campbell

Bank Assets vs. Liabilities: The Fed's Shifting Focus on Balance Sheets

In her book Fool's Gold Gillian Tett says that by winter 2009 economists estimated that mark-to-market credit losses had reached almost $3 trillion. Did the change to mark to market accounting rules eliminate most of this? She also says that by the summer lof 2008 AIG was holding around $560 billion in super-senior risk supposedly better than AAA but whose price had fallen. Were these also remarked?

Dennis Kneale Takes on Zero Hedge...And Fails

Most of the talking heads at CNBC are bullish. Even the voice that appears before commercials warns to get in the market now to avoid missing another upward spike. Apparently CNBC is long the market and should reveal this as is required from other commentators who hawk stocks on CNBC.

Outing AIG's Bonus Babies: What's the Point?

Did the financial products division in London operate on its own without knowledge of top executives of the risk they were taking(rogue trading) or did top execs okay taking these risks with the whole company so the traders were just following orders?

If the company had not been bailed out with TARP and gone bankrupt would these bonus payments take precedence over other claims in a bankruptcy court?

Did I read in another post that these bonus opayments were not based on performance but just a way of getting around paying with holding tax at an earlier time and actually regular compensation?

Buffett Profits Plummet, Predicts Bleak 2009 and Possibly Beyond

BRK-A closed at $78,000 today. The close in June 1998 was about this value. This appears to indicate that an investor in BRK-A in June 1998 would now(about 11 years later) have no gain and in fact have a loss equal to inflation during that time which I guess could be significant.

Rating the Top 12 U.S. Banks - From Hidden Gems to Zombies

I believe Bankrate ranks Capital One with five stars - their highest rating. How does this fit in with this rating.

Barron's Takes Down Cramer, Again

I thought I remember Cramer sometimes advising to buy on pull backs and/or not right away-wait a couple days. Also I thought CBNC disclaimer said the information may have been already disseminated.

Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Choose Life: What Kind of Life Will It Be?

Hussman uses Morgan Stanley as an example saying they have total assets of 988.8 billion; sharehold equity of 42.1 billion for goss leverage ratio of 23.5. And they also have about $200 billion of long term debt to bondholders. How did MS finance the remaining 765.3 billion difference between the 242.1 billion of stock holders equity and bond debt and the 988.8 billion.

Sy Jacobs' Picks for a Continuing Credit Crisis - Barron's

My comment above is in reference to the 19% yield stated for HTS.

Sy Jacobs' Picks for a Continuing Credit Crisis - Barron's

I looked up the prospectus for the IPO and the dividends up to the end of March appeared to be about 8% on a yearly basis. Could the author clarify where the 19% yield is stated.

Junk Bonds: Yields Are Up - Are They Worth the Risk?

What would be the rate at which foreign junk returns be considered good buys. I believe some of these yield about 13%.
Did PVI get involved in the nonliquidity surrounding the weekly bond auctions.

Buffett's Advice to the Berkshire Faithful: Buy Index Funds

I thought I had read about some studies a few years ago that indicated that index funds with some asset allocation outperformed 90% of managed mutual funds.