johnhaskell

Financials To Resume Meltdown Momentarily

it's worth pointing out that it has never been acceptable for non-market makers to sell naked short. It wasn't acceptable before mid July and it still won't be tomorrow and next week. The SEC said they were going to pay more attention to shorts and check more frequently to see if shares were in fact borrowed. This was the financial equivalent of "rounding up the usual suspects" when the markets are falling and you have to do something.

Mr Schwarz has himself rounded up the "usual suspects" by telling us that this one month "ban" is ending (anyone with a calendar could have told you that), repeating information well known on the street (#2,3) and speculating (#4).

The only information that matters in finance is information that surprises the market. None of these four points qualifies.

Why Merrill's CDO Sale Doesn't Mean Big Writeoffs Elsewhere

recall that these CDO's were supposed to be "super senior." sure there are many kinds of CDO's, just as there are many kinds of portfolios of anything. But if the "super seniors" are being marked down to 22% of par, wouldn't it stand to reason that less senior tranches would be perhaps marked even lower?

Second, Thain was a new broom in mid January when he supposedly "kitchen sinked" the balance sheet. After multiple assurances that MER was well capitalized, and six months at the helm, it's a little late to say "oh what a surprise! how did this junk get here?!"

The Fed Is Banking on Hedge Funds, But Merrill Lynch Can't

Of the stocks listed above the worst performing is easily BKUNA. And who is the specialist for BKUNA? That's right, it's NASDAQ and doesn't have a specialist. I'm sure the NYSE listed names above would like to be down 95% over the past 12 months like BKUNA. Darn specialists!

What's even more interesting than the stock performance of C, NCC, WM, BKUNA etc is the frenzied excuse making and conspiracy theorizing that so much of the investment community indulges in rather than acknowledge that they backed incompetent management.