Empiric Student Property Share Discussion Threads

[briarberry] 15/9/2007 21:12

SPX - I'm in the 0.25% rate cut camp...

The effective Fed funds rate is already at 5% (post 1067), this often leads, so I can only imagine that Ben Banky will cut by 0.25% If not this month then next. He'll only be making official what has already happened.

Tuesday 7.15pm rate cut - If there is a rate cut, we'll get panic short covering rally, who knows how high ? There must be a load of money short

Don't blame me if I've read this wrong but I'm going to take it easy this week, certainly not going to short the SPX until I know one way or the other.

There might be a pattern here :D The Fed have already, out of the blue, cut the discount window rate. The BofE said no bailouts and then 2 days later they effectively bailed out NRK. Greenie says it's right not to lower rates too quickly - and so the next step would be - lower rates ?

This might be their last chance to harvest the short stops before the next move down, we'll see ?

Are they worried about the US$ tanking and the resulting inflation ? - it's never seemed to bother them before. May be one day it will ?

[briarberry] 14/9/2007 15:15

NRK - other banks won't lend them money, who better than other banks to know how risky NRK is ???

[briarberry] 14/9/2007 13:49

BoE - just two days ago Mervyn King said no bailouts (post 1062) - 2 days later - is it just a short term loan or is it a bailout ???


Sept. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Northern Rock Plc got emergency funding from the Bank of England, the biggest bailout of a British lender in 30 years, after a freeze in money markets left the mortgage provider unable to finance itself.



In the queue at Northern Rock to withdraw money :)

Another woman, who was with her husband, admitted she was worried, adding: "I want to spend my money before someone else does."

[briarberry] 14/9/2007 11:42

Bank accounts - the limit is £35K... (35 and not 33 as I said originally)


FSCS can pay compensation for financial loss of up to £31,700 for deposit claims (made up of 100% of the first £2,000 and 90% of the next £33,000) if a deposit-taking firm (such as a credit union) is unable to pay back money it owes to its members.

[briarberry] 14/9/2007 09:56

the effective fed funds rate has been significantly below the current target of 5.25% for the majority of the past month

[briarberry] 14/9/2007 09:55

The Swiss National Bank has risen rates to 2.75%

[briarberry] 14/9/2007 00:58

Greenspan opposed to hurried rates cut
By Krishna Guha in Washington

Published: September 13 2007 18:03 | Last updated: September 13 2007 20:20

Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, has endorsed Ben Bernanke's handling of the finanical market crisis, saying his successor was right not to move more quickly to cut interest rates.

Mr Greenspan rejected claims that the Fed had been too slow to raise rates again after easing policy in the aftermath of the dotcom bust, CBS said.

The CBS release refers to a programme that will run on Sunday, ahead of the release on Monday of Mr Greenspan's widely awaited memoirs.

[briarberry] 13/9/2007 19:36

Oil at $80 - everyone must have shorted GM because it's up over 8% now

[briarberry] 13/9/2007 16:55

let the banks have some money by the backdoor method...


Sept. 13 (Bloomberg) -- The Bank of England relaxed restrictions on the amount of money financial institutions need to hold with the central bank, encouraging them to lend more to each other as it tries to reduce overnight borrowing costs.

Commercial banks, which agree to hold a specific amount of money at the Bank of England at the end of each month-long maintenance period, can now undershoot that target by 37.5 percent and still earn interest at the benchmark interest rate, the central bank said today. That compares with a previous restriction of 1 percent.

The Bank of England also loaned additional money to commercial banks today as part of its efforts to reduce overnight interest rates which are still ``higher than normal.'' Governor Mervyn King yesterday refused to change the system for money- market operations or take action to ease rates over a longer time horizon because that would ``encourage excessive risk-taking.''

[briarberry] 13/9/2007 16:28

BOE's King Refuses to Relax Money Lending Standards

Sept. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Governor Mervyn King refused to relax the Bank of England's system for money-market lending, rejecting calls to provide commercial banks with more longer- term cash to reduce borrowing costs amid a global increase in the cost of credit.

``The provision of such liquidity support undermines the efficient pricing of risk by providing ex-post insurance for risky behavior,'' King said today in written testimony to the U.K. Parliament's Treasury Committee. ``That encourages excessive risk-taking, and sows the seeds of a future financial crisis.''

The U.K. central bank has been more reluctant than the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank to provide emergency funds to banks hurt by the collapse in the subprime mortgage market. While the Bank of England will offer extra money this week to cut overnight rates, it has ruled out action to ease three-month borrowing costs that today held at the highest since 1998.

[briarberry] 10/9/2007 16:02

yes you wouldn't want to lend money to someone who was about to go bust, but who is ok and who isn't ?


Market sources believe confidence will be restored only when all the sub-prime losses in the system have been exposed.

Christopher Wood, the strategist at Hong Kong-based brokerage CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets credited with predicting the US sub-prime crisis two years ago, said: "The sub-prime crisis has exposed the structured credit asset class as highly dubious. In five years' time it won't exist."

[briarberry] 06/9/2007 16:48

Institute for Supply Management index for August

the employment index fell from 51.7 to 47.9 -- the lowest reading in nearly five years

[briarberry] 03/9/2007 22:27

how many more of these are we likely to see...


Germany: IKB Announces Potential Loss
September 03, 2007 17 04 GMT

German IKB Industriebank said Sept. 3 that it expects to lose about $1 billion from its exposure to the U.S. subprime market. Before the bank issued its alert, it had forecast annual profits of $382 million; it now expects to lose $820 million to $956 million.

From Stratfor.com, subscription required.

[briarberry] 02/9/2007 23:11

US temp employment...

temp employment trends lead the headline payroll employment numbers

over the last few months, the year over year change in temp employment has gone negative

As per historical experience, negative rate of change trends in temp employment occurred just prior to the early 1990's and 2001 recession

[briarberry] 02/9/2007 20:27

The haunting prospect of wholesale bank failures and the necessity of saying not a word to the American people as to the cause and danger, lest I precipitate runs on our bank, left me little sleep.

Herbert Hoover Memoirs 1928-32

[briarberry] 31/8/2007 16:55

DJ Bush: Government Bailout Would Make Problems Worse

DJ Bush: Not Government's Job To Bail Out Speculators

DJ Bush: US Economy Strong Enough To Weather Market Turbulence

[briarberry] 31/8/2007 16:26

Ben Banky, even he admits that rate cuts won't save the economy...


DJ Fed's Bernanke:Must Take Mkts Into Account In Fed Decisions-2

Bernanke said the Fed is monitoring developments in housing and the economy
"closely."

The housing downturn "has been sharp," Bernanke said, and "further declines
in homebuilding are likely." Delinquencies among subprime borrowers with
adjustable-rate mortgages are likely to rise when those borrowers face
interest-rate resets in coming quarters.

"Obviously, if current conditions persist in mortgage markets, the demand
for homes could weaken further, with possible implications for the broader
economy," Bernanke said. Thus, economic uncertainty is higher than usual, he
added.

But he suggested that even if the Fed were to lower the fed-funds rate, it
wouldn't necessarily have as much of a stimulative economic effect as it once
would have.

"Most estimates suggest that, because of the reduced sensitivity of housing
to short-term interest rates, the response of the economy to a given change in
the federal-funds rate is modestly smaller and more balanced across sectors
than in the past," Bernanke said

[briarberry] 31/8/2007 00:31

FSN interview, good background info & overview...

Douglas C. Noland, financial markets strategist at David Tice & Associates, has 18 years investment experience as a trader, analyst and portfolio manager. He posts a weekly column on the PrudentBear.com website called the Credit Bubble Bulletin.

(21mb)

[briarberry] 30/8/2007 17:37

not saying this will happen, but it's a bit scary to go short after you read some TA like this