details are what Fed officials are currently wrestling with as their prepare for the next meeting on Nov. 2-3.

Economists predict Fed officials will decide on that program at that meeting.

The Fed's purchase aims to drive down interest rates on mortgages, corporate debt and other loans. It hopes that this will spur Americans to boost spending, which would strengthen the economy and ultimately chip away at stubbornly high unemployment.

Public remarks by Fed officials since the Sept. 21 meeting suggest the program will be smaller than the $1.7 trillion one it launched during the recession. Under that program, the Fed purchased a mix of mortgage securities and government debt.

The effort was credited with forcing down mortgages rates and providing support to the crippled housing market.

At the September meeting, some Fed officials thought that the economic benefit of a new program could be "small." A smaller program isn't expected to lower rates as much as the Fed's crisis-era program did, economists say.

Moreover, there's concern that even cheaper loans will fail to get people and companies to ramp up their spending. Thus far, they haven't been confident enough in the economy or their own financial prospects to do so.

"It looks like they are moving forward with (more easing,)" Michael Woolfolk, senior currency strategist, BNYy Mellon, told Reuters. "They did not provide much guidance in terms of when they will deliver it, but I think it's fair to expect it to arrive sometime after the election and before the end of the year."

News of the Fed minutes helped stocks pare their losses, while bonds fell further and the dollar gained.

The Fed's move toward further easing came as the central bank's staff lowered its projection for the increase in real economic activity over the second half of 2010. The staff also reduced slightly its forecast of growth next year but continued to anticipate a moderate strengthening of the expansion in 2011 as well as a further pickup in economic growth in 2012.

"We at the Fed Politburo are stuck with trillions of fiatscos of dead, toxic, trash (including loans for Red Roof Inns, Harley Hogs and even Cabela's "Mastercard Trusts", the latter of which are backed by nighcrawlers!) and we want to see if we can hand even a few of these worthless instruments BACK to the Pigmen who foisted them on us without collapsing the entire, rickety edifice we call the U.S. financial system.

Furthermore, since we know that the failed financial gamblers really CAN'T hand us back the fiatscos we flung to them to save these bums in during the financial meltdown, we will only do these 'reverse repos' for a couple of minutes--at most--and therefore can claim:

'See? Everything's fine. Any day now, we swear, we are gonna unwind all these fiatsco-flinging machinations and restore the Fed's balance sheet to its formerly-pristine condition!' "

Love,

The Fed Politburo, Money Masters of the Universe

LOL.

vornehmen wird, nun zum fünftem Mal aufgetischt wird, ist es nun langsam an der Zeit, die Euphorie abzushorten.

Irgendwann kommt der Zeitpunkt. Es ist aber schwer diesen zu bestimmen.

Gruß

Permanent

bestärkt meine bereits gepostete Skepsis.

www.ftd.de/finanzen/maerkte/marktberichte/...coa/50181709.html

Russischer Bär oder FED Bär.

There has been plenty of pontificating over the ramifications of foreclosure freezes on troubled borrowers, foreclosure buyers and the larger housing market, not to mention lawsuits, investor losses and bank write downs. There has been precious little talk of what the real legal issues are behind the robosigning scandal. Yes, you can't/shouldn't sign documents you never read, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. The real issue is ownership of these loans and who has the right to foreclose. By the way, despite various comments from the Obama administration, foreclosures are governed by state law. There is no real federal jurisdiction.

A source of mine pointed me to a recent conference call Citigroup had with investors/clients.  It featured Adam Levitin, a Georgetown University Law professor who specializes in, among many other financial regulatory issues, mortgage finance. Levitin says the documentation problems involved in the mortgage mess have the potential "to cloud title on not just foreclosed mortgages but on performing mortgages."

The issues are securitization, modernization and a whole lot of cut corners. Real estate law requires real paper transfer of documents and titles, and a lot of the system went electronic without much regard to that persnickety rule. Mortgages and property titles are transferred several times in the process of a home purchase from originators to securitization sponsors to depositors to trusts. Trustees hold the note (which is the IOU on the mortgage), the mortgage (the security that says the house is collateral) and the assignment of the note and security instrument.

The issue is in that final stage getting to the trust. The law demands that when the papers get moved around they are "wet ink," that is, real signatures on real paper. But Prof. Levin tells me that's not the worst of it. Affidavits assigned to the notes and security instruments are supposed to be endorsed over to the trust at the time of sale, but in many foreclosure scenarios the affidavits have been backdated illegally.

So with the chain of documentation now in question, and trustee ownership in question, here is one legal scenario, according to Prof. Levitin:

The mortgage is still owed, but there's going to be a problem figuring out who actually holds the mortgage, and they would be the ones bringing the foreclosure. You have a trust that has been getting payments from borrowers for years that it has no right to receive. So you might see borrowers suing the trusts saying give me my money back, you're stealing my money. You're going to then have trusts that don't have any assets that have been issuing securities that say they're backed by a whole bunch of assets, and you're going to have investors suing the trustees for failing to inspect the collateral files, which the trustees say they're going to do, and you're going to have trustees suing the securitization sponsors for violating their representations and warrantees about what they were transferring.

Josh Rosner, of Graham-Fisher, put the following out in a note today, claiming violations of pooling and servicing agreements on mortgages could dwarf the Lehman weekend:

Nearly all Pooling and Servicing Agreements require that “On the Closing Date, the Purchaser will assign to the Trustee pursuant to the Pooling and Servicing Agreement all of its right, title and interest in and to the Mortgage Loans and its rights under this Agreement (to the extent set forth in Section 15), and the Trustee shall succeed to such right, title and interest in and to the Mortgage Loans and the Purchaser's rights under this Agreement (to the extent set forth in Section 15)”. Also, an Assignment of Mortgage must accompany each note and this almost never happens.We believe nearly every single loan transferred was transferred to the Trust in “blank” name. That is to say the actual loans were apparently not, as of either the cut-off or closing dates, assigned to the Trust as required by the PSA.Rather than continue to fight for the “put-back” of individual loans the investors may be able to sue for and argue that the “true sale” was never achieved.

Quite the can of worms. Anyone who says that the banks will fix all this in a few months is seriously delusional.

Usd/Jpy hält sich tapfer unter 0,82.

*Stirnbatsch*

Propaganda versprochen und sie hält Wort. Wichtiger als das höchstens negativ wirksame QE ist die monatelange Hoffnung auf QE. Noch ist Ruhe an der Staatsanleihefront und deshalb reicht das Gequatsche.

Lite Lunch with Dave
IT'S A MAD WORLD

Page 14 of the weekend Financial Times ran with this headline: Weak Jobs Data Help Propel Dow Above 11,000 points. Think of how crazy that is. Jobs create income. Income creates spending. U.S. consumer spending drives 70% of U.S. GDP and 17% global GDP. GDP must equal GDI (Gross Domestic Income) of which 11% is comprised of corporate profits. And, equity investors supposedly are buying a profit stream?

This was not, by the way, the only article to cite the awful employment report as the primary reason for the stock market advance on Friday. I have to admit that this is totally surreal. At the same time, a mea culpa of sorts is necessary because Dave Tepper was actually bang on the money with his assertion on CNBC that soft data was actually a good thing because it would mean a more aggressive attempt by the Fed to prime the pump in the looming QE2 assault on deflation risks.

I still have difficulty with that logic, but no doubt there are enough investors who are buying into it. Someone was investing in the market last week in the face of not only a sick employment report but a very soft ISM release as well, which pretty well told everyone that the plug is being pulled on the inventory cycle, which was responsible for about two-thirds of the rebound in real GDP off the mid-2009 bottom.

And, page B1 of the Saturday New York Times ran with this: Faith in Fed Pushes Dow Past 11,000.
Page 15 of the weekend FT had this title in big bold letters too — Equities Fired Up for Fed Easing and on the front page, you can see this — Jobs Data Point to Fresh Stimulus.

This is a market completely based on hope. Throw fundamental investment principles out the window. It’s now all about how the Fed can manage to inflate asset prices now that fiscal policy has tested its limits with the voting public. But where does this renewed faith in the Fed come from?

Don’t fight the Fed, we were told. The S&P 500 rallied 12% from the time of the first rate cut to the October 2007 peak and I can remember vividly that anyone who was not following the Fed’s actions and loading up on equities was viewed as a complete idiot.

Some things don’t change. Greed is one of them.

If the prime goal of QE1 was to collapse mortgage spreads, then, based on that narrow objective, it was a success. But if the broader goal was to re-ignite a new credit cycle, then it was clearly a failure. Even though the Fed stuffed the commercial banks with over a trillion in cash reserves earning close to 0%; underlying bank credit has shrunk by nearly $700 billion. [kein Wunder, wenn die Zockerbanken mit der Fed-Kohle nur Assets aller Art hochkaufen, was wohl auch der heimliche Hauptzweck von QE ist - A.L.]

Even with the Fed augmenting the already bloated level of reserve credit and the monetary base by $400 billion since the onset of QE1, bank lending has continued to contract. The only expansion on bank balance sheets has been cash assets, government securities and what is called “trading assets” (which are off the charts). The money multiplier has contracted 12% and money velocity has declined 4% since QE1 was unveiled back in the opening months of 2009. The Fed was so convinced that the economy was going to embark on a sustained growth path that a month after implementing QE1, it was forecasting 3.5-4.8% real GDP growth for 2011 and the unemployment rate to drift down into a 7.7-8.5% band.

Uh oh.

So, what are we supposed to have “faith” in exactly? That the Fed is going to manage to get the banks to lend and generate a sustained revival in the economy with QE2? Nobody even knows how QE2 is going to look like, how the Fed is going to implement it, what the size of the bond purchases are going to be, and even Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke himself has questioned whether or not it will actually work considering the headwinds from an intense debt deleveraging cycle.

But as is typical with the equity market, as we saw vividly in the fall of 2007 in the early round of the discount rate cuts, shoot first, ask questions later. David Tepper never did assess whether QE2 would work because he wasn’t looking out that far. He simply — and I would have to say at this point, presciently — believes that the market would have a knee-jerk reaction to adverse data because of the oft-misplaced “faith” the market places on the Federal Reserve Board, to hold its hand when the going gets rough. This strategy may work for a while, but unless QE2 manages to alter people’s behaviour in terms of inducing a renewed credit and spending spree, then a more sombre reality will set in. This is not the time to be chasing “hope” because there is simply too much risk in the market right now.

im Housingmarkt (# 764): Wem nützen die verschleppten Zwangsversteigerungen?

Generell nützen sie eher den Amis, weil viele Käufer der CDO-Pakete Ausländer waren (z. B. dt. Landesbanken und die IKB). Wenn Ansprüche gegen einzelne nicht zahlende Hyposchuldner innerhalb der Verbriefungen geltend gemacht werden sollen, können die Amis jetzt darauf verweisen, dass "leider" nicht klar ist, wer eigentlich der Eigentümer des fraglichen Hauses ist.

Die Landesbanker müssen sich dann solche Sprüche anhören:

"Also Herr Nonnenmacher, ich verstehe Ihren Unmut. Es ist wirklich sehr ärgerlich, dass der aktuelle Bewohner des Hauses keine Hypotheken mehr zahlt. Aber vielleicht geschieht das aus gutem Grund, weil er gar nicht der Eigentümer ist? Tja, das tut uns nun wirklich leid, aber wir können vorerst nichts zwangsvollstrecken, bis die Eigentumsverhältnisse restlos geklärt sind. Das kann noch 5 bis 15 Jahre dauern."

Aus permament # 69758

"Most Federal Reserve members appear ready to launch a new round of monetary easing soon ......."

Es waren also nicht alle FOMC - Mitglieder, die sich für ein weiteres QE aussprachen. Eine dürfte mit Sicherheit nicht zugestimmt haben:   Janet Yellen, die Stellvertreterin des Notenbank - Chefs Ben Bernanke. Sie wurde erst in 2010 von Präsident Obama in dieses Amt benannt.  Der erste von ihr in dieser Funktion abgegebene Kommentar hat es jedoch in sich.  Ob sie es aber letztlich schaffen wird den ganzen Irrsinn der FED zu stoppen, sei dahin gestellt.

Auszüge:

"Die FED trage eine Teilverantwortung für die Entstehung von Blasen"

"Es sei anzunehmen, dass eine lockere Geldpolitik dazu beitrage, den Aufbau von mit Fremdkapital gehebelten Geschäften wie auch das Eingehen exzessiver Risikogeschäfte im Finanzsystem zu befördern"

"Was Amerika benötige, seien geldpolitische Entscheider, die vernünftige makroökonomische Entscheidungen träfen, wozu auch gehöre, den Märkten den “Bowlepott” wegzunehmen, wenn die Party drohe aus dem Ruder zu laufen."

http://www.wirtschaftsfacts.de/?p=9165#more-9165

 

Die Finanzkrise ist kaum überstanden, da steigen die Bonuszahlungen für die Banker an der Wall Street schon wieder auf Rekordniveau. Trotz schärferer Richtlinien für Bonuszahlungen schütten US-Banken in diesem Jahr Sonderzahlungen in Höhe von 144 Milliarden US-Dollar aus - 4 Prozent mehr als im Vorjahr.

http://www.manager-magazin.de/unternehmen/banken/0,2828,722649,00.html

Für alle, die mit Details der anstehenden geldpolitischen Erleichterungen noch nicht richtig vertraut sind. So könnten das aussehen:

jeffreyhill.typepad.com/.a/...341d417153ef011168c92ac7970c-pi" style="max-width:560px" />

12.10.2010
Das Kapital
Kapitalallokation in Zeiten des geldpolitischen Kollers

Die Fed will, dass wir Aktien kaufen, damit die einhergehenden Vermögenseffekte jene Unternehmensgewinne zeitigen, auf die wir wetten. Verwirrt? Nicht doch, es wird noch abstruser.
In den guten alten Tagen haben die Anleger Aktien gekauft, um auf zukünftige Unternehmensgewinne zu wetten. Heute sollen sie Aktien kaufen, damit die Firmen in Zukunft überhaupt Gewinne erzielen können. Das ist im Grunde die Idee der Fed, wenn diese die Erwartung einer Liquiditätsausweitung riesigen Ausmaßes schürt, die sich wie Anfang 2009 auf alle Vermögensmärkte ergießen soll. Steigende Vermögenspreise sollen die Bilanzen der Verbraucher wie der Firmen stärken, auf dass diese sich nicht nur betuchter fühlen, sondern auch wieder kreditwürdiger werden. Denn wie Alan Greenspan bis heute nicht müde wird zu betonen, sind haussierende Vermögensmärkte aus diesem Grund die beste Medizin, um Verbraucher und Firmen zu höheren Konsum- und Investitionsausgaben zu bewegen, die dann wiederum zu zunehmenden Umsätzen, Gewinnen, Investitionen, Einstellungen und Einkommen führen.

Der eine oder andere Anleger mag rätseln, was daraus wohl für ein Chance-Risiko-Verhältnis resultiert, wenn diese Politik im besten Fall jene Firmengewinne zeitigt, für die der Aktionär sozusagen in Vorleistung geht, indem er das Vermögen der Volkswirtschaft freundlicherweise per Kaufantrag erhöht. Wichtiger ist die Frage der Kapitalallokation in einem derartigen Regime. Sollte man auf US-Banken und auf chinesische Puppenhersteller setzen, weil man darauf baut, dass die US-Verbraucher ihre wiedererlangte Kreditwürdigkeit wie gehabt für den Kauf importierten Plunders einsetzen? Oder sollte man noch schnell auf den Energie-, Rohstoff- und Nahrungsmittelzug aufspringen, auf dem bereits etliche Anleger fahren, weil sie sehen, wie die monetäre Expansion Amerikas die monetäre Expansion im Rest der Erde anheizt? Sollte man seine Staatsanleihen, zumal die in Dollar denominierten, jetzt schon verkaufen, weil man ahnt, dass die Fed mit dieser Politik zunächst die Nachfrage nach knappen Ressourcen, dann die Löhne in den Schwellenländern und letztlich die Inflation auf der Welt anstachelt?

Jedenfalls dürfte die Fed die Zunahme der Rohstoff- und Nahrungsmittelpreise bereits als unliebsamen Nebeneffekt ihrer Politik betrachten, denn steigende Sprit-, Lebensmittel- oder Industriemetallkosten könnten die eingangs erwähnten Vermögenseffekte spürbar konterkarieren. [Das schreiben wir hier seit Jahren... A.L.] Zur gebotenen strukturellen Neuausrichtung der US-Wirtschaft, die vor allem das erfordert, was derzeit am stärksten schrumpft, nämlich Bildung, trägt die Politik der Fed jedenfalls wenig bei - vielleicht sogar im Gegenteil, sofern die finanziell bedrängten, Lehrer feuernden lokalen Regierungen noch mehr Bedürftige unterstützen müssen. Dass der in Gold ausgedrückte S&P 500  immer weiter fällt, sagt eigentlich alles.

www.ftd.de/finanzen/maerkte/marktberichte/...ers/50181331.html

Eine schallende Ohrfeige für unsere Politik. Sind es doch quasi umgeleitete Steuergelder die, die Boni der Banker garantieren.
Bisher gibt es von politischer Seite  nur zaghafte Reformansätze zur Kontrolle der Bankenmacht.
Kein Wunder, dass das Ansehen der Politiker weltweit mehr und mehr schwindet.

Permanent

ich kann mich nicht recht mit dem Gedanken anfreunden, daß ausgerechnet J. Yellen jetzt die Fahne der Vernunft im FMOC hochhalten sollte. Dafür war sie in den letzten Jahren durchgehend viel zu dovish eingestellt. Ich halte ihre Äußerungen in Denver für ein reines Spiegelgefecht  zur vorauseilenden Selbstrechtfertigung für die Annalen. Die Öffentlichkeit soll glauben, daß sich die FED 'ernsthaft und konstruktiv' um die Exzesse der Finanzindustrie sorgt. Ein zeitlicher Zusammenhang mit den kommenden Mega-"Bonis" für die TBTFs ist kein Zufall. Wenn man ein neues Amt antritt, verspürt man zumindest kurzzeitig die Last der Verantwortung, und da kann es nicht schaden, daß man - wenn's dereinst kracht - darauf verweisen kann, man habe "damals in Denver" ja bereits auf die Gefahren hingewiesen.