On Monday, 23 April 2012 I posted "It's Official & As I Foretold Years Ago, Greece Is Now In A True Depression As Reality Hits Greek Banks", roughly 2 years after penning 

How Greece Killed Its Own Banks!. Well, guess what!? The Wall Street Journal’s report, “Greek Depositors Withdrew $898 Million From Banks Monday”:

Greek depositors withdrew €700 million ($898 million) from the country's banks on Monday, fueling fears of a bank run amid the growing political disarray.

With deposits falling, Greek banks become even more dependent on the European Central Bank to meet their funding needs, exposing the central bank to potentially huge losses if Greece leaves the euro area.

Greek President Karolos Papoulias told the country's political leaders that bank withdrawals plus buy orders received by Greek banks for German bunds totaled some €800 million on Monday, a transcript of his comments said. A central bank official confirmed the figures.

Wait until a 2nd Greek default (virtually guaranteed as we supplied user downloadable models to see for yourself, the same model used to forecast the 1st default) mirrors history. Of the 181 yrs as a sovereign nation after gaining independence, Greece been in default 58 of them. Don't believe me! Check your history, or just read more BoomBustBlog - Sophisticated Ignorance Or Just A Very, Very Short Term Memory? Foolish Talk of German Bailouts Once Again...

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Greece's default will hit an already bank NPA laden Spain quite hard: The Spain Pain Will Not Wane: Continuing the Contagion Saga and ditto with Italy "As We Assured Clients Two Years Ago, Italy's Riding The Broken Promise Express To Restructuring". Once Italy gets hit, the true bank runs will start as socialist France (the so-called half of the EU anchor) loses control of its bankinsg system. Reference "As The French Bank Runs....": 

Saturday, 23 July 2011 The Anatomy Of A European Bank Run: Look At The Banking Situation BEFORE The Run Occurs!: I detail how I see modern bank runs unfolding

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Thursday, 28 July 2011  The Mechanics Behind Setting Up A Potential European Bank Run Trade and European Bank Run Trading Supplement

I identify specific bank run candidates and offer illustrative trade setups to capture alpha from such an event. The options quoted were unfortunately unavailable to American investors, and enjoyed a literal explosion in gamma and implied volatility. Not to fear, fruits of those juicy premiums were able to be tasted elsewhere as plain vanilla shorts and even single stock futures threw off insane profits.

Wednesday, 03 August 2011 France, As Most Susceptble To Contagion, Will See Its Banks Suffer

In case the hint was strong enough, I explicitly state that although the sell side and the media are looking at Greece sparking Italy, it is France and french banks in particular that risk bringing the Franco-Italia make-believe capitalism session, aka the French leveraged Italian sector of the Euro ponzi scheme down, on its head.

I then provide a deep dive of the French bank we feel is most at risk. Let it be known that every banked remotely referenced by this research has been halved (at a mininal) in share price! Most are down ~10% of more today, alone!

•  French Bank Run Forensic Thoughts - Retail Valuation Note - For retail subscribers
•  Bank Run Liquidity Candidate Forensic Opinion - A full forensic note for professional and institutional subscribers

I also provided a very informative document for public consumption which clearly detailed exactly how this French bank collapse thing is likely to go down:  French Bank Run Forensic Thoughts - pubic preview for Blog - A freebie, to illustrate what all of you non-subscribers are missing!

So, What's the Next Shoe To Drop? Read on...

For those who claim I may be Euro bashing, rest assured - I am not. Just a week or two later, I released research on a big US bank that will quite possibly catch Franco-Italiano Ponzi Collapse fever, with the pro document containing all types of juicy details. This is the next big thing, for when (not if, but when) European banks blow up, it WILL affect us stateside! Subscribers, be sure to be prepared. Puts are already quite costly, but there are other methods if you haven't taken your positions when the research was first released. For those who wish to subscribe, click here.

•  Contagion Forensic Review - Retail
•  Contagion Forensic Review - Professional

Reggie_Middleton_Facebooks_Valuation

With Facebook slated to start trading in a few days, I feel it is appropriate to brush off some of the BoomBustBlog research and opinion that can help subscribers wade through the sell side waters. To wit, CNBC reports Facebook Faces User Distrust, Advertising Apathy: Poll:

More than half (57 percent) of Facebook users polled said they never click on ads or other sponsored content when they use the site, according to a new AP-CNBC poll. Another 26 percent said they hardly ever engage in such activity. Only 4 percent of users say they often click on ads — results that are only slightly better than the 2-3 percent clickthrough rate some experts consider the benchmark for effective banner ads.

This doesn't sound too good does it. Well, you can't say I didn't warn you last year: 

1. Did Goldman Just Rip Its HNW and Institutional Clients Once Again? Facebook Growth Slows Pre-IPO, Just As We Warned!
2. The World's First Phenomenally Forensic Facebook Analysis - This Is What You Need Before You Invest, Pt 1

Facebook users have consistently cast a wary and suspicious eye on the platform: 59 percent of respondents said that they had little to no trust in Facebook to keep their information private.

That doesn't sound very good either, does it?

Yet despite those ongoing concerns, the number of users (and their engagement) continues to increase. Facebook has grown to 901 million monthly active users worldwide, with personal computer users spending six to seven hours per month on the site (compared to just 3 minutes for Google+ users), according to recent data from ComScore.

Now, this sounds very, very good. Of course, it doesn't sound as good when you look at it in context...

Slower subscriber growth...

As for Mark Zuckerberg, the wunderkind CEO who turned 28 on Monday inspires somewhat tepid confidence as a leader, with only 18 percent of respondents saying they were extremely or very confident in his ability to run a large publicly traded company like Facebook. Yet pinning down a specific reason was difficult for respondents, who neither cited his age, temperament, nor reputation as significantly affecting those abilities.

Now if one were to ask me why I would be tepid in my confidence in Zuckerberg as a leader, I would say that its not his leadership abilities that are the biggest concern, it is the fact that he can single handedly wreck the company and the weak ass board of directors and the shareholders would be powerless to do anything about it. Instead of referring to him as the leader you can refer to him as the 28 year old potential tyrant and dictator. Reference Facebook CEO Running From Investors 'Cause He IS The Only Investor Whose Opinion Actually Counts?

CNBC also included this following chart...

Hmmm. That doesn't sound too promising, does it? Well, despite all of this, Facebook is finding absolutely no shortage of suckers asses for which to place in the Facebook IPO seat.... 

• Facebook increases IPO range to raise $12.1 billion
  3:37pm EDT
• Facebook's Zuckerberg says mobile first priority
  Sat, May 12 2012
• Facebook's IPO already oversubscribed: source
  Fri, May 11 2012

Hey, it gets worse. WSJ.com and Reuters report GM plans to stop advertising on Facebook:

General Motors Co will stop advertising on Facebook, a move that comes during the same week the social networking website is due to go public.

The U.S. automaker confirmed a report by the Wall Street Journal. A source familiar with the automaker's plans said GM's marketing executives decided Facebook's ads had little impact on consumers.

GM said it will still have Facebook pages marketing its vehicles, but it will drop use of paid ads. Anyone can create a Facebook page at no cost. GM pays no fee to Facebook for its pages, which allow the automaker to reach consumers directly.

... "In terms of Facebook specifically, while we currently do not plan to continue with advertising, we remain committed to an aggressive content strategy through all of our products and brands, as it continues to be a very effective tool for engaging with our customers," GM said.

GM spends about $40 million on its Facebook presence, but only about $10 million of that is paid to Facebook for advertising. The rest covers the creation of content and the agencies involved, The Journal said.

GM, the country's third largest advertiser behind Procter & Gamble Co and AT&T Inc, spent $1.11 billion on U.S. ads last year, according to Kantar Media, an ad-tracking firm owned by WPP PLC. About $271 million of GM's total ad spend last year was for online display and search ads excluding Facebook advertising.

Hmmm... It appears as if the MSM has it out for Facebook today, in direct contravention of its historical actions pushing this company. I wonder if its because I wrote How Does Facebook Drum Up So Much Frothy Interest For Its Overpriced Shares? Help From The Media, Goldman, et. al.

I've had a few subscribers who, after reviewing the (subscription only) FaceBook IPO & Valuation Note Update and Facebook Valuation Model, have seriously queried how Facebook is managing to drum up so much froth and interest for its obviously overpriced shares? The apparent answer is the marketing machine known as Goldman, et. al. The less recognized answer is assistance from the MSM, as demonstrted by this CNBC article - Facebook’s Premium Ad Prices Still Rising:

Pricing for Facebook’s premium “social” advertisements continues to rise, two recent studies have found—a positive indicator that could offset concerns about a dip in advertising growth and help sentiment towards the Internet company’s initial public offering.

This is a net positive statement, no?

A report to be released on Monday by Marin Software, a digital marketing platform that processes more than $100 million worth of spending on Facebook, found a 26 percent increase over the last year in the cost per click for “premium” ad formats such as Sponsored Stories, which highlight friends’ “likes”, comments and other endorsements of brands’ activity on the site.

Wow! That's pretty good growth and pricing elasticity, no? Bring on those newly public shares and let 'em rip!!! 

However, Marin’s report also found the cost per click for Facebook’s standard ads, which make up an estimated three-quarters of the social network’s advertising revenues, fell 26 percent over the last year.

Wait a minute, if 75% of the companies product dropped in price, doesn't that easily swamp the 26% of the companies premium ads that rose in price? An even more direct questions is, why isn't this being reported as the net negative that is is? Let's walk though this step by step for the more arithmetically challenged amongst us...

So, according to this MSM article, reporting a net 13% drop in revenue somehow amounts to - and let me quote this so as to be as accurate as possible - "a positive indicator that could offset concerns about a dip in advertising growth and help sentiment towards the Internet company’s initial public offering". Please excuse me as I wipe the splattered bullshit from my computer screen - it's hard to type accurately with those opaque, stinking brown stains in the way. Even worse, it goes to show what portions of the MSM actually think in terms of the intellectual capacity of its readership. 

It would seem that Facebook Finally Faces The Fact Of BoomBustBlog Analsysis. 

Professional and institutional BoomBustBlog subscribers have access to a simplified unlocked version of the valuation model used for this report, available for immediate download - Facebook Valuation Model 08Feb2012.

It is strongly recommended that said subscribers download and input their own assumptions into said model in order for confident preparation before the IPO launch! I just nominally input some very generous numbers and the best case scenario chart (see the chart tab after your own individual inputs) is quite revealing, indeed! The full forensic opinion is available to all subscribers here FaceBook IPO & Valuation Note Update. It is recommended that subscribers (click here to subscribe) also review the original analyses (FB note final 01/11/2011).

 Here's where I broke it down on Capital Account

I also happened to do the same on the Max Kesier show...

I discussed Facebook on the Peter Schiff radio show, the Facebook excerpt is below...

Additional Facebook analysis, valuationa and commentary.

On Max Keiser, go to the 13:55 marker for more on Facebook...

Here are the free blog posts on the topic:

1. Facebook Registers The WHOLE WORLD! Or At Least They Would Have To In Order To Justify Goldman’s Pricing: Here’s What $2 Billion Or So Worth Of Goldman HNW Clients Probably Wish They Read This Time Last Week!
2. Facebook Becomes One Of The Most Highly Valued Media Companies In The World Thanks To Goldman, & Its Still Private!
3. Here’s A Look At What The Goldman FaceBook Fund Will Look Like As It Ignores The SEC & Peddles Private Shares To The Public Without Full Disclosure
4. The Anatomy Of The Record Bonus Pool As The Foregone Conclusion: We Plug The Numbers From Goldman’s Facebook Fund Marketing Brochure Into Our Models
5. Did Goldman Just Rip Its HNW and Institutional Clients Once Again? Facebook Growth Slows Pre-IPO, Just As We Warned!
6. The World's First Phenomenally Forensic Facebook Analysis - This Is What You Need Before You Invest, Pt 1
7. The Final Facebook Forensic IPO Analysis: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly

So, in today's news we have Greek bank runs (again), remnants of JP Morgan yield grab gone bananas, and European Banks Battered As Reality Sets In. I know there has to be at at least a small contingent of you who truly don't want to hear me say "I told you so". Well, guess what I have to say to that small contingent...

Better yet guess what very popular American bank has their fingers in all three of the fires fanning above? You see, I not only warned of a European bank collapse nearly three years ago, I actually went on a European banking collapse tour throughout, of all places, Europe!

 The bank run thingy was actually a foregone conclusion. Greece is only step one, albeit a very obvious step one, but still the first step nonetheless - reference How Greece Killed Its Own Banks!, written exactly TWO years ago - Tuesday, 27 April 2010. The MSM should stop harping on Greece, its done. The real story is what will Greece's bust bring about. Well, there are quite a few banks in much 'allegedly" stronger domiciles primed to do the 'ole accelerated one-two step (that's bank run for those without a sense of humor), reference "How to Prevent Bailouts, Bank Runs and Other Fun Things To Do With Your Hard Earned Dollars". 

Now, the question for the truly big boys is what happens after the inevitable Pan-European bank runs get started. Well, the answer to that is already stored in the BoomBustBlog archives. Come on, y'all, where the strategists, the chess players, those who are able to look more than two moves ahead. I made this post so, now others may start "Hunting the Squid", looking at JPM Morgan as the sovereign entity that it wants to be and DB as the leveraged powder keg that it appears. Then there's BNP, HSBC and BofA. You heard it all here first. Despite that, the MSM has put analysts in the consistent spotlight who I feel (without intending to disrespect them, of course) have been serially incorrect on banks. I have addressed this in my blog posts, namely Question the Quality Of BoomBustBlog Bank Research, Will You? Bove and Fitch Follow "The Blog"! and CNBC Favorite Dick Bove Admits To Being Wrong On Banks, But For The Right Reasons, But Those Reasons Are Still Wrong!!!

You see, with things crumbling so predictably, I don't have to do much along the lines of new content or writing. This entire mess has already been laid out in my archives, and in rather illustrious detail. Let's start archive grabbing with...

Goldman Sachs

The hardest hitting investment banking research available focusing on Goldman Sachs (the Squid), but before you go on, be sure you have read parts 1.2. and 3: 

1. I'm Hunting Big Game Today:The Squid On A Spear Tip, Part 1 & Introduction
2. Hunting the Squid, Part2: Since When Is Enough Derivative Exposure To Blow Up The World Something To Be Ignored?"
3. Reggie Middleton Serves Up Fried Calamari From Raw Squid: Market Perceptions of Real Risk in Goldman Sachs

So, what else can go wrong with the Squid? 

Plenty! In Hunting the Squid, Part2: Since When Is Enough Derivative Exposure To Blow Up The World Something To Be Ignored?" I included a graphic that illustrated Goldman's raw credit exposure...

So, what is the logical conclusion? More phallic looking charts of blatant, unbridled, and from a realistic perspective, unhedged RISK starring none other than Goldman Sachs...

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And to think, many thought that JPM exposure vs World GDP chart was provocative. I query thee, exactly how will GS put a real workable hedge, a counterparty risk mitigating prophylactic if you will, over that big green stalk that is representative of Total Credit Exposure to Risk Based Capital? Short answer, Goldman may very well be to big for a counterparty condom. If that's truly the case, all of you pretty, brand name Goldman counterparties out there (and yes, there are a lot of y'all - GS really gets around), expect to get burned at the culmination of that French banking party
I've been talking about for the last few quarters. Oh yeah, that perpetually printing clinic also known as the Federal Reserve just might be running a little low on that cheap liquidity antibiotic... Just giving y'all a heads up ahead of time...

And for those who may not be sure of the significance, please review my presentation as the Keynote Speaker at the ING Real Estate Valuation Seminar in Amsterdam, below. After all, for all intents and purposes, Dexia has officially collapsed - [CNBC] France, Belgium Pledge Aid for Struggling Dexia... and its a good chance that it's a matter of time before BNP follows suit - exactly as BoomBustBlog predicted for paying subsccribers way back in July.

A step by step tutorial on exactly how it will happen....

• The Mechanics Behind Setting Up A Potential European Bank Run Trade and European Bank Run Trading Supplement
• What Happens When That Juggler Gets Clumsy?
• Let's Walk The Path Of A Potential Pan-European Bank Run, Then Construct Trades To Profit From Such
• The Anatomy Of A European Bank Run: Look At The Banking Situation BEFORE The Run Occurs!
• The Fuel Behind Institutional “Runs on the Bank” Burns Through Europe, Lehman-Style!
• Multiple Botched and Mismanaged Stress Test Have Created The Makings Of A Pan-European Bank Run 
• France, As Most Susceptible To Contagion, Will See Its Banks Suffer
• Observations Of French Markets From A Trader's Perspective
• On Your Mark, Get Set, (Bank) Run! The D…
• ECB As European Lender Of Last Resort = Institutional Purveyor Of A Pan-European Ponzi Scheme

 The European banking debacle was predicted at the start of 2010, a full year and a half before this has come to a head. If I could have seen it so clearly, why couldn't the banking industry and its regulators?

Now, back to GS, and considering all of the European falllout coming down the pike, of which Goldman is heavily leveraged into, particulary France (say BNP/Dexia/etc.)...

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Let's go over exactly how GS is exposed following the logic outlined in the graphic before this series of videos, as excerpted from subscriber document Goldmans Sachs Derivative Exposure: The Squid in the Coal Mine?, pages 3,4 and 5.

GS__Banks_Derivatives_exposure_temp_work_Page_3

And to think, many thought that JPM exposure vs World GDP chart was provocative. I query thee, exactly how will GS put a real workable hedge, a counterparty risk mitigating prophylactic if you will, over that big green stalk that is representative of Total Credit Exposure to Risk Based Capital? Short answer, Goldman may very well be to big for a counterparty condom. If that's truly the case, all of you pretty, brand name Goldman counterparties out there (and yes, there are a lot of y'all - GS really gets around), expect to get burned at the culmination of that French banking party I've been talking about for the last few quarters. Oh yeah, that perpetually printing clinic also known as the Federal Reserve just might be running a little low on that cheap liquidity antibiotic... Just giving y'all a heads up ahead of time...

S&P and Fitch finally downgrade JP Morgan, 3 years after my initial multimedia warnings (see Listen Carefully...  for the details). Unfortunately, despite threats and ruminations, these rating agencies again act in retrospect, failing to do anything but remind stakeholders of the losses they have already taken rather than assisting them in avoiding losses.

So, what are the rating agencies missing?  They're missing the fact that nearly all of the big money center banks are doing exactly what JPM was doing and they have no one to rely upon but themselves when things go awry from a counterparty perspective. Bennie Bernanke has instituted perpetual ZIRP, and as such has basically broken the banking business in his attempt to save it. Through ZIRP, banks simply cannot make money doing things that traditional banks do, ex. profit from lending. As such, they reach for yield, and that's just the conservative ones. The big boys take baseball bats swinging for home runs, either consciously or subconsciously sanguine in the protection of the Bernanke flavored taxpayer put under their respective businesses. With such protection, already historically proven, bank managers are getting progressively more aggressive and increasingly less aware of the term "RISK adjusted reward" as they simply seek rewards. Alas, I'm getting ahead of myself, let me explain...

The JPM prop desk that held the losses which generated headlines earlier this week was marketed as a hedging operation when we all know it was anything but. What it was was a concerted grasp for yield and profit in a ZIRP environment where JPM (one of the world's largest congregations of interest bearing assets) was bearing effectively no interest.

Banks need to make money too, hence when there's no money to be made in traditional FI yields, the banks start reaching, and they tend to start reaching farther as desperation to make the next quarter mounts in the face of BoomBustBlog reading investors who may be able to see past earnings stuffing stemming from less than prudent reserve releases consistent underprovisioning.

JPM_Underprovisioning

 The BoomBustBlog subscriber document JPM Q1 2011 Review & Analysis illustrates the point of JPM's waning ability to make money by making loans and holding debt with perfect clarity, and did so a year in advance....

JPM_Q1_2011_final_Page_4

So, what do you do if you're a bank but you can't make money lending? You gamble, that's what you do! It's not like JPM hasn't gambled before, and it's not like they haven't lost money gambling...

jpm_ficc1

I put out what I consider to be some of the best predictive research available. I also put an inordinate amount of info out for absolutely free, particularly in the case of those big names as in the employer of Voldemort. For those who have not read my seminal piece on Dimon's house of Morgan, JPM Public Excerpt of Forensic Analysis Subscription published nearly three years ago, allow me to take the liberty to excerpt it for you...

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JPM_Public_Excerpt_of_Forensic_Analysis_Subscription_Final_092209_Page_02

JPM_Public_Excerpt_of_Forensic_Analysis_Subscription_Final_092209_Page_03

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JPM_Public_Excerpt_of_Forensic_Analysis_Subscription_Final_092209_Page_05

JPM_Public_Excerpt_of_Forensic_Analysis_Subscription_Final_092209_Page_06

Hmmm... Tell me if you get stuff like this from the rating agencies.... This is a good time to bring up that Interesting Documentary on the Power of Rating Agencies, with Reggie Middleton Excerpts

The next post on this topic will outline and illustrate several banks whom the agencies need to downgrade NOW, as in RIGHT NOW. These banks are, of course, JPM counterparties. In the meantime and in between time, follow me:

Here's a subscription dump of our archives for JPM to placate the insatiable thirst of the BoomBustBlog paid subscriber:

JPM Q1 2011 Review & Analysis

JPM 3Q 2010 Forensic Update 

JPM Public Excerpt of Forensic Analysis Subscription

JPM Restricted Stock scheme

JPM 2Q10 review

 JPM 1Q 2010 Valuation Review 

 JPM 4Q09 review

 JPM Report (092209) Final - Professional09/24/2009

JPM Forensic Report (092209) Final- Retail

JPM Option Analysis