FIG trader_

MBIA and Ambac: Edge of the Cliff, Ratings-Wise

Oldlures1; wake up. do you actually think the "headlines" caused the failure. If you are still holding the bag, it will be empty soon. Only the last phase of the decimation for equity holders is probably due to "headlines". The business model is worthless, and William Ackman deserves star status for exposing the "investment farce". All the rest of your discussion, and that of 99% of commentators is worthless filler.

Why Kass Is Wrong About Berkshire Hathaway

He is specifically is quoted as saying it is the performance of the four stocks as well as other things. Is he referring to the credit default swap which are under water by 1.5 Billion? Big F'n deal. WEB hasn't taken a multi-billion loss ever, except for catastrophe losses. I wouldn't lose sleep over a markdown on a credit he has studied. Or the index put sold at par. A 15/20 year bet. Fuggedaboutit. Kass will be 6 feet under as will WEB, but the cash will be compounding

Einhorn vs. Lehman: Lehman Will Lose

Perhaps you should clarify exactly what price target Einhorn has put on LEH and the specific $ writedowns in assets/earnings numbers he has in mind. Is 50% of bv his target or is 10% as in bsc takeout price?

AIG: Another Bear Stearns?

Thanks for the absolutely brilliant insight

Is Berkshire Hathaway Now a Bargain?

Well, after trouncing his peers (all financials, GE, whomever) in 2006/2007, the geniuses claim to know what "fair value" is on this stock. An even more ludicrous proposition, given the close to $20 billion put to work in acquisitions in the last twelve months or so. A 1 billion plus temporary write down of a credit derivative?? peanuts relative to capital base, and the 10's of billions written off by peers. Given that it is a credit bet, I know where I would put my money. This is a damn cottage industry. One can look at the % declines over the last twenty years, and see how many times it was 20% or greater, and how many years it took to get back to breakeven (in the stock price). Only once was the decline greater (80k to 40K approximately). This is the last time, an institutional money manager has the chance to actually capture real value here buying today taking advantage of "market dislocation" (flight to quality exiting) and seeing todays acquisitions flourish in the next five years to ten years before he croaks. The large institutions that haven't owned the stock should be embarrassed not having owned this for the last five years. Doug Kass has probably covered already

Break Up AIG!

Like usual your comments are long on useless advice but short on any meaningful analysis. At the very lows for the stock in more than a decade you recommend changes and start poo-poo-ing Hank, blaming him for the mess, 80% of which is due to bad investment decisions made on mortgage bets post Hank. Say what you want about him, but his investment and ROE track record is second to none (actually second only to AFLAC) You say ROA is more important than ROE for insurers? You're kidding right? ROE may not say much about risk at any point in time, but it wasn't Hank that took the huge writedown just now. ROA is meaningless for comparative purposes, given the difference in p/c (and across lines) and life insurance companies asset/liability mix.
Even for the "excesses" of what he was responsible for, the impact on ROE and BV (book value) growth was almost negligible when averaged over his tenure. Sure any cheating on reserves is a no-no, and he probably did less than any competitors save BRKA among the ten majors. Look at the triangles (yellow books or 10K's )going back decades. And just remember you has the better chance of going into the slammer. Hank or Elliot?
You defer to the rating agencies???? No comment needed.
You also talk about not a fun place to work, and talk about longevity. Who ever said, these were charity organizations; certainly you can't be writing for investors given the longevity of personnel at investment firms
.
You say the problems at AIG are bigger? Please do tell?
And Sullivan can't deal with them. For this latter one, I will give you credit. That's right he can't. And one thing you can be sure of is that probably only one person can and will do the most for agitating and getting the stock higher (we are certainly at or near the low). That is Hank. Where are you Hank when they need you the most?

GSEs: The Tail Wagging the Credit Market Dog?

Jimmy, sorry grunting doesn't count as a legitimate response. I'll try to keep it to one syllable words for you next time.
Richo, Not sure what your disagreement is. Most of your points are correct though don't address the implied methodology for valuing the GSE's. To repeat, it is a bet on stabilization of house prices (reasonable 15% to 25% below national peak price levels), resumption of more normalized spread levels on MBS (GSE and non GSE backed) by 2009/2010, return to 8% to 10% mortgage credit nationally (more than 30 years of history on that), and absolute levels of mortgage rates stabilized below the 6% to 7% range for several years. Somewhat optimistic, but not unreasonable given it will be top of policy agenda (and should be). I am taking cues from Pimco's view on the necessity of multi-pronged policy response to stabilize house prices, and the GSE
s well collateralized guarantee book.

Why I Bought the Ultrashort Financial Sector ETF

The presumption that the factors you mentioned (UBS and LEG capital raising) are responsible for the decline in the SKF (rise in UYG) is just that. And to suggest this about face (in financial stock performance) is unwarranted, while not addressing more specifically the reasons for why 1990 level price/book valuations for much of the financials is the appropriate price level puts you in the same category with the rest of the crowd, and not contrarian as your bio suggests. This group of stocks is still way out of favor. Many posters mentioned the market anticipate the news, which in fact it does. There is almost a 100% chance that the SKF will be higher at some point in the next few months and a 100% chance that it will also be lower at a different time. Depends on your time frame. But if you are a "investor" as opposed to trader than you need to mathematically find what the market is discounting in terms of ROE's and valuation (expansion, contraction) through 20010. Only then is it worth discussing. Otherwise take out a chart and use the right technical methodology for looking for entry and exit points over the short term. It works better for that time frame

GSEs: The Tail Wagging the Credit Market Dog?

1) Market reflects bad news, needs housing price stability. But, worse case scenario is behind us; a 1/100 year crisis of confidence event in the credit markets/mortgage paper.
2) reversing 2/3 of the MBS mark to market (non-subprime) probably a gradual 12-18 month event
3)Capital will be costly, and it is a race against time, the wider the spreads and deeper discount to book the stock carries, the more dilutive the action. Conversely, if allowed to expand mortgage portfolio aggressively on the cheap and MBS spreads tighten late 2008 2009, they will print money in 2009/2010/2011 and beyond. Lots of thrifts well below book (most of them in fact, of special interest are those based in California). This is the safest if there is another big leg down (which I doubt, but you never know)

First Marblehead: Hostage to the Credit Market

Please do tell. Analyze this for us at least one way, for Xmas sake. On the other hand, for those who viewed this as a short in the 30's 40's or 50's, you may want to try a flier at tis in the next few months well below yesterday's close. But if course if you are operating on even a fraction of the same assumptions as many did over the last three years, fuggedaboutit. You need Paulson like hedgefund returns to recoup you initial investment. Personally, it may be worth revisiting the whole scheme, i can think of long-term scenarios of value building

Time to Cut Your Exposure to Investment Banking and Mortgages

This is comical. Seems like the perfect contrarian signal, when poster after poster talks about selling the mortgage and broker stocks now, when they are anywhere from 50% to 75% off the highs.

Thornburg's a Huge Bargain After Monday's Crash

Well as much as I like getting proven right, I do not "hope" for its demise, any more than I hope for its survival, Pointing out risks to investors, hoping some of the less informed seek professional or sound advice, before seeing their conservative "dividend yielding" investment erase 100% of its value.
Tundra: The fallacy of "your" argument is that the assets are worth what they used to be: My argument emphasizes that the "enterprise" value is determined by a)the value of the assets (obviously it is uncertain about where they will be in 5 or 6 month)
b) the savvy of management in preserving capital management (i.e managing liquidity, leverage, credit risk, positioning the firm for times of financial stress. If CFC can go under (for technical purposes, forced sell is tantamount to the same, notwithstanding Bill Miller's assessment of its value, so can TMA. I could care less about GS leverage players or speculators at vulture funds
You keep on trying to presume that I think this, that or other by "shrinking" me. Stick to the subject at hand.
Jack, If I;m not mistaken they just announced that have to restate numbers, and what you pointed out is backwards looking. As much as I enjoy the analytical aspect, I don;t have much more time to spend on details of TMA. Think WM is survivor, as well be IMB and FRE, and FNM. The four horseman, I will call them My own opinion, the bottom (again, and maybe final bottom in the group) will be made in financials this week in the stocks (like that scary Monday, it could be Monday as well). The upside downside for survivors is huge, I agree. Unfortunately TMA won;t be one of them. Good luck
:

Thornburg's a Huge Bargain After Monday's Crash

Frozen Tundra-No am not short; have no position in this company, but am familiar with the space and have interests in others. If you read earlier posts, was warning investors about opinions that were based on sloppy research (sorry) and weak assumptions in an illiquid market. Let others judge, the record stands. And remind me if there is a another reason why TMA should survive again, other than to save your hide? I'm more more in favor of saving peoples jobs, as opposed to leveraged speculators in real estate, which is what TMA stands for.
Jack; I'll repeat; deep pocket investors doesn;t need to buy the whole thing, only parts they want. I'll be brief and to the points (2 of them)
1) don;t know enough about whether all your assumptions are true (earnings power, spreads), but my sense is that they are off by a wide margin. They can't fund new loans, so they can't hold them or sell them. that market is shut out. The business is essentially a spread business; Why buy it for $xx and put up 1 billion (your number), when they can have the whole company for about $300 million (todays market cap close); buy pieces for less than what it cost TMA to originate or buy them
2) new buyer (lets say he buys 35%) doesn't have control of company, adds no new equity; margin calls are still there, no new lenders in sight. Why are they getting margin calls in the first place? use the same analogy, why did you get margin calls after the decline; because the value of the assets (operation whatever you call TMA) is worth a lot less than you originally thought.

Thornburg's a Huge Bargain After Monday's Crash

Jack, There is no way to put a value on the company, for those of us way outside the MBS market. Prices even for high quality MBS securities (of which TMA has lots have declined as much as 20 to 30% where there is a market, implying yields in the 9% or 10% according to ). As some have said, there are "air pockets" in price levels between bid and offers. TMA is mostly being valued currently as a portfolio of mortgages, which are declining in value. I read earlier that Bill Gross from PIMCO bought TMA paper (high quality MBS) from them. I even suggested in one of my first posts he may do that, because I have been reading PIMCO website on fixed income strategy and where they had been putting their money. Perhaps you should do the same. Read him, and learn

Thornburg's a Huge Bargain After Monday's Crash

thanks distressed buyer; have been reading your enlightened comments as well over the last few days and actually am doing lots of due diligence on several distressed financials including FNM, FRE, IMB , WM, which are all in a pickle but I believe are decently capitalized survivors, and have explosive upside, once this deleveraging of mortgage assets climaxes definitively. I think we are almost there (stock prices, spreads, not home prices; a very different matter), and want to buy aggressive buyer (am light buyer now) pretty soon, Are you familiar with the distressed space as relates to financials? Be interested to hear your thoughts. I'm pretty knowledgeble (10 years covering equities financials) but in this environment outcome is mostly in hand of buyers of fixed income assets, creditors and mortgage players.
I truly was/am trying to get people to stop listening to uninformed posts about complicated stocks. I have made some bad calls, but usually posit my comments with risk/trader terminology. They still don;t get it, and will continue to fantasize about outcomes; there are few real buyers in TMA probably; my thoughts?. there are vultures shorting every rally,by fueled by ignorant speculators and buying back and covering, like they are in some big names WM< FRE< FNM. But in some of the big names there have massive accumulated positions by big firms Cap Research and Management which has amassed 10% to 20% stakes in these names over several quarters, years. They avoided the tech bubble;