THE $2.3 QUADRILLION GLOBAL TIMEBOMB
Credit Suisse is hours from collapse and the consequences could be a systemic failure of the financial system.
Disappointingly, my dream last night stopped there. So unfortunately I didn’t experience what actually happened.
As I warned in last week’s article on Archegos and Credit Suisse, investment banks have created a timebomb with the $1.5 quadrillion derivatives monster.
A few years ago, the BIS (Bank of International Settlement) in Basel reduced the $1.5 quadrillion to $600 trillion with a pen stroke. But the real gross figure was still $1.5q at the time. According to my sources, the real figure today is probably over $2 quadrillion.
A major part of the outstanding derivatives are OTC (over the counter) and hidden in off balance sheet special purpose vehicles.
LEVERAGED ASSETS JUST GO UP IN SMOKE
The $30 billion in Archegos derivatives that went up in smoke over a weekend is just the tip of the iceberg. The hedge fund Archegos lost everything and the normal uber-leveraged players Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Nomura etc lost at least $30 billion.
These investment banks are making casino bets that they can’t afford to lose. What their boards and top management don’t realise or understand is that the traders, supported by easily manipulated risk managers, are betting the bank on a daily basis.
Most of these ludicrously high bets are in the derivatives market. The management doesn’t understand how they work or what the risks are and the account managers and traders can bet billions on a daily basis with no skin in the game but massive potential upside if nothing goes wrong.
DEUTSCHE BANK – DERIVATIVES 600X EQUITY
But we are now entering an era when things will go wrong. The leverage is just too high and the bets totally out of proportion to the equity.
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