Financial, Real Estate, Stock Markets Trends and Current Affairs

Just the other day I stated "Why does everyone confuse a bubble with economic progress" in a post about a very probable bubble in China (see "It Doesn't Take a Genius to Figure Out How This Will End" then get your chuckles on with "Goldman Seems to Trust the Chinese Economic Reporting a Tad Bit More Than I Do!"). Well, as if on cue, Stocks, Metals Decline Around World After China Curbs Lending; Yen Weakens:

Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Stocks fell around the world, driving the MSCI Emerging Markets Index down the most in three weeks, and metals declined after China moved to curb lending. The yen dropped after Japan’s new finance minister said he would welcome a weaker currency.

The MSCI emerging markets gauge slipped 0.7 percent at 9:45 a.m. in London, led by China as the Shanghai Composite Index plunged 1.9 percent, the biggest decline among benchmark indexes tracked by Bloomberg. Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index lost 0.3 percent. Copper retreated from a 16-month high and oil snapped an 11-day rally. The yen weakened against all 16 most- traded currencies.

Central bankers in China, the engine of the global economic bubble recovery, sold three-month bills at a higher interest rate for the first time in 19 weeks after saying their 2010 focus is controlling record loan growth. The Federal Reserve said in the minutes of its latest meeting that the U.S. economic recovery might require additional stimulus measures to be sustained.

“Bubble Blowing Growth will probably reverse slow this year as tight credit will damp the artificially derived and probably outright lied about demand side,” said Zhang Ling, who helps oversee $7.2 billion at ICBC Credit Suisse Asset Management Co. in Beijing. “That will dash investors’ hope of another year of fast bubble blowing growth.”

Note to my subscribers and readers for the year end and the new year.

I will be the first to admit that 2009 was a disappointing year for my investment results. Although the first quarter of the year was the strongest that I ever had during the Asset Securitization Crisis, and I clearly saw the trend reversal coming at the end of the quarter (actually almost to the day since I put a comment out on BoomBustBlog that I was preparing for a very aggressive bear rally, but that granularity in timing was more luck than anything else), I significantly underestimated the length, breadth and depth of the trend reversal. I want all to be clear that I am not making excuses, but the probably reason for the lack of clarity was rampant and clandestine intervention in the equity and debt markets (moe on this later). There has been a lot of chatter in around the web about my performance, and although I am very disappointed at how the year turned out, I would like to put this into perspective. I am not a daytrader nor a swing trader and my research is not aimed in those directions. My stated investment horizon for the research on the blog is 3 to 18 months with a likely targeted range of action of 6 to 9 months. Since I rely primarily on the fundamentals and can't control markets and stock prices, I need to wait for my thesis to pan out.This entails taking some volatility at times. Of course I am the first to admit that the most aggressive rally in 70 years may be a bit much, but one must be able to ride the ups and downs of irrational market moves until one's thesis plays and your are proven right or wrong.This recent bear market rally was probably a once in a lifetime event, and in the case that it was not, we now have the tools to deal with it on an invested basis - even as a pure fundamental investor.

Click any graphic to enlarge.

historical_performance_-_2_years.png.png

For all of those who feel China is going to take over the free world, just remember that when you blow a bubble (particularly a balance sheet bubble) it is bound to pop. The damage from the pop invariably does more harm than the boost from the bubble. It has always been the case, particularly when leverage is involved - which makes the impact that much more devastating. If anybody can attest to this, it should be us Americans (British, Spanish, Irish, those from Dubai, Japanese...).

Methinks that before China gets a chance to become a preeminent world power, their profusely blown asset bubble (by way of a most accomadating fiscal policy) will blow up in their face and they will go through what the US, Japan and UK just (is still) went through, exacerbated by the fact that they are still a net export reliant economy when the bubble blowing is removed. With the developed world in sluggish mode, they will have very little to fall back on as their asset prices collapse to equilibrium and debt from their steriodal lending system is left under or uncollateralized and unable to be serviced.

Why does everybody confuse bubbles with economic progress?

From Bloomberg:

BoomBustBlogger NDbadger commented in the "It was bound to happen. Reggie Middleton vs Ackman vs Hovde on GGP!" thread:

I didn't find Hovde's analysis compelling. Would have liked Ackman to have spent more time on the dilution issue, as NOI will be shared by more shareholders. Also looks like he is using a post bankruptcy cap rate, which is aggressive, at least for now. That said, so far he is doing a masterful job navagating the company through bankruptcy. If he succeeds, this will truly be one of the great investment stories of our time.

I feel that the term "aggressive" is putting it lightly. Barring insider information or a connection with the judge (which he very well may have), no one really knows how GGP will emerge post bankruptcy, hence attempting to pro-forma using assumptions based on more assumptions of cap rate post emergence is literally a financial version of fantasy football.

As a followup to“Doesn't Morgan Stanley Read My Blog?”, I would like to focus on the private investment fund structures of the big banks and the incentives that they have to do deals that may lose money. Institutional real estate investors, many of whom have been severely
burned over the last couple of years, can rightfully point a chiding
finger at the so-called "big league managers" who not only failed to
foresee the commercial real estate (CRE) collapse as professional and
experienced money advisors, but also benefitted from positive cash
flows by putting investors' money at stake. CRE investors have, through
institutional funds, basically given these money managers a cost free
"call option" on the real estate market by funding the vast majority of
equity in acquisitions and allowing fund managers to benefit from
upfront acquisition and management fees as well as a share of
investment gains contingent upon success. The fee structure
incentivizes management in certain circumstances, to raise as many
funds and do as many deals as possible, in lieu of focusing on being as
profitable as possible. This is one of possible explanations for the
flurry of fund raising and deals executed between 2004 and 2007, when
the CRE market reached the crescendo of a bubble peak.

Hovde has issued a reply to Ackman's second GGP presentation. These hedge funds put out more analysis than the bank analysts that follow GGP, SERIOUSLY! For those that need a recap: My responses to Ackman's presenations are CRE 2010 Overview and It was bound to happen. Reggie Middleton vs Ackman vs Hovde on GGP!

Here are the Ackman reports: Ackman's CRE presentation and ackman_ggp122209_0 29/12/2009,14:58 1.18 Mb

This is the most recent one by Hovde: General Growth Properties - 2.pdf.

I also noted that Hovde is short Macerich. See my opinion on that company: A Granular Look Into a $6 Billion REIT: Is This the Next GGP?

I am here to weigh in on the increasingly popular marketing battle over GGP's (General Growth Properties) value in, and out of bankruptcy. The players in question are large buyside institutions who own opposing positions on the stock. Ackman/Pershing square, who are long the company's stock, and Hovde Capital Advisors, who are short the stock, and Reggie Middleton, the original player!

For those who follow me regularly and are familiar with my dealings with GGP, skip down to the bottom of this post to download my latest GGP analysis. For those who are not familiar with me and the BoomBustBlog, I am (to the extent of my knowledge) the first investor/media concern to go public with a short thesis on General Growth Properties (GGP) with a warning on commercial property in general, and a specific short on GGP in the 4^th quarter of 2007 (see "GGP and the type of investigative analysis you will not get from your brokerage house", BoomBustBlog professional subscribers can download the entire GGP composite history in .pdf format). I am a private investor that generates his own proprietary research. It is solid, independent, unbiased, and of extreme quality when compared to the highly conflicted sell side marketing fluff proffered as research, and apparently now stands out among the buy side as well. With all due respect to the successful investors referred to herein, there is a hint of "talking one's book" within the presentations. I have absolutely no problem with self promotion, but when it appears the promotion comes to odds with the validity of the analysis, it does tend to raise my brow, and apparently the brow of several institutions that have come to me for my opinion.

So, let's take an unbiased, empirical look at GGP from the guy who first pointed out the insolvency of this company in the first place. As for the self promotion aspect, I am now offering consulting services to those who desire independent, objective analysis. I will soon be releasing a very interesting study on real estate funds and residential mortgage related products from Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, which will assuredly cause their clients to fall in love with them. More on that later, though.

For those who follow me regularly and are familiar with my dealings with GGP, skip down to the bottom of this post to download my latest GGP analysis. For those who are not familiar with me and the BoomBustBlog, I am (to the extent of my knowledge) the first investor/media concern to go public with a short thesis on General Growth Properties (GGP) with a warning on commercial property in general, and a specific short on GGP in the 4^th quarter of 2007 (see "GGP and the type of investigative analysis you will not get from your brokerage house", BoomBustBlog professional subscribers can download the entire GGP composite history in .pdf format). I am a private investor that generates his own proprietary research. It is solid, independent, unbiased, and of extreme quality when compared to the highly conflicted sell side marketing fluff proffered as research, and apparently now stands out among the buy side as well. With all due respect to the successful investors referred to herein, there is a hint of "talking one's book" within the presentations. I have absolutely no problem with self promotion, but when it appears the promotion comes to odds with the validity of the analysis, it does tend to raise my brow, and apparently the brow of several institutions that have come to me for my opinion.

So, let's take an unbiased, empirical look at GGP from the guy who first pointed out the insolvency of this company in the first place. As for the self promotion aspect, I am now offering consulting services to those who desire independent, objective analysis. I will soon be releasing a very interesting study on real estate funds and residential mortgage related products from Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, which will assuredly cause their clients to fall in love with them. More on that later, though.

For those who follow me regularly and are familiar with my dealings with GGP, skip down to the bottom of this post to download my latest GGP analysis. For those who are not familiar with me and the BoomBustBlog, I am (to the extent of my knowledge) the first investor/media concern to go public with a short thesis on General Growth Properties (GGP) with a warning on commercial property in general, and a specific short on GGP in the 4^th quarter of 2007 (see "GGP and the type of investigative analysis you will not get from your brokerage house", BoomBustBlog professional subscribers can download the entire GGP composite history in .pdf format). I am a private investor that generates his own proprietary research. It is solid, independent, unbiased, and of extreme quality when compared to the highly conflicted sell side marketing fluff proffered as research, and apparently now stands out among the buy side as well. With all due respect to the successful investors referred to herein, there is a hint of "talking one's book" within the presentations. I have absolutely no problem with self promotion, but when it appears the promotion comes to odds with the validity of the analysis, it does tend to raise my brow, and apparently the brow of several institutions that have come to me for my opinion.

So, let's take an unbiased, empirical look at GGP from the guy who first pointed out the insolvency of this company in the first place. As for the self promotion aspect, I am now offering consulting services to those who desire independent, objective analysis. I will soon be releasing a very interesting study on real estate funds and residential mortgage related products from Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, which will assuredly cause their clients to fall in love with them. More on that later, though.

At least a few MDs at Morgan Stanley DO read my blog, but it is obvious that the guys in the real estate division don't. Early in 2008 I named Morgan Stanley the "The Riskiest Bank on the Street". The following is one of the reasons why. From Bloomberg: Morgan Stanley Surrenders Five San Francisco Office Towers Bought at Peak [In reading this, notice the extreme irony in one of the country's largest investment banks walking away from a property deal, and contrast it to a homeowner in the same position. Hey, if MS can do it, why can't I?]

Morgan Stanley, the securities firm that spent more than $8 billion on commercial property in 2007, plans to relinquish five San Francisco office buildings to its lender two years after purchasing them from Blackstone Group LP near the top of the market.

The bank has been negotiating an “orderly transfer” of the towers since earlier this year, Alyson Barnes, a Morgan Stanley spokeswoman, said yesterday in a telephone interview. AREA Property Partners will take over the buildings, which have been held by the bank’s MSREF V fund. Barnes declined to say when the transfer will occur.

“It’s not surprising this deal ran into trouble,” Michael Knott, senior analyst at Green Street Advisors in Newport Beach, California, said in an interview. “It was eye-opening among a group of eye-opening deals. There was almost no price too high in 2007 for office space in top gateway markets.”

The San Francisco transfer would mark the second real estate deal to unravel this year for Morgan Stanley, which bet on the property markets as prices were rising. The firm last month agreed to surrender 17 million square feet of office buildings to Barclays Capital after acquiring them for $6.5 billion in 2007 from Crescent Real Estate Equities. U.S. commercial real estate prices have dropped 43 percent from October 2007’s peak, Moody’s Investors Service said last month.

Lost Value

The Morgan Stanley buildings may have lost as much as 50
percent of their value since the purchase, Knott estimated.

“This isn’t a default or foreclosure situation,” Barnes
said. “It is a negotiated transfer to our lenders.”

Morgan Stanley bought 10 San Francisco buildings in the
city’s financial district as part of a $2.5 billion purchase
from Blackstone Group in May 2007. The buildings were formerly
owned by billionaire investor Sam Zell’s Equity Office
Properties and acquired by Blackstone in its $39 billion buyout
of the real estate firm earlier that year.

The buildings Morgan Stanley is giving up are One Post, 201
California St., Foundry Square I, 60 Spear St. and 188
Embarcadero. The towers have a combined 1.3 million square feet,
according to Colliers International.

The bank will continue to own the other office buildings it
acquired in the Blackstone deal, Barnes said.

Morgan Stanley, based in New York, was the biggest property
investor among Wall Street firms at the time of the purchase.
The transaction made the company one of the largest office
landlords in San Francisco, adding 3.9 million square feet of
office space there.

Defaults Rise

Commercial mortgage defaults more than doubled in the third
quarter from a year earlier as occupancies fell, according to
Real Estate Econometrics LLC. Office vacancies will reach a
near-record 19 percent in the first quarter of 2011, broker CB
Richard Ellis Group Inc. estimated.

Property sales financed with commercial mortgage-backed
securities plunged 95 percent from a record $237 billion in
2007, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. A lack of securitized
debt is driving down values, which may fall 55 percent from
their peak, Moody’s said.

San Francisco prime office rents fell 37 percent in the
third quarter from a year earlier, the biggest decline since
2001, as companies cut jobs, Colliers said. The vacancy rate
rose to 14 percent, the highest since 2005. Almost 1.4 million
square feet of space was returned to the market in the first
nine months of the year.

In September of 2007, in the very first post on my blog, I announced that the CRE market would crash. I made the announcement again in December of that year and even created a schedule of who would be crashing with their CRE sales. See "Will the commercial real estate market fall? Of course it will" 09 December 2007.