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Alarm Bells Sounded on Wall Street’s Derivatives

February 22, 2018

Alarm Bells Sounded on Wall Street’s Derivatives

Andy Green, Managing Director, Economic Policy , Center for American Progress

Andy Green, Managing Director,  Economic Policy Center for  American Progress

On February 14, the week after the Dow Jones Industrial Average experienced two separate days of more than 1,000-point losses, the House Financial Services’ Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Securities and Investment convened a hearing to discuss various legislative proposals to return to the wild west era of derivatives trading on Wall Street. (Many, including Wall Street On Parade, believe that we’ve never left that era – the risks have simply been hidden behind a dark curtain. See related articles below.)

One lonely voice for sanity on the witness panel, which was stacked with industry trade groups, was Andy Green, Managing Director at the Economic Policy Center for American Progress. Green’s written testimony stated that the legislative proposals “slice, dice, or otherwise poke holes – sometimes large holes – in the firewalls placed in the derivatives markets by post 2008 reforms….”

Green also reminded the Congressional members present that the “unregulated OTC derivatives market was at the heart of the 2007-2008 financial crisis, which cost 8.7 million Americans their jobs, 10 million families their homes, and eliminated 49 percent of the average middle-class family’s wealth compared with 2001 levels.”

Green provided a litany of the derivative horrors that led to panic and financial contagion during the financial crisis. The collapse of the giant insurer AIG from credit default swap derivatives and its role as counterparty to some of Wall Street’s largest banks. (In response to the AIG collapse, the U.S. government bailed out the company to the tune of $185 billion. Half of the bailout money effectively went in the front door of AIG and then out the backdoor to the big Wall Street banks and hedge funds that had used AIG as their counterparty to guarantee their bets on Credit Default Swaps.)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Coming CONTAGION – CDS Sales Double from 2016

August 31, 2017

The Coming CONTAGION – CDS Sales Double from 2016


The issue of credit default swaps (CDS) in 2017 is running at twice that of last year reflecting rising concerns of another coming crash. The number of hedge funds and banks dealing with highly sensitive credit derivatives has reached almost $30 billion in 2017 up from only about $ 15 billion in 2016 and just $ 10 billion back in 2015. The credit default insurance, which is supposed to pay certain amount of money a particular company or government registers its insolvency. The trading in CDS was blamed by numerous observers for creating the financial crisis that became a widespread contagion in 2008 in particular. 

Hedge funds are now investing in these risky securities in order to achieve returns on the order of magnitude that are difficult to achieve in the current market environment due low interest rates. High-profile funds such as Apollo, Brigade Capital and Blue Mountain are among those who bought tranches with terms of 2-3 years, according to the FT. The real danger with this instruments is that the next crash will be far worse in the bond markets than at any time since 1931 and the prospects of actually being able to collect on these time-bombs is more unlikely since the entire system will freeze. The crisis is one stemming from liquidity and failure to understand the contagion will lead to significant losses. 

The pending view on the stock market remains extremely bearish among professional since their historical view is very myopic and their models rarely extend back before 1971. The was the entire reason Long-Term Capital Management collapsed and set off a crisis that became a contagion. Because they could not liquidate positions in Russian debt, they were forecast to start selling investments around the world to raise cash to cover losses in Russia. Therefore, you can have a great solid investment in an area unrelated to the bond crisis, yet that investment can tank regardless of the fundamentals.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Which Countries Have The Highest Default Risk: A Global CDS Heatmap

March 8, 2016

Which Countries Have The Highest Default Risk: A Global CDS Heatmap

Sweden beats USA and Germany as the least likely to default on its bonds but at the other end of the global sovereign risk spectrum lie two socialist utopias – Venezuela (CDS just shy of 6000bps) and Greece (CDS around 1800bps) are the nations most likely to default.

Of course, our readers will be well aware of this: back in December, when its CDS was trading at “only” 2300 bps (or whatever points upfront equivalent it was back then) we said Venezuela CDS are going much, much wider. Little did we know that in just about 14 months they would more than double, and as of last check, Venezuela CDS are just shy of 6000bps suggesting a default is virtually guaranteed.

So aside from these two socialist utopias, who else is on the default chopping block? The CDS heatmap below lays out all the countries which according to the market, are most likely to tell their creditors the money is gone… it’s all gone.

Below, in order of declining default risk, are the ten most likely to follow Venezuela and Greece into the great default unknown:

  1. Ukraine
  2. Pakistan
  3. Egypt
  4. Brazil
  5. South Africa
  6. Russia
  7. Portugal
  8. Kazakhstan
  9. Turkey
  10. Vietnam

Sovereign Credit Default Swaps (CDS) are financial contracts that measure the risk of default on sovereign debt: the higher the spread, the greater the risk of default.

Source: BofA

Italian Banks Sink As “Bad Bank” Plan Underwhelms

January 27, 2016

Italian Banks Sink As “Bad Bank” Plan Underwhelms

Last week, we noted that Italy is rushing to defuse a €200 billion time bomb in the country’s banking sector as investors fret over banks’ exposure to souring loans.

“Italian banks’ share prices have been volatile YTD, given the market’s renewed fears over asset quality and potential developments on a possible bad bank creation,” Citi wrote, in a note analyzing which Italian banks are most exposed. “Total gross NPLs in Italy have increased by c160% since 2009 and now represents c18% of loans (vs c8% in 2009).”

Essentially, Italy was slow to tackle its NPL problem relative to other countries and the chickens have now come home to roost.

The idea was to create a “bad bank” for the “assets” (because that’s worked so well in other countries), but the plan was stalled by the European Commission due to concerns about whether Italy was set to run afoul of restrictions around when countries can provide state aid to the financial sector.

In short, creditors at Italy’s banks would need to take a hit before PM Matteo Renzi’s government would be allowed to extend state aid. That is unless Italy could devise some kind of end-around, which is precisely what Renzi was attempting to do last week.

As a reminder, this would have been easier had it been negotiated last year before new rules on bank resolutions came into effect in 2016. That’s why Portugal pushed through the Novo Banco bail-in and the Banif rescue in December.

In any event, Italy has indeed managed to strike a deal with Brussels to help alleviate banks’ NPL burden.

Essentially, Italian banks will securitize their souring loans, sell them to investors, and the government will guarantee the senior tranches of the new paper.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What Just Happened With OIL?

January 17, 2016

What Just Happened With OIL?

Yesterday, we reported exclusively how the Dallas Fed is pulling strings behind the scenes to conceal the fallout from the oil market crash. As Dark-Bid.com’s Daniel Drew notes, by suspending mark-to-market on energy loans and distorting the accounting, they are postponing the inevitable as long as possible. The current situation is eerily reminiscent to the heyday of the mortgage market in 2007, when mortgage defaults started to pick up, and yet the credit default swaps that tracked them continued to decline, bringing losses to those brave enough to trade against the crowd.

Amidst the market chaos on Friday, a trader brought something strange to my attention. He asked me exactly what the hell was going on with this ETN he was watching. I took a closer look and was baffled. It took me awhile to put the pieces together. Then when I saw the story about mark-to-market being suspended, it all made sense.

Here is the daily premium for the last 6 months on the Barclays iPath ETN that tracks oil:

Initially, Dark-Bid.com’s Daniel Drew thought this was merely a sign of retail desperation. As they faced devastating losses on their oil stocks, small investors turned to products like oil ETNs as they tried to grasp the elusive oil profits their financial adviser promised them a year ago. Oblivious to the cruel mechanics of ETNs, they piled in head first, in spite of the soaring premium to fair value. After all, Larry Fink is making the rounds to convince the small investor that ETFs are indeed safer than mutual funds. Because nothing says “safe” like buying an ETN that is 36% above its fair value.

Sure, there are differences between ETFs and ETNs, particularly regarding their solvency in the event of an issuer default, but the premium/discount problem plagues ETFs and ETNs alike. Nonetheless, widely trusted retail sources of investment information perpetuate the myth that ETNs do not have tracking errors.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Big Short is a Great Movie, But…

January 5, 2016

The Big Short is a Great Movie, But…

 

Paris — Michael Lewis is the chronicler of Wall Street.  He takes the complexity behind which the inhabitants of the financial world hide and weaves a tale that is both understandable and compelling.  Starting with the classic “Liars Poker” (1989), Lewis has produced a number of books about the financial markets including “Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt” (2014) and “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine” (2010).  Working with director Adam McKay and some great actors and screen writers, Lewis has managed to produce what is perhaps the most accessible and relevant treatment of the mortgage boom and financial bust of the 2000s, and the subsequent 2008 financial crisis.

The beauty of “The Big Short,” both as a movie and a book, is that it provides sufficient detail to inform the general audience about events and issues that are not part of everyday life.  Wall Street is a secretive place, but “The Big Short” manages to convey enough of the details to make the story credible as a journalistic effort, yet also enormously entertaining.  Lewis does this with two essential ingredients of any film: a simple story and compelling characters.

Images of greed and stupidity are presented like Italian frescos in “The Big Short,” pictures that are memorable and thought provoking.  Indeed, what many people know and remember years from now about the 2008 financial crisis will be shaped by creative efforts such as “The Big Short” for the simple reason that Lewis has simplified the description into a manageable portion.  Unlike hedge fund manager Michael Burry (played by Christian Bale), most people lack the patience and expertise to sift through and understand reams of financial data.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Big Banks Caught Using Credit Default Swaps To Destroy Nations

December 16, 2015

Big Banks Caught Using Credit Default Swaps To Destroy Nations 

At the beginning of 2010, readers were presented with what was (at the time) merely a theory. The Big Bank crime syndicate was engaged in the serial manipulation of credit default swaps, in order to (among other things) destroy the economies of entire nations. It’s one of the reasons these “financial weapons of mass destruction” ( Warren Buffett ) were illegal in the U.S. for roughly 100 years, banned under anti-gambling statutes.

The theory was supported by a combination of compelling empirical evidence and logical deduction (i.e. “circumstantial evidence”) – roughly the same evidentiary basis by which we obtain most of our criminal convictions in our courts of law. The difference here is that with our governments having abandoned the Rule of Law, there was no one ready or willing to adjudicate over such evidence.

Before moving to the new evidence of an open conspiracy by the Big Banks to manipulate this market, it is necessary to review this older evidence. The chronology begins after the Crash of ’08, and takes the form of a comparison of two nations and their economies: Greece and the U.S.

Both nations were clearly hopelessly insolvent. Both nations’ insolvency came largely through absurd levels of military over-spending. The main difference is that one nation – the U.S. – was even more insolvent than the other. It simply pretended (and still pretends) to be “solvent” through enormous and absurdly transparent accounting fraud, which would be instantly prosecuted if attempted by any U.S. corporation (other than a Big Bank ).

Yet despite these two similar economies, there was nothing similar about their interest rates. The benchmark U.S. interest rate was permanently frozen at an ultra-fraudulent 0%. This meant paying no interest on loans to the U.S. government, despite the enormous risk of lending money to history’s most-indebted nation.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Wall Street Banks Admit They Rigged CDS Prices Too

October 2, 2015

Wall Street Banks Admit They Rigged CDS Prices Too

Back in June, we noted that a group of investors which included hedge funds, pension funds, university endowments, and others were looking to push forward with a lawsuit that alleged Wall Street had conspired to limit competition in the CDS market.

Of course the whole case was based on what amounts to tautological reasoning.

That is, everyone knows that Markit effectively monopolized the CDS market and because Markit was owned by Wall Street, it was self evident that big banks both monopolized and manipulated the market. 

Amusingly, one of the firms that plaintiffs alleged was kept out of the credit default swap market as a result of Wall Street’s absolute stranglehold was Citadel. As we joked a few months back, this meant that by conspiring to keep the Fed’s plunge protection team shut out in 2008, Markit and Wall Street robbed the world of the chance to see what happens when VIX 90 meets HFT, meets CDS market making.

In any event, earlier this month, the Street agreed to settle for nearly $2 billion and today we learn that none other than JP Morgan – whose offshore, taxpayer sponsored hedge fund at CIO seems to have quite a bit of trouble trading CDX without losing billions – is set to bear the brunt of the pain. Here’s Bloomberg:

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is set to pay almost a third of a $1.86 billion settlement to resolve accusations that a dozen big banks conspired to limit competition in the credit-default swaps market, according to people briefed on terms of the deal.

JPMorgan is paying $595 million, with the lender’s portion of the accord largely based on the plaintiffs’ measure of market share, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the firms haven’t disclosed how they’re splitting costs. The settlement also enacts reforms making it easier for electronic-trading platforms to enter the CDS market, according to a statement Thursday from the attorneys for the plaintiffs, which include the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Three Conditions and Three Warning Signs | Mind on Money

December 14, 2014

Three Conditions and Three Warning Signs | Mind on Money.

How to Tell if the Next Financial Crisis is Upon Us.

In the last post, it was suggested that the rapid collapse in oil prices might have set up a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis. Before we all run for the bunkers and the freeze-dried food, we should know the conditions needed for a crisis to happen, and the signposts we’ll see if the crisis gets going.

For a sector correction to become a meltdown, and for that to turn into a global crisis, several preconditions need to be in place.

The first condition is a serious market sector correction.

According to some participants in the market for energy company bonds and loans, such a correction is already underway and heading toward a meltdown (the second condition). Others are more sanguine, and expect a recovery soon.

 

That smaller energy companies have issued more junk-rated debt than their relative size in the economy isn’t under debate. Of a total junk bond market estimated around $1.2 trillion, about 18% ($216 billion, according to a Bloomberg estimate) has been issued by energy-related companies. Yet those companies represent a far smaller share of the economy or stock market capitalization among the universe of junk-rated companies.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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