Three months ago, before Q1-24 banks’ earnings season kicked off, I collected all feedback gathered from bank insiders in “GET READY, INSIDERS TOLD ME A HORRIBLE BANKS’ EARNINGS SEASON IS ABOUT TO BEGIN”. However, banks put on a great show of accounting acrobatics and magic tricks to make sure they…
WHY THE BANK OF JAPAN IS DANGEROUSLY PLAYING WITH THE DERIVATIVES FIRE
On the 29th of April, something very special happened, yet many did not grasp the importance of the event. Even if that day was a public holiday in Japan, hence there was no real liquidity in the US Treasuries (both spot and related derivatives) market overnight hours as usual, the…
IS WARREN BUFFETT STARTING TO BE WORRIED ABOUT BANK OF AMERICA’S SOLVENCY?
Bank of America (#BAC) published its last quarterly financial earnings on July 16, and from the 17th to the 19th, Warren Buffett sold ~34m shares of BAC, cashing out ~1.5bn USD (Buffett’s Berkshire Sells Bank of America Stock Worth $1.5 Billion). Yes, Uncle Warren still holds almost 1 billion BAC…
THE GREAT LIQUIDITY AVALANCHE – FROM MAG7 TO EVERYTHING ELSE?
Every avalanche always starts with that last small drop of a snowflake that makes the whole pack of snow too heavy to stick on the mountain. Since the #FED and fellow Central Banks joined the BOJ in the great money-printing crusade to “save the world” from COVID-19 in March 2020,…
GOLDMAN SACHS Q2-24: WHAT A (RIDICULOUS) FAIRY TALE
A few weeks ago Goldman Sachs (#GS) performed poorly in the #FED annual stress tests, and since then, the bank has been fighting against its regulator’s request to increase the capital being held on the balance sheet (Goldman Sachs faces uphill battle in dispute with Federal Reserve over stress test)….
LUCKY TRADES OR DID SOMEONE KNOW ABOUT TRUMP ASSASSINATION PLANS?
“Many observers maintained that the AMR and UAL option activity leading up to September 11 constitutes strong evidence that there had been trading on advance knowledge of the attacks” In “Unusual Option Market Activity and the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001” published in 2006, the author provided a very…
NOT ONLY IS NORINCHUKIN ABOUT TO LIVE THROUGH THE 2008 NIGHTMARE AGAIN, BUT MANY JAPANESE BANKS ARE IN THE SAME SITUATION
In the article “How Japan’s farmers and fishermen backed the leveraged loan boom” published more than 5 years ago, the FT tried, through the teeth, to sound the alarm on #Norinchukin Bank’s out-of-control buying spree of Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLOs). The bank was such a key player in the market…
WILL BANKS MANAGE TO HIDE THEIR MOUNTAIN OF LOSSES FOR ONE MORE QUARTER?
The previous quarter, banks truly stretched any possible accounting and regulatory standard to the limit to kick the can down the road, hoping a #FED rate cut could give them some relief. Unfortunately for them, not only did this not happen, but today our dear Jerome Burns reminded everyone that…
IS SOFTBANK TRYING TO SQUEEZE ARM INTO MAJOR INDEXES TO FORCE PASSIVE INVESTING BIDS AND LIQUIDATE THE STOCK WITHOUT CRASHING IT?
ARM is both a joy and a problem for Softbank, why? On one side, the stock is Masa Son’s current jewel of the crown, but on the other, #Softbank owns 90% of it, precluding them from liquidating the investment and gathering badly needed cash to repay its mounting debt. I…
HOW DO YOU SAY “NINJA MORTGAGE” IN GERMAN? THE BREWING CRISIS NO ONE IS FORESEEING
As you know, I recently took a trip to Germany. As always, I mixed pleasure with business, aiming to visit relatives and better understand the German real estate market. I was particularly interested in determining if the on-the-ground situation was as dire as the statistical data suggested, which I previously…