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Some affluent buyers are getting the keys to their new home without putting a penny down. It’s 100% financing—the same strategy that pushed many homeowners into foreclosure during the housing bust. Banks say these loans are safer: They’re almost exclusively being offered to clients with sizable assets, and they often require two forms of collateral—the house and a portion of the client’s investment portfolio in lieu of a traditional [...] We had the opportunity to sit down with Frank Giustra last week, the lion behind Lionsgate Films, and an early architect of countless resource companies—most notably Wheaton River Minerals (now known as the $33B Goldcorp, which spun out the $12B Silver Wheaton), Petro Rubiales (now the $7B Pacific Rubiales), and Urasia Energy. By all accounts Giustra is brilliant, connected and wealthy. He made headlines in 2007 by pledging over $100 million [...] Steve Schaefer Anyone with an investment portfolio is probably familiar with the well-worn phrase “past performance is no guarantee of future results.” Bill Gross goes a step further in his August Investment Outlook, writing that not only should we not expect big returns from equities any time soon, maybe we should never expect them again. “The cult of equity is dying,” the founder and co-CIO of Pimco begins his monthly commentary, which goes on to [...] The Euro is creaking and making funny noises. Lloyds of London – who have a pretty good ear to perceive impending disasters – says the insurance market is preparing for the Euro’s collapse and is trying to reduce its exposure as much as possible. Robert Ward chief executive of the multi-billion dollar and almost five hundred year old institution said Lloyd’s may have to write-down on its £58.9 billion investment portfolio [...] The Euro is creaking and making funny noises. Lloyds of London – who have a pretty good ear to perceive impending disasters – says the insurance market is preparing for the Euro’s collapse and is trying to reduce its exposure as much as possible. Robert Ward chief executive of the multi-billion dollar and almost five hundred year old institution said Lloyd’s may have to write-down on its £58.9 billion investment portfolio [...] Reuters JPMorgan Chase & Co has sold an estimated $25 billion of profitable securities in an effort to prop up earnings after suffering trading losses tied to the bank’s now-infamous “London Whale,” compounding the cost of those trades. CEO Jamie Dimon earlier this month said the bank sold corporate bonds and other securities, pocketing $1 billion in gains that will help offset more than $2 billion in losses. As a result, the bank will [...] via Telegraph: The chief executive of the multi-billion pound Lloyd’s of London has publicly admitted that the world’s leading insurance market is prepared for a collapse in the single currency and has reduced its exposure “as much as possible” to the crisis-ridden continent. Richard Ward said the London market had put in place a contingency plan to switch euro underwriting to multi-currency settlement if Greece abandoned the euro. In an interview with The Sunday [...]
The chief executive of the multi-billion pound Lloyd’s of London has publicly admitted that the world’s leading insurance market is prepared for a collapse in the single currency and has reduced its exposure “as much as possible” to the crisis-ridden continent. Richard Ward said the London market had put in place a contingency plan to switch euro underwriting to multi-currency settlement if Greece abandoned the euro. In an interview with The Sunday [...] By Chuck Jaffe, MarketWatch BOSTON — Whether you talk to friends, scan the Internet or listen to talk radio, it’s clear that a lot of people will spend more time this week selecting their NCAA basketball tournament bracket than they’ll spend thinking about their investment selections in a year. Listen to how people actually fill in their brackets, however, and it’s not all that different from how they fill their [...] By David Galland, Casey Research It seems that the mainstream investment community only takes a break from ignoring gold to berate it: one of gold’s most outspoken critics, uber-investor Warren Buffett, did so recently in his Latest Shareholder Letter. The indictments were familiar; gold is an inanimate object “incapable of producing anything,” so any investor holding it instead of stocks is acting out of irrational fear. How can it be that Buffett, perhaps the [...] From David Galland, Managing Director, Casey Research: It seems that the mainstream investment community only takes a break from ignoring gold to berate it: one of gold’s most outspoken critics, uber-investor Warren Buffett, did so recently in his latest shareholder letter. The indictments were familiar; gold is an inanimate object “incapable of producing anything,” so any investor holding it instead of stocks is acting out of irrational fear. How can it be [...] by Rob Wile Freddie Mac CEO Charles Haldeman, Jr. has written a rebuttal to the NPR/ProPublica story that criticized the corporation for making bets that would pay off if homeowners were stuck in onerous mortgages. In an op-ed published in American Banker, Haldeman defended the corporation’s purchase of inverse floater swaps as a hedging strategy that would limit taxpayer exposure to losses: Even though we reduced Freddie Mac’s investment portfolio significantly from $867 billion to $653 billion [...] By JONATHAN BURTON, WSJ Investors learned tough lessons as financial markets melted down in 2008. Some sold in a panic when stocks were at their lows. Others were surprised when fund managers proved just as capable of losing the nest egg as they were. Now is probably a good time, with markets swaying again amid uncertainty about global economic growth, to ask yourself how well you learned your [...] Australia’s leading television broadcaster has compared JP Morgan as silver price manipulators similar to Bunker Hunt in the late 1970′s, with one major difference. JP Morgan has a concentrated short position to drive the silver price lower. Bullionmark CEO, Mark van der Sluys, who was interviewed by the Lateline Business program believes the silver price is manipulated lower to maintain confidence in paper [...] Major credit crisis and reeling dollar are major causes of this movement. Many economists fear that the commodities market has been slowly “financialised” (that is, made to look like the equity and bond markets), and that this has allowed excessive amounts of money to pour into commodities futures. And they fear that in a slowing global economy hit by a major credit crisis and reeling from [...] by ZH There was a time when everyone thought CDOs are perfectly safe. That ended up being a tad incorrect. It resulted in AIG blowing up, recording hundreds of billions in losses and almost taking the rest of the financial world with it, leading ultimately to the first iteration of quantitative easing. A few years thereafter, several blogs and fringe elements suggested that munis are [...] by fishhook Today’s subject is “Asset Allocation”, and we will get into some complexity and detail, but first, let’s get the basics down. While there are lots of formal, sophisticated definitions, let’s simplify things and say that asset allocation is just dividing your investments among different kinds/classes of assets like stocks, bonds, cash, and others, to “optimize” risk versus return based on your situation [...] 1) Regarding the Meredith Muni crisis…………..IF you wish to invest in Muni’s as they drop in value, for many reasons, I would consider purchasing those of the politically most important states. The federal government says they aren’t going to help………..but that’s a lot of talk………..how can they let their most important states go bankrupt? Things that get slammed are usually a good investment for those [...] Goldman Sachs committed violations that could cause it to get a suspension of their securities licenses which would prevent them from selling securities for a period of time, and that indeed should be a part of the penalty against Goldman Sachs. And, no, it’s not “smoke and mirrors” as GS got caught with solid evidence of ACTUAL FRAUD. Go read the SEC complaint and related information: THE SEC COMPLAINT OF FRAUD AGAINST [...] Better late than never…….GS is biggest crook in Wallstreet. FROM THE SEC internet link………………. SEC Charges Goldman Sachs With Fraud in Structuring and Marketing of CDO Tied to Subprime Mortgages FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Washington, D.C., April 16, 2010  “The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Goldman, Sachs & Co. and one of its vice presidents for defrauding investors by misstating and omitting key facts about a financial product tied to subprime mortgages as [...] Many of the things you think you know about investing are part of a mythology designed to make you bounce around between investment products. Modern day “conventional wisdom” just isn’t all that its cracked up to be. Concepts you worship are inaccurate; indices and averages you trust do not tell the complete story; the basic investment concepts still work — but Wall Street won’t tell you what they are. It’s time [...] |
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