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My blog has been quite popular as of late,
most likely because it may appear to some that I have a crystal ball.
My last 5 or so warnings have resulted in 50 point or so price drops in
the shares of the companies in questions. Let me be both modest and
honest. I am not that smart and do not have a crystal ball. There is a
simple premise behind all of this that allows me to understand what is
going on, but this premise does not get any press play and is not
harped on by the analyst community. Many major players in our financial system are simply insolvent.
Plain and simple. The liquidity issues that you see are simply a result
of that insolvency, not a cause. When you lever up on assets at the top
of a bubble and that bubble pops, you become insolvent, delevered or
not. If forced to delever, the balance sheet insolvency now becomes an
income statement insolvency as the cash outflow outstrips the cash
inflows, but it all stems from the original balance sheet insolvency -
not the other way around.
Borrowing more money, no matter what the
terms, will not aide you in your dilemma. That is, of course, unless
you can borrow large amounts of that money quickly on non-recourse
terms. But that is not really borrowing money, it is someone giving you
money with the option to pay it back.
It is the equivalent of a straight bailout, isn't it? That is what just
happened last weekend, which leads me to the next paragraph...
I have been alleging that many investment banks, monoline insurers, home builders and commercial banks are effectively insolvent. Nouriel Roubinin wrote an accurate piece on the topic.
Between that and the the five or six major analytical pieces that I put
together, I believe a pattern emerges (please take note of the dates
the pieces were written and the share prices at the time of the post).
I believe the pattern is indisputable. You could have made a fortune on
the short side of these analyses, and you could have lost a fortune on
the long side, just ask the employess and shareholders of Bear Stearns,
Ambac, MBIA, Lennar, etc. My condolences go out to the rank and file
employees of all of these companies whose savings have been lost in the
share price devalution. Hopefully, there is a lesson to be learned
here:
More on Insurers and Insurance
More on Commercial Real Estate
More on Residential Real Estate
More on Investment Banks
As you can see, the path was not impossible to determine as
practically all of these companies shared the same catalyst to their
downfall - excessive leverage at the top of an asset and credit cycle
bubble. Now, the Fed is attempting to lend directly to institutions
that it has no jursidiction over. If I am not mistaken, the Fed's
balance sheet is only good for $400 billion dollars or so. There are a
lot of potential "runs on the non-bank" coming down the pike, enought
to drain the coffers. This is an ingenious, albeit very risky endeavor.
Moral hazard abounds. I know the Fed believes that they have nixed the
moral hazard argument in the butt by wiping out the Bear Stearns
shareholders, but this is an imperfect argument. The shareholders have
to approve this $2 buyout deal, and $2 is low enough to risk a battle
with the Fed and their agents. This is a major flaw in the plan that I
see as coming back to bite the markets. If this happens when the next
shoe drops, I can see the Fed getting overwhelmed.
As an investor and analytical pundit, I will be looking for the next
shoe to drop, which I believe I have found. I will keep you posted.
 
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). Investing, not trading. The key is to research it well and get in very cheap with money you can afford to lose, then dig in and stay there until your investment thesis either pans out or does not pan out. Either way, it takes time. My numbers are multiples, several times over, of what many of the so-called smart money guys at many name brand prop desks are, primarily because I don't need to show positive results every quarter. My only mandate is to make lots of money and not to lose any of my principal. Real simple. 
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