Empiric Student Property Share Discussion Threads

[briarberry] 11/10/2007 18:04

must be too many people short retail, WMT up 3.5%

(WMT is a large component of the retail ETFs that people short)

WMT same-store sales were soft at 1.4 percent increase



Dow biggest gainer, GM, up 5%,

[briarberry] 11/10/2007 16:03

Retailers bring out the warning flags

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A slew of earnings warnings from retailers Thursday, on top of poor September sales numbers, added credence to concerns that consumers are feeling tapped out and that retailers are headed for a very difficult holiday period.

Thomson Financial, which compares sales at 45 retail chains, estimates that September same-store sales overall rose 2.1 percent, much softer than last year's 4.2 percent gain for the same month a year earlier.

[briarberry] 10/10/2007 20:05

GS are pretending they haven't lost $72 billion...


Goldman Sachs Group Inc.(GS) said Wednesday that the size of its Level 3
assets at the end of the third quarter increased to $72.05 billion from $54
billion at the end of the second quarter.

In terms of percentage, the New York-based investment bank's third-quarter
Level 3 assets amounted to 7% of total assets, compared with about 6% at the
end of the previous quarter.

Level 3 assets are those that trade so infrequently that there is virtually
no reliable market price for them, and valuations for these assets are based
on management assumptions.

The credit crisis has sparked concerns about the value of some of the assets
investment banks hold on their balance sheets. Investors and analysts have
been especially worried about banks' exposure to turmoil in the mortgage
market and recent trouble in the financing of big leveraged buyouts.

In its third-quarter financial report filed Wednesday with the Securities
and Exchange Commission, the firm said Level 3 assets for which it bears
economic exposure amounted to about $50.9 billion.

[briarberry] 10/10/2007 14:58

they might know something - options writers are charging a lot more for long dated puts, than similar calls. Just like in 2000 :)


Investors are paying the most ever to protect against a drop in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, data compiled by Morgan Stanley show

Last week's advance hasn't dispelled concern among traders in U.S. options. They are pricing in the highest risk of an equity-market decline since the technology-stock bubble burst at the start of the decade, according to Carl Mason, head of U.S. equity-derivatives strategy at Morgan Stanley in New York.

Implied Volatility

Mason says implied volatility, a measure that calculates expected price swings of an underlying asset and is used as a barometer for options prices, shows many investors are betting that stocks may fall.

The implied volatility on puts is 8.1 percentage points higher than for call options

[briarberry] 10/10/2007 14:51

Ryder System Inc (R) cut its profit forecast on Monday saying that softness in the U.S. economy has spread beyond the housing sector, sending the truck leasing and logistics company's shares down more than 6 percent. "Economic conditions have softened considerably in more industries beyond those related to housing and construction," Ryder said in a statement.

[briarberry] 10/10/2007 14:34

things are going to get worse, the 0.5% rate cut won't make much difference

it's only a matter of time before the supply of buy and hope investors runs dry

[briarberry] 10/10/2007 14:30

banking system is being stretched...

That credit card debt growth is accelerating at a time when retail sales growth is slowing suggests that more consumers are turning to their cards to finance their basic monthly cash flow. As I have said previously, it appears that the credit card banks have become the consumer lender of last resort. How long this can continue, particularly with the slowdown in personal income growth, (from 0.9% monthly income growth in January to 0.3% in August) remains to be seen.

[briarberry] 10/10/2007 14:21

Califonia REO inventory expected to get a lot worse...

REOs: Real Estate Owned by the Lender.

After a NOD is filed, the lender must wait 3 months before filing a NOT. Then the foreclosure sale happens 3 weeks later. Ramsey has shifted the graph to account for these lags.

[briarberry] 09/10/2007 21:43

stole this snippet from another site...

Some quotes from Doug Noland's credit bubble bulletin:

"The Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLB) expanded assets about $170bn during the two-month period August through September. This was for them an unprecedented market intervention. For perspective, the FHLB expanded about $19bn during 2006 and $73bn in 2005. Even during tumultuous 1998, the FHLB limited asset growth to about $90bn. To my surprise, total GSE third-quarter Credit expansion will most likely approach $250bn."

"The combined growth of Fannie and Freddie's "Books of Business" will approach $500bn this year (nearing $5.0TN). The (also thinly capitalized) FHLB is on track for unprecedented expansion (assets surpassing $1.2TN)."

[briarberry] 09/10/2007 17:04

Cargo containers crammed with foreign-made goods that were supposed to set a record in August at major U.S. ports took an unexpected turn, with imports sinking 1.4% in another sign of the slowing of the economy

[briarberry] 08/10/2007 22:29

October 6, 2007 -- Ellington Capital Management, the country's largest mortgage-backed securities hedge fund, sent a letter to investors notifying them that redemptions and withdrawals in two of its funds would be suspended because of a sharp decline in the liquidity of certain mortgage- and asset-backed markets.

[briarberry] 08/10/2007 00:16

Robert Newmans History of Oil-- 1 of 5


Robert Newmans History of Oil-- 2 of 5


Robert Newmans History of Oil-- 3 of 5


Robert Newman's History of Oil-- 4 of 5


Robert Newman's History of Oil-- 5 of 5




Between Iraq and a Hard Place - Rory Bremner gives a hilarious and historical look at the history of conflict in Iraq

[briarberry] 05/10/2007 15:51

NEW YORK (AP) -- Investment bank Merrill Lynch & Co. said Friday credit and mortgage woes will lead to it post a third-quarter loss, as it takes almost $5 billion in writedowns in the wake of a credit crunch that paralyzed Wall Street this summer.






SEATTLE (AP) -- Washington Mutual Inc. said Friday that the weak housing market and the recent mortgage crunch will lead to a 75 percent drop in its third-quarter net income, making it the latest financial institution to warn investors it took a major hit over the summer.

[briarberry] 05/10/2007 13:44

The big money didn't get rich by holding, you only get the money when you sell

[briarberry] 05/10/2007 13:36

SPX going to short into this rally on December contract, the top cannot be too far away, another 1% may be ?

[briarberry] 05/10/2007 13:31

US nonfarm payrolls 110 K

could be the good news the bears need ????

[briarberry] 04/10/2007 12:00

BofE rates on hold, 5.75%

[briarberry] 04/10/2007 00:23

Both the BofE and the ECB have their chance to cut rates tomorrow

[briarberry] 01/10/2007 14:10

Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Citigroup Inc., the biggest U.S. bank, said third-quarter profit fell about 60 percent because of ``weak'' credit markets and losses on leveraged loans and mortgage-backed securities.

The bank will write down $1.4 billion before taxes on leverage finance commitments, Citigroup said today in a statement. The New York-based bank lost $1.3 billion on subprime assets and about $600 million in fixed-income trading. Higher loan-loss reserves contributed to $2.6 billion in credit costs in the consumer-banking business.

[briarberry] 01/10/2007 11:28

it seems that the banks who are honest about their reporting are reporting losses (although it's probably still the tip of the iceberg)...


Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) -- UBS AG, Europe's biggest bank, had a third-quarter loss and plans to cut 1,500 jobs after writing down the value of its mortgage-backed securities by about 4 billion Swiss francs ($3.4 billion).

The pretax loss, the first reported by any of the world's largest banks, totaled 600 million francs to 800 million francs, the Zurich-based bank said in a statement today. Huw Jenkins, the head of the investment bank, and Chief Financial Officer Clive Standish are stepping down. The shares fell.

The loss surprised analysts who estimated the company would earn as much as 3.3 billion francs and contrasts with Credit Suisse Group, which said today it was profitable in the third quarter. The writedowns are mostly on positions formerly held by Dillon Read Capital Management, the hedge-fund unit UBS shut in May after bonds backed by subprime mortgages soured.

[briarberry] 30/9/2007 19:13

some UK debt stats


Household debt has trebled to £1,354.6bn in the UK over the past 10 years, rising from 90 per cent of annual household income in 1996 to 145 per cent last year - the highest proportion in the G7.



the marked indebtedness of non-bank financial companies - that is, hedge funds, private equity, banks' off balance sheet conduits and wholesale mortgage lenders. Citigroup economist Michael Saunders now estimates this has risen from £553bn - or 68% of GDP - 10 years ago to £2,238bn (160% of GDP) in the second quarter of this year. This has helped fuel the expansion of the financial services sector and the housing boom.

[briarberry] 29/9/2007 22:11

good video

"My estimate is that the financial sector takes $560 billion a year out of society," Bogle explains to Bill Moyers. "Banks, money managers, insurance companies, certainly annuity providers. They're all subtracting value from the economy."



Alan Greenspan on: His Role in creating the Housing Bubble - 5min audio - CBS News

[briarberry] 29/9/2007 13:38

SUV sales helped retail figures...

$3 gasoline at the pump could be a psychologically significant level for SUV sales, SUV sales spiked higher as gasoline fell under $3.

And gasoline is still only at $2.8 (average retail) even though crude has made new highs.

this looks strange -

Personal outlays increased a greater-than-expected 0.6 percent reflecting a 2.4 percent jump in spending on durable goods, specifically autos.

SUV sales incentives must be increasing too ?

There's a history of spikes in SUV sales so may be this pent-up demand has been spent ?