SoCalsurfbum

Goldman and Morgan Stanley: Banks of Choice - Barron's

Both their Level 2 and 3 assets are huge vs Equity where small losses wipe it out... both are still highly leveraged which they need to unwind (because they are now banks) in bad markets. And are they holding anything off balance sheet? You don't know.

GS has huge exposure to AIG (AIG just released a presentatin on this)... they changed business models to get access to government support (seems more desperate than strategic)... Banking is much less profitable than their old business. Combine that with how new and immature their banking business is and I wouldn't be too confident in their stock.

But besides that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

Are Analysts Being Fooled By The Data?

Don't believe all of the rumors you read in blogs...

whoever wrote that line "I heard from a friend who heard from his father"... understands Letters of Credit as much as Sarah Palin understands Fannie Mae...

A Letter of Credit is, in it's most simple explanation, an escrow account for international transactions so that money isn't released until an order is fulfilled correctly. Banks would always accept them because it means money will be deposited in their accounts.

If this guy is talking about short term funding for his vessels, he is probably referring to his "Line of Credit" from the bank... which is completely different.

If the line of credit is what they are talking about then the Baltic Dry index is actually more of an indicator than you think... if he can't sail, there is less capacity and shipping costs should go up... but that isn't happening.

Yank... if you can't trust the US gov't statistics (which you shouldn't), why do you believe you can trust the Chinese gov'ts economic statistics? The very fact that China is doing a major economic stimulus proves that they are not hitting the 10% GDP number... which are you going to believe, government statistics or your eyes?