pharniel writes:
wow. so what are ars?
pharniel | 08.01.08 - 4:38 pm | #
Apparently the NY State AG plans to sue Citigroup alleging material misrepresentations regarding Auction Rate Securities (ARS) "including assuring customers that these securities were as liquid as cash".
I think one easy lesson of that last twelve months is that nothing is as liquid as cash except cash itself. "In a down market, cash is king." Interesting how valuable cash has become even as the dollar has dropped.
Aug. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Four days before Merrill Lynch & Co. stopped supporting the auction-rate securities market and left thousands of individual investors stuck with securities they couldn't sell, the firm's analysts recommended clients buy.
Reports of the imminent demise of the auction market seem to be greatly exaggerated, again,'' analyst Kevin Conery wrote in a Feb. 8 research note.We continue to be impressed by the auction market's resiliency.'
OT---Calculated Risk was mentioned on yesterday's NPR "On Point" program by one of the guests. The topic for yesterday was the housing crisis. (Seems to me they should have CR on the program.) Dave
Of all the things we've seen since the beginning of the credit crunch, this is the one with teeth. We can sluff off people being foreclosed as imprudent, banks as greedy....but it is really hard to understand how banking institutions, regulated by the SEC, could sell 'mom and dad', churches and synagogues, a security touted as 'cash' and then not make them good on the transaction.
I think they need to get their money first, ahead of everyone else. Unfortunately, bankers have become so shortsighted and greedy that they don't understand that THIS is the issue that is going to cost them all the way down the road. If they understood, they would have taken their lumps here and never let themselves be exposed to the light of day the way this is going to expose them.
Dave writes:
OT---Calculated Risk was mentioned on yesterday's NPR "On Point" program by one of the guests. The topic for yesterday was the housing crisis. (Seems to me they should have CR on the program.)
A retired friend was looking for places to park her savings earlier this year and considered ARS from UBS or some other bank. She gave me the prospectus to look at. For me, the prospectus was pretty hard to understand, but it did state that the money could get locked up if the auction didn't get a sufficient bid. That was enough for me to say no thanks, not for me.
If Citi had something similar, Cuomo may have a tough case unless he can find some killer, incriminating emails.
Clorox said Friday it would raise prices on more than half of its portfoliowhich includes Glad trash bags, its namesake bleach and Brita water filtersover the next year to offset higher input costs.
Clorox Co. also lowered its 2009 forecast for earnings, citing rising commodity costs.
The growing cost of resin for plastic products, as well as most other raw materials, has led the company to raise prices. Chief Executive Don Knauss told investors Clorox would raise prices further this fiscal year.
Glad trash bag prices, for example, will rise 10 percent in October.
I too was sold ARS by WFC. Fortunately, they have told me and other customers that WFC is fully backing the ARS. WFC sent out a letter that you can borrow on them. IMO, I wouldn't borrow as this may limit ones ability to recover.
I initially told my broker that I wanted a C.D. He stated that these were interbank notes which are fully backed by WFC. I am still earning interest but I can not access the funds. Again, they continue to tell me that they are fully backed. And, they show up on my statement at 100% value with no gain or loss.
After several months - I'm getting out of the ARS that I let myself be talked into by UBS on Monday at full value. The message I was given was they were liquid every 7 days when I purchased them. Fortunately for me, I didn't need the funds when they got locked up. In the time they were locked up they got some pretty good interest rates for a "safe" investment.
Anyway, worked out for me, but only because I was lucky
"Are we going to cause systemwide blowups every 10 years?" demanded one financial engineer recently at an investing conference in New York. She was referring to the 1987 portfolio insurance fiasco that led to a one-day 23 percent Dow Jones fall now known as Black Monday, and the August 1998 bailout of the Long Term Capital Management hedge fund.
With the subprime fiasco in 2007, many observers thought Wall Street's "rocket scientists" would finally be put out to pasture. But they have been proved wrong. Over the past 20 years, quants have reconfigured the face and the vocabulary of finance and the intellectual requirements for creating new, highly profitable products.
It is only 2:30 on the Left Coast. Anybody check for white sedan rental shortages at any major airports?
Seriously, Shelia is gonna need bigger photocopiers for the next batch. Give her some time to get pre-positioned. I also suspect that the last big failure scared a whole bunch of weak hands into looking for "strategic pairings" and the FDIC won't move until/unless those fall through.
Credit investors are pricing in a 90 percent chance that General Motors Corp may default on its debt in the coming five years, after the automaker on Friday posted a $15.5 billion loss for the second quarter.
The No. 1 U.S. automaker burned through $3.6 billion in cash in the quarter as it cut factory output by 27 percent in response to an accelerating downturn in its home market that has hammered sales of trucks and sports utility vehicles.
Check out Mish on "School Districts At Risk Over Uninsured Deposits"...key quote is
'In 2006, FDIC-insured commercial banks held $289.7 billion in cash for state and local governments nationwide, of which only 24 percent was insured, according to an FDIC report issued this year."
Yikes...if govts start pulling there cash that accentuates the credit crunch. What's a person to do when there is no financial institution that you can trust?
To actually answer the question posed by a few, Auction Rate Securities, at least the ones that have become illiquid and spawned a few lawsuits, are preferred shares of closed-end funds that trade on an exchange. These preferred shares were issued by way of an auction, similar to a treasury auction, where the rate that would be paid out by the preferred shares was determined by competing buy and sell bids. These preferred shares had auctions typically on a weekly or monthly basis that allowed the rate of the shares to be reset by the auction each week or month. A holder of one of these securities could redeem their shares at par during each weekly or monthly auction, or allow the shares to roll over and receive the next interest payment as determined by the auction. As these auctions occured so often, there was no secondary market trading these securities, so the only price they were ever bought and sold at was at par. Up until Feb 2008, if an auction for any of these preferred shares did not have enough buying interest to get the interest rate to be set below a predetermined maximum rate (usually indexed to a commercial paper rate), the big brokerage firms would step in and provide extra funds on the buy side. However, in February 2008, the brokerage firms abruptly stopped supporting the auctions on the buy side, presumably because cash was becoming scarce and they made the decision not to waste anymore cash on supporting these auctions. What then happened was that the auctions failed, which cuased the sell bids to also fail, so nobody could redeem their shares at auction anymore. When the auctions fail, the interest rate defaults to the maximum rate, usually indexed to a commercial paper rate, so the holders continue to be paid an interest payment. However, because there is no secondary market for these shares and because they can no longer redeem them at par during the auction, they cannot be sold and have become illiquid.
ARS really should be as good as cash. They were hedged against both default risk, by the bond insurers, and rate risk, by bank guarantees. The problem is that the disasters in the asset-based securities and the derivative markets have left the insurers insolvent and the banks either insolvent or in a desperate credit crunch. The problem arose from allowing lynchpin institutions to place wild speculative bets.
Someday ARS will be back but it will take a long time after everybody got burned so. In the meantime it's just one more way the bubble has damaged our economy.
Early this week I was politely screaming the XLF/financials were near a buy for a bullish spring; well we got that and now I'm bearish as hell again. I'm not certain when it will test its lows, but the party's over for XLF.
Konyah's Camry posted: "...Are we going to cause systemwide blowups every 10 years?" demanded one financial engineer recently at an investing conference in New York. She was referring to the 1987 portfolio insurance fiasco that led to a one-day 23 percent Dow Jones fall now known as Black Monday, and the August 1998 bailout of the Long Term Capital Management hedge fund...."
And recession was still 3 years away in both cases, however dire things seemed at the time. A recession around the 2010-2011 timeframe would be just about right, IMO.
I'm telling you, CR, those "probable recession" bars will come back to haunt you. By the time the last recession was this old (assuming a start in Q4 2007) there were over twice as many job losses from non-farm payrolls, the ISM was in the low 40's, and quarterly year-over-year real GDP was well under 1%.
If you had a loan with First Priority Bank, you should continue to make your payments as usual. The terms of your loan will not change under the terms of the loan contract because they are contractually agreed to your promissory note with the failed institution. Checks should be made payable as usual and sent to the same address until further notice.
For all questions regarding new loans and the lending policies of SunTrust Bank, please contact 800-991-9586 or visit the SunTrust Bank website at http://www.suntrust.com
We don't only have a fractional reserve banking system - we have a fractional reserve economy. People are realizing they may be late to panic but know they don't want to be last. Musical chairs with the last one each round getting the shaft
i have an ARS contract with Bill "the crook" Gross that's been locked up since the market shut down in Feb. i'm getting 50bps above the best money market rates but i can't touch the funds. i'm not upset because i don't have any other plans for the money right now but i am pissed off that PIMCO won't refinance so i can get my principal back.
"Fair Economist writes:
ARS really should be as good as cash. They were hedged against both default risk, by the bond insurers, and rate risk, by bank guarantees. ...
Someday ARS will be back but it will take a long time after everybody got burned so."
If they're back, it proves investors are as stupid as Wall Street thinks they are.
ARS are not hedged against liquidity risk. Nobody worries about liquidity risk, until there's no liquidity.
If an investor wants a perpetual floating rates, buy a FRN. At least they have a fixed maturity date, and you're not going to fool yourself into thinking its liquid ahead of that date.
Well, how much did unemployment rose in ether 87 or 98? How much did unemployment go up in the last year? If you haven't noticed it's up ~1%.
I also should mention the unemployment is not leading indicator. So that 5.7% number means- the slow down is REAL.
I'm telling you, CR, those "probable recession" bars will come back to haunt you. By the time the last recession was this old (assuming a start in Q4 2007) there were over twice as many job losses from non-farm payrolls, the ISM was in the low 40's, and quarterly year-over-year real GDP was well under 1%."
The real GDP and NFP numbers will be revised massively over the coming years. As we already saw for 2007Q4 GDP. Admittedly, the ISM isn't revised, but nobody is arguing that manufacturing is in recession (yet).
If anyone is interested in financial archeology, they should research dutch auction preferred markets in the late-1980s.
I vaguely recall that one of the airlines had a "money-market" preferred auction fail. I think it was American Airlines.
If any of the brokerage firms involved in the dutch-auction preferred markets in the 1980s sold adjustable rate paper recently claiming that it was as liquid as money market securities, they should be nailed to the wall and beaten with a stick. They knew or had reason (i.e., historical experience) to know that it was a damn lie.
Was it this that drove up C stock today?
wow. so what are ars?
When do the States start suing themselves for issuing debt that is nowhere near as secure as purported?
pharniel writes:
wow. so what are ars?
pharniel | 08.01.08 - 4:38 pm | #
Apparently the NY State AG plans to sue Citigroup alleging material misrepresentations regarding Auction Rate Securities (ARS) "including assuring customers that these securities were as liquid as cash".
From the article. You're welcome.
I think one easy lesson of that last twelve months is that nothing is as liquid as cash except cash itself. "In a down market, cash is king." Interesting how valuable cash has become even as the dollar has dropped.
And this is about Merrill doing the same thing:
Aug. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Four days before Merrill Lynch & Co. stopped supporting the auction-rate securities market and left thousands of individual investors stuck with securities they couldn't sell, the firm's analysts recommended clients buy.
Reports of the imminent demise of the auction market seem to be greatly exaggerated, again,'' analyst Kevin Conery wrote in a Feb. 8 research note.We continue to be impressed by the auction market's resiliency.'
Merrill `Co-Opted' Analysts Backed Auction-Rate Debt (Update2) - Bloomberg.com
OT---Calculated Risk was mentioned on yesterday's NPR "On Point" program by one of the guests. The topic for yesterday was the housing crisis. (Seems to me they should have CR on the program.) Dave
What, no Friday surprise this week? No bank failures or Fed takeovers?
So disappointed!
I hope the shine comes off of Rubin's star during all this. He's one Democrat Obama should stay far away from...
oops, too late.
donna, bank seizures happen on the down-low after market close. Like sevenish. (That's why they have pizza! Yum!)
Of all the things we've seen since the beginning of the credit crunch, this is the one with teeth. We can sluff off people being foreclosed as imprudent, banks as greedy....but it is really hard to understand how banking institutions, regulated by the SEC, could sell 'mom and dad', churches and synagogues, a security touted as 'cash' and then not make them good on the transaction.
I think they need to get their money first, ahead of everyone else. Unfortunately, bankers have become so shortsighted and greedy that they don't understand that THIS is the issue that is going to cost them all the way down the road. If they understood, they would have taken their lumps here and never let themselves be exposed to the light of day the way this is going to expose them.
Just criminal.
Dave writes:
OT---Calculated Risk was mentioned on yesterday's NPR "On Point" program by one of the guests. The topic for yesterday was the housing crisis. (Seems to me they should have CR on the program.)
That was Peter V of LaLaLand.
A retired friend was looking for places to park her savings earlier this year and considered ARS from UBS or some other bank. She gave me the prospectus to look at. For me, the prospectus was pretty hard to understand, but it did state that the money could get locked up if the auction didn't get a sufficient bid. That was enough for me to say no thanks, not for me.
If Citi had something similar, Cuomo may have a tough case unless he can find some killer, incriminating emails.
Clorox said Friday it would raise prices on more than half of its portfoliowhich includes Glad trash bags, its namesake bleach and Brita water filtersover the next year to offset higher input costs.
Clorox Co. also lowered its 2009 forecast for earnings, citing rising commodity costs.
The growing cost of resin for plastic products, as well as most other raw materials, has led the company to raise prices. Chief Executive Don Knauss told investors Clorox would raise prices further this fiscal year.
Glad trash bag prices, for example, will rise 10 percent in October.
Clorox to raise prices further to offset costs
Instant 10% return on Glad trash bags, hoard now.
it did state that the money could get locked up if the auction didn't get a sufficient bid
IOW it's just like cash as long as someone's willing to pay cash for it. I can think of a long list of things that are just like cash, in that case.
I'd say your friend owes you one.
Dang Glod! I shouldn't have bought at $977.
I too was sold ARS by WFC. Fortunately, they have told me and other customers that WFC is fully backing the ARS. WFC sent out a letter that you can borrow on them. IMO, I wouldn't borrow as this may limit ones ability to recover.
I initially told my broker that I wanted a C.D. He stated that these were interbank notes which are fully backed by WFC. I am still earning interest but I can not access the funds. Again, they continue to tell me that they are fully backed. And, they show up on my statement at 100% value with no gain or loss.
I've also been told that at least one institution is offering interest free loans to people with their money locked up in ARS.
Most that are offering loans are doing so only if you sign a contract that says you will not bring any legal action against them.
donna, bank seizures happen on the down-low after market close. Like sevenish. (That's why they have pizza! Yum!)
Do they show up with the pizza? Or do they order after they get there?
wow. so what are ars?
The things that are not your elbow?
btw, auction rate securities, now that I'm done being a smartass for the week.
BIG DEAL !!
Cut a deal, pay a fine to the State of NY. Nothing changes.
Just checked the failed banks list. Nothing new is reported there this Friday. Sheila must be onto something really, really BIG, like totally true.
After several months - I'm getting out of the ARS that I let myself be talked into by UBS on Monday at full value. The message I was given was they were liquid every 7 days when I purchased them. Fortunately for me, I didn't need the funds when they got locked up. In the time they were locked up they got some pretty good interest rates for a "safe" investment.
Anyway, worked out for me, but only because I was lucky
I use many Clorox products in my Customers Comfort Area. I guess I will have to buy less, or they will have to go to the library instead.
Financial engineers thrive despite the subprime mess
Financial engineers thrive despite the subprime mess - The New York Times
"Are we going to cause systemwide blowups every 10 years?" demanded one financial engineer recently at an investing conference in New York. She was referring to the 1987 portfolio insurance fiasco that led to a one-day 23 percent Dow Jones fall now known as Black Monday, and the August 1998 bailout of the Long Term Capital Management hedge fund.
With the subprime fiasco in 2007, many observers thought Wall Street's "rocket scientists" would finally be put out to pasture. But they have been proved wrong. Over the past 20 years, quants have reconfigured the face and the vocabulary of finance and the intellectual requirements for creating new, highly profitable products.
"Do they show up with the pizza?"
They help themselves to left overs in the fridge. It's their bank!
It is only 2:30 on the Left Coast. Anybody check for white sedan rental shortages at any major airports?
Seriously, Shelia is gonna need bigger photocopiers for the next batch. Give her some time to get pre-positioned. I also suspect that the last big failure scared a whole bunch of weak hands into looking for "strategic pairings" and the FDIC won't move until/unless those fall through.
felicitaciones little spider
Credit investors are pricing in a 90 percent chance that General Motors Corp may default on its debt in the coming five years, after the automaker on Friday posted a $15.5 billion loss for the second quarter.
The No. 1 U.S. automaker burned through $3.6 billion in cash in the quarter as it cut factory output by 27 percent in response to an accelerating downturn in its home market that has hammered sales of trucks and sports utility vehicles.
Check out Mish on "School Districts At Risk Over Uninsured Deposits"...key quote is
'In 2006, FDIC-insured commercial banks held $289.7 billion in cash for state and local governments nationwide, of which only 24 percent was insured, according to an FDIC report issued this year."
Yikes...if govts start pulling there cash that accentuates the credit crunch. What's a person to do when there is no financial institution that you can trust?
To actually answer the question posed by a few, Auction Rate Securities, at least the ones that have become illiquid and spawned a few lawsuits, are preferred shares of closed-end funds that trade on an exchange. These preferred shares were issued by way of an auction, similar to a treasury auction, where the rate that would be paid out by the preferred shares was determined by competing buy and sell bids. These preferred shares had auctions typically on a weekly or monthly basis that allowed the rate of the shares to be reset by the auction each week or month. A holder of one of these securities could redeem their shares at par during each weekly or monthly auction, or allow the shares to roll over and receive the next interest payment as determined by the auction. As these auctions occured so often, there was no secondary market trading these securities, so the only price they were ever bought and sold at was at par. Up until Feb 2008, if an auction for any of these preferred shares did not have enough buying interest to get the interest rate to be set below a predetermined maximum rate (usually indexed to a commercial paper rate), the big brokerage firms would step in and provide extra funds on the buy side. However, in February 2008, the brokerage firms abruptly stopped supporting the auctions on the buy side, presumably because cash was becoming scarce and they made the decision not to waste anymore cash on supporting these auctions. What then happened was that the auctions failed, which cuased the sell bids to also fail, so nobody could redeem their shares at auction anymore. When the auctions fail, the interest rate defaults to the maximum rate, usually indexed to a commercial paper rate, so the holders continue to be paid an interest payment. However, because there is no secondary market for these shares and because they can no longer redeem them at par during the auction, they cannot be sold and have become illiquid.
ARS really should be as good as cash. They were hedged against both default risk, by the bond insurers, and rate risk, by bank guarantees. The problem is that the disasters in the asset-based securities and the derivative markets have left the insurers insolvent and the banks either insolvent or in a desperate credit crunch. The problem arose from allowing lynchpin institutions to place wild speculative bets.
Someday ARS will be back but it will take a long time after everybody got burned so. In the meantime it's just one more way the bubble has damaged our economy.
Early this week I was politely screaming the XLF/financials were near a buy for a bullish spring; well we got that and now I'm bearish as hell again. I'm not certain when it will test its lows, but the party's over for XLF.
Anonymouse,
Music to my ears, since I got in late Thursday and took a mild beating today.
Konyah's Camry posted: "...Are we going to cause systemwide blowups every 10 years?" demanded one financial engineer recently at an investing conference in New York. She was referring to the 1987 portfolio insurance fiasco that led to a one-day 23 percent Dow Jones fall now known as Black Monday, and the August 1998 bailout of the Long Term Capital Management hedge fund...."
And recession was still 3 years away in both cases, however dire things seemed at the time. A recession around the 2010-2011 timeframe would be just about right, IMO.
I'm telling you, CR, those "probable recession" bars will come back to haunt you.
By the time the last recession was this old (assuming a start in Q4 2007) there were over twice as many job losses from non-farm payrolls, the ISM was in the low 40's, and quarterly year-over-year real GDP was well under 1%.
No recession this year, last year or next year.
Have a nice weekend, all.
Sebastia
Sebastian, are you currently smoking cannabis? 2008 has about as much in common with 1998 as it does with 998.
tabasco said:
"Sebastian, are you currently smoking cannabis? 2008 has about as much in common with 1998 as it does with 998."
And recession years, too, but that idea still can't get any traction here, even with different posters.
S.
Anonymouse,
I was just wondering who might have an extra "e" we can use to make a real word out of the acronym of interest here, and you showed up!
Looks like just one bank today:
FDIC: Failed Bank List
NY sues Citigroup.
"They told us there was a free lunch to be had, and we believed them"
Future News:
NY citizens sue NY for being stupid AND gullible.
Sebastian,
Have you rescinded all your "there's no recession because GDP hasn't turned negative yet" statements now that Q407 was revised negative?
Too slow! Like I care what you think!
I'm telling you, CR, those "probable recession" bars will come back to haunt you.
...
No recession this year, last year or next year.
Black Knight: Oh, oh I see. Running away, eh?! You yellow bastards!!! Come back here and take what's coming to you!!! I'LL BITE YOUR LEGS OFF!!!
first!!
BFF!
Bank in brandenton Florida.
On the FDIC page.
Yay, First Priority Bank!! First failure of August.
FDIC: Failed Bank Information - Bank Closing Information for First Priority Bank, Bradenton, FL
Damn - Mr. Beach beat me to it by seconds...
Beat you strom.
I beat you both by 3 minutes
"Looks like just one bank today"
Just one, or just one in a time zone where close of business has already happened...?
If you had a loan with First Priority Bank, you should continue to make your payments as usual. The terms of your loan will not change under the terms of the loan contract because they are contractually agreed to your promissory note with the failed institution. Checks should be made payable as usual and sent to the same address until further notice.
For all questions regarding new loans and the lending policies of SunTrust Bank, please contact 800-991-9586 or visit the SunTrust Bank website at http://www.suntrust.com
Two banks, two toppings
David J. - You did. I didn't see that!
I bet we get at least one more today after 5pm on the West Coast.
Or, you can send those checks made out to Leftys Liquors to us, and we will forward them for you.
Is Lefty's FDIC insured?
Of course we are.
@David J: Just wait til next friday. We'll get another chance.
Did Suntrust buy 'em. If not, what does Suntrust have to do with anything.
I note the first bank failure of August is proudly located in Florida.
Not that it matters. Lefty's is famous for its liquidity.
Hehehehe-Dawg, you dog.
And they sold the meat to STI? Out of the frying pan and into a moderately cooler fire.....
Gads,
Bank or Credit Union Star Ratings
This isnt too bad, they rated them with a zero???
next:
Vision Bank: Panama City, FL
Ocala National Bank: Ocala, FL
Freedom Bank: Bradenton, FL
Federal Trust Bank: Sanford, FL
Bank of Bonifay: Bonifay, FL
etc.......
There is also a First Priority Bank in PA.
FIRST PRIORITY BANK
Looks like just one bank today:
There are still a couple of hours left...
Here are the current PE Ratios (as of EOB today) from the Wall Street Journals Market Data Center (using TTM earnings):
Dow == -139.25
Nasdaq == 28.05\t
Russell 2000 ==\tnil\t
S&P 500 == 23.78\t
Hmmmm first time Ive seen a negative number. Is that good? And I wonder if nil indicates an undervalued market?
What are buy-the-dips investors thinking right now?
We don't only have a fractional reserve banking system - we have a fractional reserve economy. People are realizing they may be late to panic but know they don't want to be last. Musical chairs with the last one each round getting the shaft
i have an ARS contract with Bill "the crook" Gross that's been locked up since the market shut down in Feb. i'm getting 50bps above the best money market rates but i can't touch the funds. i'm not upset because i don't have any other plans for the money right now but i am pissed off that PIMCO won't refinance so i can get my principal back.
"Fair Economist writes:
ARS really should be as good as cash. They were hedged against both default risk, by the bond insurers, and rate risk, by bank guarantees. ...
Someday ARS will be back but it will take a long time after everybody got burned so."
If they're back, it proves investors are as stupid as Wall Street thinks they are.
ARS are not hedged against liquidity risk. Nobody worries about liquidity risk, until there's no liquidity.
If an investor wants a perpetual floating rates, buy a FRN. At least they have a fixed maturity date, and you're not going to fool yourself into thinking its liquid ahead of that date.
I guess folks would have been better off putting their $ in a coffee can and burying it when given the choice of an ars or a hole in the ground.
"No recession this year, last year or next year.
Have a nice weekend, all"
Well, how much did unemployment rose in ether 87 or 98? How much did unemployment go up in the last year? If you haven't noticed it's up ~1%.
I also should mention the unemployment is not leading indicator. So that 5.7% number means- the slow down is REAL.
"Sebastian writes:
I'm telling you, CR, those "probable recession" bars will come back to haunt you.
By the time the last recession was this old (assuming a start in Q4 2007) there were over twice as many job losses from non-farm payrolls, the ISM was in the low 40's, and quarterly year-over-year real GDP was well under 1%."
The real GDP and NFP numbers will be revised massively over the coming years. As we already saw for 2007Q4 GDP. Admittedly, the ISM isn't revised, but nobody is arguing that manufacturing is in recession (yet).
eSearcher said:
I was just wondering who might have an extra "e" we can use to make a real word out of the acronym of interest here
Auction Rate Security Exchange!
Usage:
I really took it in the ARSE today!
Metal detectors can find coffee cans. Bury your cash in plastic bags...
If anyone is interested in financial archeology, they should research dutch auction preferred markets in the late-1980s.
I vaguely recall that one of the airlines had a "money-market" preferred auction fail. I think it was American Airlines.
If any of the brokerage firms involved in the dutch-auction preferred markets in the 1980s sold adjustable rate paper recently claiming that it was as liquid as money market securities, they should be nailed to the wall and beaten with a stick. They knew or had reason (i.e., historical experience) to know that it was a damn lie.
Tabasco - thanks. I just couldn't get my head around WHY the securities worked like that.
you rule.