BxCapricorn

Bank Stress Test: The Cheat Sheet

Well, finally we learn that the delay this past week, allowed the banks to force a recalculation

online.wsj.com/article...

Making the whole affair, a typical power play, by the banks. Way to regulate Geithner. We have nothing but confidence in the banking system now. What's on tap for next week? Will every government official be on TV claiming the banks are great, until they have time enough to secure second offerings? Tell me one large investor that will be fooled, outside of the government?

Bank Stress Tests: How Credible Are They?

When I looked at the table on Page 9, I kept thinking..."I've seen better, more thorough work from Dick Bove..."

What does that tell us?

Massive Bank Shareholder Dilution Ahead

Very interesting article, that could only be penned by an academic. Can you imagine telling some out of work industrial worker that his paper money is no good because of a serial number, when he tries to buy beer at the 7/11, and that it needs to be confiscated?

Hello. Reality calling. You'd give the alternative barter economy a gigantic boost, while unifying every race, creed and color against the banking system. These type of "games" in order to "rig" an insolvent banking system, must stop.

I've read Mankiw's blog for years, and he's so insulated in "academia" that his posts often leave me shaking my head in disbelief. He's not as bad as Mark Perry, of the Carpe Diem blog though....and I'm out of quotation marks, so I'll leave it at that.

On Apr 20 02:43 PM SW Richmond wrote:

> There's this too:
>
> www.nytimes.com/2009/0...
>
>
> "Economic View
>
> It May Be Time for the Fed to Go Negative
> By N. GREGORY MANKIW
> Published: April 18, 2009"

Massive Bank Shareholder Dilution Ahead

How could the treasury not receive the results? Their 20 auditors performed the test, and the test was completed. That's a very strange response.


On Apr 20 10:40 AM Richard Shaw wrote:

> mac123449 -- here is copy from a Reuters article a few minutes ago
> concerning the Turner Radio Network blog you cite, and the US Treasury
> response:
>
> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Treasury Department has not yet received
> the results of "stress tests" on the health of the nation's 19 top
> banks, spokesman Andrew Williams said on Monday, after a blog said
> it had obtained the test results and some U.S. bank shares moved
> lower.
>
> Williams made the comments after banks added to losses before the
> market open following a "free speech" blog, called the Turner Radio
> Network, said 16 of the 19 are "technically insolvent." The post
> cited what it said was a U.S. government report.
>
> "There is no basis for that report, we do not even have results yet,"
> Williams said.

Why GM's Wagoner and Not BofA's Lewis?

GM has CDS, BAC holds CDS. You're excused.

Cramer's Stop Trading! This Is One of the Greatest Rallies in History (3/27/09)

I can only hope that Cramer bookmarks this page in the future and re-reads it twenty years from now. If my calculations are correct, he would be living in an insane asylum (but still possess a thumbdrive, which he smuggled in a body cavity), and in a moment of clarity, remembers the moment that it all fell apart. He finds this one page, and here I am, with multiple posts, asking "Why? Were you a shill for the banking industry? Were you a minion? Why did you find it necessary to get people's retirement savings, back into the market, when you knew the counter-party risks still lurking on Wall Street? No one can be that "accidentally" dumb, especially not a mere one week removed from a verbal "horse whipping" on The Daily Show." End transmission, and please properly dispose of the thumbdrive, as it is a biological hazard.

Cramer's Stop Trading! This Is One of the Greatest Rallies in History (3/27/09)

For those that believed in Cramer's call, now that the AIG unwind and the beneficiaries have been shown by Tyler Durden's Monday post, do you really believe that Cramer did not know this? He set you up long in a market filled with fantasy and conjecture. Look at the technicals when Cramer speaks. It's enlightening.

Cramer's Stop Trading! This Is One of the Greatest Rallies in History (3/27/09)

Boggles the mind how Cramer cannot seem to recognize a short squeeze of mythical proportions, followed by Mutual Fund window dressing buys. The latter closed Thursday, and what happened Friday? He'll blame "profit taking" after a really "great run", while those that chart the market stare off into the distance wondering if his audience knows just how little Cramer thinks of them.

How Was March a Bad Month?

Many of these banks will get some needed income from the next few months of refinancing fees, but then what? Once everyone is sitting in their 4-5% mortgage, still paying an enormous percentage of their take home, towards their mortgage, the banking model with which these guys operate is over. Finance and credit reform will cut down the leveraging percentages and volumes their operations were based on, and until inflation pumps up the underlying value of their mortgage portfolios, they'll just have to avoid takeovers by either the government (stress test failure) or competitors (those with cash).

Are the Big Banks Gaming the Taxpayer?

We went along with the Iraqi war for 8 years now, what makes you think we care about anything other than delivery style pizza and our MySpace pages? I think more people have an opinion on whether or not chimps should be pets than how we as a nation will survive this crisis. All I can tell you is that I'm planning on getting through this, while knowing that roughly 15% of the population is not going to. It will be their own fault that they chose to read TMZ vice Seekingalpha.

AIG Bonuses Are Just the Tip of the Iceberg

The MHFT is hilarious. 539 comments, and not in the top 100 who post comments here. I'm guessing your report card always said, "does not play well with others", which would be a badge of honor if you were a maverick thinker, instead of an pariah to society. Oh, what a drag. AIG "upper management" didn't get their bonus checks, free and clear, because they abused an unregulated system, akin to someone who robs an convenience store because they know they can't afford security cameras.

Is It Finally the End of the Bear Market?

Eh, where's the beef? Is that the sum total of the bullish case? Good gracious, do realize that retirement funds are pouring into the stock market based on this type of reasoning. Couldn't just watch them lose 40%, no....the stock market has to throw another 20-40% of their "nest egg" under-the-bus. Like robots, the average money manager looks at the pie chart and distributes their money into the various sectors, in a perfect Modern Portfolio ratio. It didn't work before, why not try it again though, heck, this ain't "science" people, it's a game. Spin the wheel. Heads or Tails.

Preview from Europe: The Horror Show's Alive and Well

If you come away with anything, after watching the financial news, it should be that they are reiterating press released lies, and that believing what you see around you, is the greatest due diligence. Do you really believe, looking around, that things are better?

Sure home sales in CA, and NV are up. The sales price has been effectively cut in half. Are your friends and family better off? How is it that they can then buy more STUFF? Even if they do begin to recover, will they throw their money back into stocks, vice pay off bills, and creditors? We have collectively experienced an enormous paradigm shift. Things may not be as horrific as doomsayers claim, but they will never be the same, and the myth of double-digit growth, is dead. Long live the prudent and wise.

Top-Down Portfolio Construction vs. Selling Stocks That Drop

Why are you asking us? Ask T. Boone Pickens, Prince Waleed (or however the media want to spell his name these days), Kirk Kerkorian, Sheldon Adelson, Jeff Gendell, Ken Heebner, Warren Buffett, Bill Ackman, and the list goes on and on and on.....

If you cannot recognize a paradigm shift of this magnitude, for what it truly means, then you need psychiatric help. Luckily, we will fall, but fall on top of...Eastern Europe, Russia, Western Europe, all commodity-based economies (Australia, Brazil, Canada) while laughing at export-driven economies (Japan, Micronesia, Korea, Singapore, India, China etc.)...and reach for the CTL+ALT+DEL buttons of World Finance. Re-boot.

Eight Reasons Bank of America Is Going to $20

I thought you were crazy in September when you consistently called for the oil bubble to explode...

seekingalpha.com/artic...

and it did. I'm listening this time, and bought FAS at $4 today.