market ace

Consumer Credit: Precipitous Drop in Credit Card Offers

CC mail offers are down because CC companies do not need new business as they have found better ways to make more money by screwing existing customers with absurd inrest rate increases, more and higher fees and increased payments.

The Arguments for Big Banks

How could we break up the big banks (that are not really even banks) , who would be left to run the US gov't?

How Regulated Does Wall Street Need to Be?

There is no limit to how regulated Wall Street should become.

Their ridiculous practices of risk taking, unbridled greed and market maipulation resulting in billions of unwarranted profits and bonuses needs to be stopped.

The first step is to strip the banking business out of investment houses. This was just a ploy to get TARP money and calling these entities banks or allowing them to be banks is a blight on the real banking industry and cripples lending.

Derivatives need to be severly regulated and disclosed as they are ticking time bombs that can easily bring down the whole economy. Along with this change maybe throwing in some honest accounting and disclosure rules would also help.

They also need to stop Wall Street from running the US Gov't. This obviously will not be easy, but when Geithner talks to Wall Street CEO's more than the president or congress it points out a clear problem.

Of course the most obviously needed reform is to audit the FED and put huge controls on them or better yet abolish them.

Too bad none of this will ever happen

The Coming Consequences of Banking Fraud

Anyone that does not see the truth in this article has their head way up a place it does not belong. This describes modern "markets" to a tee. Anyone that wants to play in this game better have deep pockets and love losing money in the end.

Interestingly after blasting my brokerage firm about the sham of the current US stock markets and my unwillingness to play except for stragic buys with close stops, they actually responded stating that they had advisors I could contact to help with planning to "unwind" from the US markets. This seems like very valuable advice.

Sobering Stat: ARMS Index Indicates Market Is at Peak, Not Bottom

All of the above comments have merit and the markets are sloppy gambling halls driven by excess greed and FED money, which will all come tumbling down when reality really sinks in - BUT also rememeber tc cover your backside.

Is all of this money pouring into stocks and commodities (think especially oil here) because da boyz know the dollar is sinking like a rocjk could be seriously devalued very soon and they do not want to be caught holding US dollars.

Just a thought, when markets act so irrationally and it may nor all be because of media hype about green shoots.

Bank of America Beats Median Consensus, But What Does It Really Mean?

You are dreaming! This bank like most big banks is on the ropes and only shows "profits" by using smole and mirrors. Even the latest analysis from a major brokerage firm says DO NOT BUY FINANCIAL STOCKS. Although B of A has less derivative exposure than many, their exposure is still 179% of their capital and it is bound to blow up when interest rates rise.


On Apr 20 12:07 PM Cetin Hakimoglu wrote:

> I think is means BAC is probably a buy. It's business is rock solid.
> #1 in checking and overdraft fees. Smallbusienss & home loans.

Easing of Mark-to-Market Rules: Good for Banks, Bad for Investors

Congress isn't helping anyone except the fraudsters on Wall Street see coontary below from Marketwatch:

Accounting standards now determined by mob rule

"The only thing worse than bankers making up accounting rules is members of Congress making them up. Repeating its blunder from the 1994 battle over stock options, the staid Financial Accounting Standards Board has buckled to political pressure demanding that it change accounting rules. The FASB voted Thursday to ease the interpretation of rules requiring banks and other big institutions to value their assets on a reasonable basis". .

Small investors better beware of even more fiction in financial reporting to go along with a fictional currency.

Is Goldman Tempting the Interest Rate Black Swan with 1,056% Risk Exposure?

Since Dodd and Frank have still not even learned how to spell derivative, let alone have a clue about what they are and what they mean in the scheme of bringing down the world's financial systems, you think we may have something to worry about here?

Dodd thinks it is great that AIG is so smart that they can even swap interest rates and make money at it - well maybe it's taxpayer money that their earning doing it, but they still have plenty of money to contribute to his election campaign so where's the problem here? Besides he has those smart, unknown, guys in Treasury writing his legislation for him and surely they would not let Wall Street lose more billions and further cheat the taxpayers - would they?

Then there is the brilliant Frank who think interest rate swaps must be great because the Fed is always swapping one rate for another and anything Bernanke does must be good so why shouldn't the big banks do it? Gee and that Goldman bunch "accepting" those backhanded taxpayer bailouts through AIG, but poised again to make those high leveraged returns with our tax dollars is just what the world needs. They must still have that brilliant Paulson advising them on how to leverage their investments so nothing could possibly go wrong. Maybe he better call them and get some larger campaign contributions for blessing them and their great investing strategies.

With finacnial geniuses (well at least at lining their own pockets) like this leading congress, and the Obama Geithner team feeding trillions to their Wall Street masters, we should feel well protected and yet some people say we should be worried just because "great" firms like Goldman are primed to lose up to a 1000% of their capital. What are taxpayers for if not to cover these losses and save the banking industry so they can loan us the money to pay our increased taxes?

One Easy CDS Fix

Why is everyone only talking about CDS's when the derivative market in interest rate swaps dwarfs it about 10-1 and giant problems will arise here when interest rates rise.

Until the third quarter of last year, the banks' losses in derivatives were almost entirely confined to credit default swaps — bets on failing companies and sinking investments.

But credit default swaps are actually a much smaller sector, representing only 7.8 percent of the total derivatives market.

Now, with potential new losses in interest rate derivatives, this problem has the potential to cause a collapse in a whopping 82 percent of the derivatives market.

Thus, considering this far larger volume, any threat to interest rate derivatives could be far more serious than anything we've seen so far.

Today U.S. banks alone control $200.4 trillion in derivatives; and it's precisely in this dangerous sector of IRS's that the megabanks dominate the most.
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According to the Office of the Comptroller of Currency's Q4 2008 report, America's top five commercial banks control 96 percent of the industry's total derivatives, while the top 25 control 99.78 percent. In other words, for every $100 dollar of derivatives, the big banks have $99.78 ... while the rest of the nation's 7,000-plus banking institutions control a meager 22 cents!3 This is a massively dangerous concentration of risk.

The large banks are exposed to the danger that buyers will vanish, markets will suddenly become illiquid, and they'll be unable to unload their positions without accepting wipe-out losses. The large banks are exposed to the danger that, with exploding federal deficits and new fears of inflation, interest rates will suddenly surge, delivering a whole new round of even bigger losses in the months ahead.

Worst of all, the five biggest banks are exposed to breathtaking default risk — the danger that their trading partners could fail to make good on their gambling debts, transforming even the best winning trades into some of the worst losers.

Here's a chart on these risks, updated to reflect the new data just released on Friday for the year-end 2008,

Bank of America's total credit exposure to derivatives was 179 percent of its risk-based capital;

Citibank's was 278 percent;

JPMorgan Chase's, 382 percent

HSBC America's, 550 percent, and

Goldman Sachs' total credit exposure at year-end was 1,056 percent, or over ten times more than its capital.

Get ready for some big fireworks in the banking industry that even Bernanke's giant printing press cannot possibly handle and all of the proposed accounting changes cannot mask or cure this massive problem..

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

Cramer has already been proven to be an idiot and a giant loser. Go ahead a play along suckers!

Are the Big Banks Gaming the Taxpayer?

Not to worry if the banks cannot figure out enough ways to screw the taxpayers and have congress bless it, then they can count on Geithner to come up with new ways and even avoid congress in the process.

At least in the S&L fiasco, the scams were mostly hidden from view, now they are gov't policy.

Bend over Mr. Taxpayer Citi and B of A have a surprise for you.

Congress: Shortsighted About Financials

When you talk about being short sighted and missing the point, you are the ultimate example. The real point is that these banks cried wolf and had Paulson play congress and the taxpayers for suckers .They were just trying to further line the pockets of their all too wealthy executives at the expense of the taxpayers. It is obvious these firms still care nothing about putting country first and are more concerned about their bonuses than anything else, so much so that they would repay money they tried so hard to steal from the taxpayers to protect them.

Since they also got unjustified free money from AIG at the expense of the taxpayers, why would they want to share any gains with the taxpayers on the preferred stock deal. Hopefully these worthless greed monsters do pay us back and expose the fact they never needed the bail out in the first place and were just bent on more greed and theft, but amazingly someone may finally called their bluff just by cutting off their outrageous bonuses.

Mark-to-Market Marches Towards Extinction

It's time to stop playing with the accounting. Either banks are solvent or they are not. Accounting is a measurement in time and so for the most part not designed to predict the future, although estimates are necessary at times.

If we are to measure the finacial condition of a bank on a given day (the balance sheet date) then M2M makes perfrct sense. The only value the bank has available to pay its current liabilities (or depositor withdrawals) is the value that can be recognized from disposition of its assets at that time - not what they might be worth in the future.

It may be too bad that there is no market for their toxic assets, but that is the way markets work and consequently they have no, or very little, immeditae value.

I would love to get a bank loan based on the value I expect my home or stocks to be worth in twenty years, because I am going to hold them that long even though I have no cash flow available today to make loan payments.

Confidence in Banks and Government While Fools Reign Supreme

Linking "confidence in banks and gov't" with "fools" in your title is very descriptive and correct. You can contimue to delude yourself with the future value of these worthless banks that are being propped up by a gov't that is also broke and in need of a bailout. Admittedly bank stock prices are more like buying options now, but in case you forgot options often go to zero rather than striking huge profits.