the finance industry / wall street

Just to clarify - the just announced QE3 will center on the MBS markets, like QE1 did.

wait, that's nuts in re the spreads. Sorry for basic question, but if spreads on MBS vs treasuries are very low, doesn't that mean there's little incentive to create and securitize new mortgages?

nm I think I am oversimplifying and confusing things

It certainly doesn't give banks any incentive to hold on any newly created MBS. Chris Whalen (who's a pretty bright bank analyst, lotsa podcasts out there) has long argued that the artificially low interest rates (no profit if loan is kept, banks aren't being compensated for potential defaults) has actually prevented private financing. The now government owned Fanny Mae/Freddy Mac are pretty much the only game in town buying mortgages.

This is interesting:

http://soberlook.com/2012/09/yes-its-good-to-be-mortgage-originator.html?utm_source=BP_recent

Damnit I want to quit my job and study econ, or is that just the brief-writing procrastination talking

I think that right now the Fed is still more worried about deflation than inflation, and rightly so. Inflation has been rather subdued of late, despite high-profile volatile prices like food and oil picking up. Although inflation is scarier to the average person, deflation is apparently just as bad and harder to get out of - witness Japan's ongoing woes, some 20 years after their housing bubble burst. I think that the Fed is confident that if inflation starts to get out of control they have the tools to bring it in line, and they want to give themselves some margin of safety by keeping inflation in their preferred range in case another shoe drops in Europe or China. Also, they want to support the housing market as best they can by keeping mortgage rates low. Whether this will lead to robust growth is debatable, but at least they hope to prevent Japan-style deflation.

Kweku Adoboli repeatedly broken down in tears on Friday as the former UBS "rogue trader" defended himself against charges that he gambled away £1.5bn of his Swiss bank's money.

Adoboli, 32, burst into tears several times as he told the court in his first day of testimony that he was so wedded to his job that he put in 16-hour days, sometimes slept under his desk, and skipped his grandmother's funeral because he couldn't bear to drag himself away from his trading platform as he battled to reverse multimillion-pound losses.

"UBS was my family and every single thing I did, every single bit of effort I put into that organisation, was for the benefit of the bank. That is everything I lived for," he said as he dabbed his eyes with a paper handkerchief in the witness box of court three at Southwark crown court. "To find yourself in Wandsworth prison for nine months because all you did was worked so hard for this bank."

that last line is wonderful

Frontline on the Bam dereliction in prosecution

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/23/untouchables-wall-street-prosecutions-obama

Curious whether Hurting 2 watched the Frontline episode? I got the impression from some of his posts that Hurting 2 thinks its was nearly impossible to bring criminal charges against the Wall Street folks; so I wonder what he thinks of Lanny Breuer, based on that show?

bam is appointing mary jo white to the SEC which is supposedly a good move?

mixed but mostly positive takes in NYT on her nomination

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/01/24/mary-jo-white-to-be-named-new-s-e-c-boss/

excerpt:
Ms. White is expected to receive broader support on Capitol Hill. Senator Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat, declared that Ms. White was a “tough-as-nails prosecutor” who “will not shy away from enforcing the laws to ensure that markets operate fairly.”

But she could face questions about her command of arcane financial minutiae. She was a director of the Nasdaq stock market, but has otherwise built her career on the law-and-order side of the securities industry.

People close to the S.E.C. note, however, that her husband, John W. White, is a veteran of the agency. From 2006 through 2008, he was head of the S.E.C.’s division of corporation finance, which oversees public companies’ disclosures and reporting.

Some Democrats also might question her path through the revolving door, in and out of government. While seen as a strong enforcer as a United States attorney, she went on in private practice to defend some of Wall Street’s biggest names, including Kenneth D. Lewis, a former head of Bank of America. She also represented JPMorgan Chase and the board of Morgan Stanley. Last year, the N.F.L. hired her to investigate allegations that the New Orleans Saints carried out a bounty system for hurting opponents.

Consumer advocates generally praised her appointment on Thursday. “Mary Jo White was a tough, smart, no-nonsense, broadly experienced and highly accomplished prosecutor,” said Dennis Kelleher, head of Better Markets, the nonprofit advocacy group. “She knew who the bad guys were, went after them and put them in prison when they broke the law.”

The appointment comes after the departure of Ms. Schapiro, who announced she would step down from the S.E.C. in late 2012. In a four-year tenure, she overhauled the agency after it was blamed for missing the warning signs of the crisis.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/01/for-once-maybe-lying-does-not-pay-dojs-lanny-breuer-resigns-abruptly-after-frontline-appearance.html

Curious whether Hurting 2 watched the Frontline episode? I got the impression from some of his posts that Hurting 2 thinks its was nearly impossible to bring criminal charges against the Wall Street folks; so I wonder what he thinks of Lanny Breuer, based on that show?

― curmudgeon, Thursday, January 24, 2013 2:02 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

will watch when I get home if I have time, very interested

Thought the bump would be for this:
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/financial-crisis-lawsuit-suggests-bad-behavior-at-morgan-stanley/

On March 16, 2007, Morgan Stanley employees working on one of the toxic assets that helped blow up the world economy discussed what to name it. Among the team members’ suggestions: “Subprime Meltdown,” “Hitman,” “Nuclear Holocaust” and “Mike Tyson’s Punchout,” as well a simple yet direct reference to a bag of excrement.

So I watched a good bit of it but not all of it. I can't say it really changed my mind about the criminal side, although I did not get a good impression of Breuer at all -- comes off as a mealy-mouthed coward. He just stepped down fwiw. New SEC head also being brought in - rep as a tough prosecutor: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/01/24/mary-jo-white-to-be-named-new-s-e-c-boss/

Maybe the second term will see more aggressive investigation and prosecution. I still think that it's going to be very difficult to prove that any senior executives committed crimes.

The revolving door may also prevent anything from happening. Not that Treasury could prevent Justice from doing something but it doesn't help:

Lew did not appear to have any role during the negotiations over Citigroup’s bailout. When asked whether they crossed his path at any point in 2008, Henry M. Paulson Jr., former Treasury secretary; Sheila C. Bair, former FDIC chairman; and Robert K. Steel, former undersecretary for domestic finance at the Treasury, all said they had not.

By early 2009, Lew’s brief experience with Wall Street was over. He left Citigroup to become a deputy secretary of state and joined the Obama administration, where he has worked ever since.

“It’s striking the way in which the Obama administration has been staffed by Citigroup expatriates,” said Simon Johnson, a professor at MIT and frequent critic of big banks.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/treasury-nominee-lews-history-with-citigroup-raises-questions/2013/01/24/f63ae880-60e9-11e2-9940-6fc488f3fecd_story_2.html

Well Mary Jo White also did defense side for Wall Street at one point. I'm not necessarily concerned about that though -- where I work (plaintiffs' side, a lot of cases against banks), we have several ex-defense people and I see no evidence that they're compromised by it. Maybe working for a law firm that defends a company is different than actually working for the company in terms of loyalties.

While seen as a strong enforcer as a United States attorney, she went on in private practice to defend some of Wall Street’s biggest names, including Kenneth D. Lewis, a former head of Bank of America. She also represented JPMorgan Chase and the board of Morgan Stanley.

I'm not as trusting as you that she will suddenly be fair and tough re people she used to be paid to defend

Citi’s alternate investment group lay at the epicenter of the financial crisis. Under Lew’s tenure, it lost $509 million in the first quarter of 2008 alone. More than 50,000 employees, or one-seventh of Citigroup’s global workforce, were laid off in November, and the stock price dropped about 75 percent. Despite these horrendous losses, Lew was paid $1.1 million in 2008 for less than a year’s work, according to financial disclosure statements. Citigroup’s risky hedge fund activities resulted in huge losses, requiring massive “too big to fail” bailouts from the federal government. Shortly after he left Citigroup but before he began work at state, Lew received a one million dollar bonus.

from a conservative blogpost on Forbes but the facts in this paragraph look accurate

http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2013/01/17/wall-street-bonus-lew-to-replace-tax-avoider-geithner-at-treasury/

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-28/watchdog-says-u-s-treasury-failed-to-curb-aig-gm-pay.html

Patricia Geoghegan, the Treasury’s acting special master for TARP executive compensation, said she disagreed with the special inspector general’s findings.

The Treasury “has limited excessive compensation while at the same time keeping compensation at levels that enable” the three companies to remain competitive and repay their bailout money, Geoghegan said in a Jan. 25 letter to Romero.

"Competitive"

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112209/michael-lewis-goldman-sachs#

Michael Lewis reviews a book by a former Goldman Sachs employee, and says Goldman needs to be broken up

I wonder what you think of this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/world/europe/iceland-prosecutor-of-bankers-sees-meager-returns.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0

given Iceland's facebook meme fame as the country that "goes after the banksters" or whatever.

Yes, it supports your argument about how difficult it is to go after the the big players, and maybe also your argument re greed. Ok

my larger belief is that the pursuit of "justice" in this situation will be of little benefit to anyone. Justice works well for the single bad apple, the insider trader, etc. "Justice" isn't really equipped to deal with entire corrupted banking systems. "Why hasn't anyone gone to jail?" makes a nice refrain to stir up outrage, but what's needed is radical changes to finance itself, because it's the system that's the problem, not just some bad players.

old documentary I watched last weekend about the May 2010 Flash Crash; the automated trading algorithms which entered a feedback loop & dropped the market 10% / nearly one trillion dollars in five minutes, before spontaneously recovering.

first five and last five minutes are the essential sections if you're pressed for time but I found the whole thing interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq1Ln1UCoEU&noredirect=1

x-post

And with Robert Rubin/Citigroup proteges running the White House economic team, and the current crew at the Fed and SEC, and the current Congress, its doubtful anything will happen.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/02/04/u-s-and-states-prepare-to-sue-s-p-over-mortgage-ratings/?hp

I have very mixed feelings about going after the ratings agencies. On one hand, it's probably true. On the other hand, focusing on them gives nice cover to all the banks and institutions who "relied" on the ratings (even though they presumably knew, in many cases, that they were complete bullshit).

I don't think it really gives cover to the banks. It will probably illuminate how the banks put pressure on the agencies to give them the ratings they wanted.

Also, I kind of thing you have to start at the weakest point if you want to chip away at the wall of silence. Right now no one's pointing fingers at anyone, but if the rating agencies start to really feel the heat, maybe they'll start to incriminate the banks that mislead them.

oh the banks definitely knew, talked about here - http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/11/09/mining-the-australian-cpdo-decision/

Here's another article focusing on one of the worst deals that got the AAA stamp of approval:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-05/octonion-cdo-links-s-p-lawsuit-to-mortgage-collapse-firm-enabled.html

Ironically, in some cases, the banks that put the deals together also ended up suffering a large share of the losses because they held onto the AAA tranches, which were supposedly the safest. So it's not just banks trying to defraud investors - in some cases the banks defrauded themselves, due to conflicting incentives for individuals structuring deals (to maximize fees) vs. those tasked with managing risk.

If the SEC / FBI had enough white-collar crime enforcement personnel (most were reassigned to counter terrorism duties tracing Al Qaeda funding in '01-'02), my understanding is they still wouldn't have found much criminal activity at the investment banks and rating agencies. The prosecutable fraud was largely, mostly at the grass roots, with fraudulent loan applications, or kickbacks for favorable real estate appraisals. There's no law against security securitization, there's no law against using then novel risk pricing formulas. Investment bank sales forces have been pushing unwanted securities on their less favored and less knowledgeable customers for as long as there have been investment banks. That may be ethically repugnant, but its not illegal. The buyers of the ultimately trash AAA tranches of MBS deals were were degreed professionals who should have known better. Look at the prospectus for any of these OTC structured finance deals, they're mostly legal boilerplate that screams caveat emptor. And as o. nate comments, many of the bankers were drinking the kool-aid right to the end.

You guys been reading the Bank of America series at Naked Capitalism? So, so solid.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/02/bank-of-america-foreclosure-reviews-how-the-cover-up-happened-part-ivb.html

RG: This lady happened to call in, and I’m not exaggerating, she – I think she must have probably set up a reminder in her – like I do – in my Outlook and it pops up every two weeks or 10 days or whatever it was, and she would call in religiously, even though they would tell her, “You know, it’s going to take 30 days, you don’t have to call back” – she would still call back, and kept calling back. And there would be notes that she’d call back and hear, “It’s still in the review, it’s still in review, it’s in underwriting for review,” you know, all this stuff. And then finally it comes to this – it came to, I think it was December 17th, if I remember right. She had called in and she’s asking what’s the status of her modification, and they go, and the person says, “Ma’am, you can’t get a modification, it’s an REO property.” [Real Estate Owned, which means the bank has already foreclosed on it]

YS: What?!

RG: That’s exactly. She’s like, “What is an REO property?” Now I had read these all in chronological order. I started at the bottom, read them straight up, and I did the exact same thing you just did. I’m like, “What?! Where did I miss this?” She’s calling in, and now, keep in mind, she also had, she’s making these trial payments by auto debit. Auto debit. They had been debiting her account for all these payments and the girl says, “Ma’am, your property went to foreclosure sale in September.” Now they had taken her September, October, November and December payment. And yet they foreclosed.

YS: Oh my God. How could they have done a foreclosure when she’s still living there? How c– she wasn’t evicted?

RG: I know…And she ended up, January, like January 7th I think it was, because this was December 17th – holidays – she ended up filing bankruptcy to keep from being evicted. So he comes to me and goes, “It’s okay, because there’s no harm done to her, because ultimately she got her modification.”

I said, “Well, wait a minute. The C reviewer missed this. It went to QC [quality control]. QC missed it. Promontory reviews it and their notation is, “Borrower is currently in a modification.” Well, because when they reversed it, rescinded it, they put her in a permanent mod then. So by the time Promontory reads it, they’re seeing – all they looked at was that she was in a permanent mod at the time. Not that she had gone through all this prior to that. And I said, “How can you say there’s no harm?”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/14/elizabeth-warren-bank-regulators_n_2688998.html

I have very mixed feelings about going after the ratings agencies.

There are a great many institutions which cannot legally invest in any bonds other than those rated AAA by one of the ratings agencies. These would include many governmental and quasi-govermental institutions. Those institutions should all be suing the ratings agencies for heavy losses they incurred on misrated bonds, based on the many damning internal emails from the ratings agecies that have been made public since 2008.

Wow, Elizabeth Warren

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2013/02/14/senator-elizabeth-warren-grills-regulators-ending-quiet-first-month-office/rEHdymDsEVcT5yW52LD93M/story.html

Hurting 2, I thought your response to her grilling would be to say "but the laws are not set up in such a way as to bring charges against people and to then bring people to trial"...

That might sound snarky, but I am trying to understand the difference between the various points of views on the subject and if there is anything in addition to breaking up the banks that can or should have been done.

And yes I know that Glass-Stegall was not specifically relevant in the recent problems but I nevertheless found it interesting that Jack Lew in his testimony re being the next Treasury Secretary would not support bringing it back.

His defense of his Citigroup bonus and Cayman islands tax shelter investment was pretty weak I thought.

http://www.salon.com/2013/02/13/wall_street_wins_again/

White House task force very quiet after a year in existence

If theyre too fucking lazy to prosecute everyone on the behalf of the american ppl they should take that settlement money and cut everyone a check

sadly we'd probably get like $2 each but whatevs..

There are a great many institutions which cannot legally invest in any bonds other than those rated AAA by one of the ratings agencies. These would include many governmental and quasi-govermental institutions. Those institutions should all be suing the ratings agencies for heavy losses they incurred on misrated bonds

gotta say, just because they could invest in some janky tranched junk doesn't mean that they shouldn't have known better. basically if you say "i invested in this on the basis of its rating" then you're saying "i do no independent research or thinking".

that's true in theory, s.clover. but a lot of governmental/quasi-governmental types who make investment decisions and policies on behalf of their agencies are no match for the Wall Street types who cooked up these investments. it's not unreasonable for those people to rely heavily on the rating agencies -- or at least it was before the meltdown exposed the agencies' conflicts of interest and rank incompetence.

i think people way "complexity" with regards to these products about a little loosely. the formulas are sort of complex and react differently depending on different inputs. but there are models that are basically available to everyone who can afford them, and you can toss scenarios into these models and watch the valuation change even if you can't work through all the formulas carefully yourself. the basis of the ratings was basically one set of projections for average future behavior as far as property values, interest rates, default rates. but any institutional investor would have been able to run the model for themselves (otherwise there's no _way_ they should have been touching this stuff), and they could have decided that the assumptions used by the ratings agencies (that past behavior was a good predictor of future behavior) were dumb, and that there was more risk involved. Lots of people did make such decisions, and they either didn't invest in or shorted these bonds.

also basically everyone knows that price reflects perceived market risk. so if a certain class of stuff has the same rating but is way cheaper than other stuff, then the only possible reason for this is that lots of people think it is actually riskier. you basically can't _not_ know this. so in my mind you can't run off chasing risky yield, not carefully examine the consequences, then scream how you were duped when this turns out to be a terrible idea.

lots of good points, clover. only caveat would be is that i wonder how many government agencies -- or whomever was making their investment decisions -- have access to the models to which you refer. i honestly dunno -- they may be as common as mud for all i know, or super-proprietary/expensive (and out of reach of some podunk county in North Dakota).