Richard Shinnick

What Are Brokers' Exposures to Carlyle Capital?

JbMaria,

Long gone, I actually made a miniscule profit on that trade, but I saw the writing on the wall and jumped out in the $4.90 range. Its those pesky mortgages again. In any case, these days the long trades are just hedges and the short trades seem to be the real "investments" as it is hard to hold any long trades with any conviction.

What Are Brokers' Exposures to Carlyle Capital?

Barry,Mark,

Right you are, I personally know a few people "on the verge" whose home equity lines have not quite run out. These are prime and alt-a types. Also, I think S & P limited its prediction to "supprime" but the market heard what it wanted to hear.

What a mess.

The Economics of Second Liens

Felix,

It may very well be prudent to draw against your HELOC if you anticipate needing the money and are worried, but implying that people should do it because they will only have to pay back 10% is a little mis-leading don't you think? In fact, if you do it with the intent to only pay back 10% it may be fraud. Rethink that statement.

Estimating the Risk in Citigroup Stock and Bonds

Ok, but the strippers want to be paid in gold.

Estimating the Risk in Citigroup Stock and Bonds

Can anyone help me with that? I am just a retiree who knows almost nothing about financial evaluations.

Retirees should not invest in Citi. But as far as financial evaluations go, it might make for a great hobby, but as everyone seems to now understand, you can't model this because things have changed so drastically. A lot of people saw the sub-prime probelm coming but they never thought that Citigroup or even Countrywide would be a bagholder, it was just assumed all the junk paper was being peddled overseas.

In the case of Countrywide especially, they simply forgot RULE #1 as noted by scholar and financial genius Biggie Smalls: "Don't get high on your own supply."