UK Banks still in distress

Following on from their generous bail out of Northern Rock, the UK Government, otherwise know as the taxpayer, has opened its arms to any old piece of paper banks have sitting around on their balance sheet.

Or to be more accurate, the Bank of England will accept mortgage backed securities in return for government bonds. Nice trade if you cant get it. The amounts mentioned are 50 to 200bln pounds (where the hell is my pound key?) but basically it’s a free for all.

Now we can expect to see banks reaching for the refinancing button in order to take advantage of this. RBS has already put its hand up for 10 to 12bln of fresh capital plus a 6bln write down.

Ok so its just more mess. The markets may rally on this hoping it can help clear the looming crisis in the mortgage market but the numbers are really starting to mount up and this is just very bad news indeed.

The key issue here is the capital adequacy of the banking system. It’s proven to be the achilles heel which is why the authorities have had no option but to underwrite the system.

Given this exposure of the fragility of the banking system it is time to ask questions about capital adequacy and the way banks are regulated and allowed to operate.

Bollard pleads

Keep going guys, Alan Bollard pleads. He asks banks and businesses not to hibernate. What?!

Is he suddenly the Finance Minister? It’s really quite odd to see a central bank governor talking like this especially since the last few years he’s been going on about house prices and overborrowing without doing a great deal about it.

Now he’s saying don’t let credit constraints get in the way.

At the same time the Commerce Minister tells investors to get savvy or get “burned”. I love it especially from a Labour government where many ministers have invested in property themselves. Financial literacy? We’d certainly like some.

The facts are very simple. Too much leverage, much of it unseen, caused an asset bubble. That bubble is now deflating and there will be some major fallout. Add to that concerns over global food and energy prices and you have a perfect storm. So for banks now to put the shutters up whilst they count the cost is simply sound business practice.

Westpac has already adjusted its loan criteria. This just fuels the need for lower house prices and demonstrates the role that banks have played in the boom. Yes the interest rate is important but only at the margin. The real issue is how much will they lend: 100% or 65%.

It’s a big difference in what people can afford to pay.  Now landlords have the power as they can raise rents and people will just have to bear it. So along with an increase in mortgagee sales we will see an increase in rent arrears if rents increase beyond peoples’ means.

So it’s a bit late for the officials to weigh in with their comments. They have had plenty of time to look at banking regulation and have completely missed the boat.

Fed cuts 75 bps: Is it enough?

Fed just cut the fed funds and discount rate by 75bps voting 8-2. The 2 against were for less aggressive cuts.

Overall the market wanted a bit more but still rallied initially. Better than expected numbers from Goldman Sachs and Lehmans helped with overall confidence

So what now? Well it’s hard to say. I don’t think much has changed and its hard to justify a big market rally from here. So the best to hope for is some stability from here.

I think the focus will now shift back to the banking sector and who is next up for refunding.

As for the market I expect that to come under further pressure.

Fed bail out continues: Bear Stearns throws in the towel

Bear Stearns finally ran up the white flag today and was forced to seek funds from JP Morgan for 28 days. These loans have been underwritten by the Fed essentially preventing Bear Stearns going under.

This was the moment of truth for the Fed. They blinked.

Now they have underwritten the US banking system they will have no choice but to support any institution that experiences similar problems. On one hand this is a prudent move as the implications of a bank failure are very serious but the sad fact is that in order for the market to recover from this era of cheap and funny money is to allow failure to occur.

So the taxpayer can now expect to pick up the tab for this party. It will be interesting to see if this spreads outwards from the US as the credit markets simply disintegrate.

Expect more official action next week probably involving currencies as well.

Liquidity concerns: How safe is your money?

Yesterday the New Zealand arm of the Dutch giant, ING, suspended withdrawals from 2 of its funds affecting some 8000 investors. The 2 funds were invested mainly in credit securities and were down over 20%-25% over the last year.

So nothing new there except the suspension of withdrawals from the fund. Now we’ve seen this already in the banking sector when Northern Rock closed its doors to depositors. Last month Scottish Equitable told 129,000 investors that they could not access funds for at least a year. Its familiar and sad story.

What’s the world coming to when you savings or cash is not safe.  Well maybe we’ve got too comfortable with our present financial arrangements. Have you ever met a poor investment banker? Well probably not. The last 15 years has seen a phenomenal rise in the idea of money as an asset class itself. The ability of banks to create money via debt and ply the financial system with leverage has led to a new type of investing. The ability to create money out of nothing is how markets have grown to the size they are now. It’s not a zero sum game as long as the supply of money and leverage keeps increasing. No one embodies this more than Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone. Just as George Soros and Michael Milken of previous years, he will be known as the man who made the most of the situation at the time.

What we are witnessing now is the de-leverage when all that new money goes poof! and people look around to see where the security or asset is and find it’s more of the same. Round and round it goes until it simply disappears (money is destroyed) or an asset is finally found to be sold, usually at an extremely low price.

So its pays to be sensible here. Check your savings and investments. Make sure you understand what type of access you have to them and under what terms.

National Security: $ on the verge of a nervous breakdown

It reads like a Tom Clancy plotline: The Senate Select Committee On Intelligence gets briefed on the national security implications of a collapse in the $. Suddenly there is a realisation that the US is very exposed not just economically but politically. Those who have read “Debt of Honour” will be familiar with the plot which involves a crashing of the US financial system using a coordinated attack on the $ and the Treasury market. Alas this is now not fiction but real time.

The $ is being abandoned wholesale and the US intelligence service is right to be focusing on what this could mean for national security just as the Pentagon did when they commissioned a report on the security implications of climate change back in 2004.

With Gold heading towards $1000/oz, Oil above $100/bl, the $ in freefall and the financial system in a mess, one could be forgiven for thinking that things couldn’t get much worse. Well stock prices still have plenty of room to fall and probably another 10-15% is about right. Property will continue to sag also.

But the main problem is the US getting the big fat raspberry from the rest of the world. It’s stretched militarily, politically it’s pretty much lost all credibility and now economically its kaputski, as its Russian pals would say.

Who caused this mess? Well according to some it was Sir Alan. No not Alan Sugar of Asmtrad and Spurs fame but Alan Greenspan. This little piece on his actions in 1987 paints an interesting picture.

Let’s hope someone with half a brain is in charge back in Washington otherwise this could get very messy.