Financial, Real Estate, Stock Markets Trends and Current Affairs

What could the ruler of Egypt's turmoils possible have to do with the need to takeover even more banks in western Europe and the potential default of several members of the PIIGS group? Read on, my dear friend...

I received an impressive response from my earlier description of the potential for contagion as a result of the Egyptian uprising. It is very engaging to simply fathom the practical melding of the minds of financial analysts, political analysts and global macro-economists. Unfortunately, this is not common practice. As a matter of fact, it is apparently never done in the analysis & research commonly proffered by the brokerage houses and the mainstream media. The practical applications of such has demonstrably superior predictive power over the application of any of the single approaches. For those who have not followed me over the years or somehow feel that an individual or small group cannot outperform the glorious houses for brokerage of "The Street", I urge you to look into who I am and to compare my performance to that of the street's best and brightest over the last few years . I attempted to demonstrate the predictive powers and effectiveness of looking for deeper understanding outside of one's core discipline by illustrating to my readers how our Sovereign Contagion Model predicted a roughly 40% chance of eruption in the Middle East, reference Egypt’s Social Unrest As A Pan-European Economic and Financial Contagion? It Can Happen!!!:

Due to popular demand, I will be including some basic sample trades and some directional tools for BoomBustBlog research, starting with the next dollop of fundamental research. The first set will arrive next week, where we will offer an option tool and currency trend analysis app. Soon, possibly tomorrow, I will discuss the placement of options using the Google research that I illustrated here - Navigating BoomBustBlog Subscription Material To Find The Google Valuation Drilldown.

It has come to my attention that several banks have actually blocked rank and file level access to my blog through their intranet. That, my dear friends, is asinine, and does nothing but engender distrust. While I admit I can be rather flamboyant in my writings, I am nonetheless quite fair. In addition, my opinions are analytically driven, by design. Thus, if you have a differing opinion all you really need to do is challenge me with the facts. One of us will be proven to be right, or at the very least it will be shown to all how we came to our conclusions. I have absolutely no problem admitting when I am wrong or have made a mistake. I have been right long enough and often enough that I have plenty of emotional and even egotistical room for error. I know fully that no one is perfect, and while I would much rather catch any error first, before a third party does it (particularly a dissenting third party) I know that things don't always happen that way.

A commenter had a very intelligent dissent against my Goldman Sachs post on Zero Hedge the other day. While cogent, eloquent and very lengthy, it was still wrong but it definitely exemplified what a bank (or any other entity) should do when they feel that I am not in the right. Of course, if you put yourself out there, there is always the risk that you can be proven wrong as well. Believe it or not, and contrary to what you marketing and PR advisers may tell you - it is alright. As a matter of fact, it is actually good sometimes. You see, to many of the people that matter, it is not only acceptable, it is expected that you will not be right all of the time. Anybody who is right all of the time should be held up to a much higher level of scrutiny. Just ask Bernie Madoff. The true test of character and fortitude is to be able to publicly admit when you have made a boo-boo, and be willing to do something about it. That goes a lot farther in my eyes, than abject perfection. This is a lesson that the global and national banking industry in the US has yet to learn.

On that note, let's go over a few emails that I have received recently...

"Goldman, unlike the rest of the street and practically the rest of the I banking world, is ratcheting up off balance sheet risk!!! Is BoomBustBlog the only one inquiring as to WHY??? We have a few reasons in mind... And to think, many thought the Enronesque days of off balance sheet "hide the sausage" games have come to an end..." Go through your sell side analyst's quarterly update and if you don't find these tidbits of information thoroughly explained, but instead see a Goldman fan boy(girl) cheering section, come back and subscribe to BoomBustblog. At the very least, we tell it like it is!

My opinion and updated valuation for Goldman and its 3rd quarter performance is available for download to all paying subscribers: GS 3rd Quarter 2010 Update. While I can't spill the beans on the entire contents of the subscription document, there  are a few issues (as usual) and observations that I would like to make public.

To begin with, I must commend Goldman's management. They do a helluva job massaging numbers and attempting to right their ship, particularly in relation to some other banks. Anecdotally, I'm aware of their losing some talent on the equities side but I am sure they have no problem replacing it. There is also the issue of their subprime servicing unit, Litton Loans, which I am sure will bring them nothing but heartache in the near to medium term, but at least that aspect of the business has been recognized by the sell side, if not under appreciated in terms of potential risk. Despite its small size in relation to Goldman's aggregate operations, it carries with it material reputation risk as well as the prospects for significant litigation and more.

Now, on to the aspects which the sell side decided not to cover - or somehow overlooked. Goldman was applauded for having strong accounting earnings. In Four Facts That BANG JP Morgan That You Just Won’t Hear From The Sell Side!!!, I warned of the danger at looking at accounting earnings as if they were actually a legitimate barometer of a companies actual economic value. If that were the case, wouldn't accountants be the best investors in the world? I will delve into the folly of relying strictly on accounting earnings later on this missive as well, particularly in regards to a company with management as crafty and capable as Goldman - but before I do let's realize that even those accounting earnings were down significantly from previous periods...

I have received a lot of feedback concerning my article posted yesterday, A Step by Step Guide to Exactly How Much Derivatives Risk Each of the 5 Big Banks Actually

Have, and How It Could All Go Boom! (a must read precursor to this piece) in which I picked up the fiery sword of Truth and attacked all misinformation within reach. A decent amount of derivatives traders, salesman and financial engineers chimed in. Of course, being the simpleton that I am, I am at a loss how anybody can argue that the hedging and netting system actually works with the utter failure of the monolines, Lehman (wherein contracts were unwound and rewritten, but why would they have to be if everybody was netted???) and Bear Stearns (where the government had to step in to be the counterparty of last result), all of which allegedly netted out much of their risk - RIIGHHHT??? Nonetheless, I will go through some of the responses I received via email, all of which were cogent, intelligent and polite - but most of which took a swing at my thesis. Okay, I'm swinging back - and I'm swinging back with the "Fiery Sword of Truth" as well!

Here's the first one:

Hi reggie, love the independance of the blog. Couldnt help but wonder though, as to if the big 5 were really cross exposed to that degree. Surely hedge funds, private banks, real world commodity producers etc are other swap counter parties that you fail to include in your calculations. 1.7 trillion of unlevered hedge fund assets arent included anywhere for a start. How about other smaller banks too, that dont show up in the comparison, maybe there is more diversification than you think.