In the post After My Contrarian Calling Apple's 3rd Miss Accurately, I Release My Apple Research Track Record For 2 1/2 Years, I came clean with the historical performance of my Apple research. Of course, many a hater had their hearts crushed as math and common sense once again ruled the day. Still, we see herd mentality and brand loyalty effect even those who're really supposed to know what they're doing - to wit: Rochdale Trader Made Unauthorized Purchases Of As Much As $1 Billion In Apple Stock Last Month

... a trader at Rochdale Securities made unauthorized purchases of $750 million to $1 billion in Apple stock last month and now the firm is seeking a lifeline. 

It's unclear when the unauthorized stock purchases took place, but shares of Apple have dropped around 11.5% since Oct. 1.

Stamford, Connecticut-based Rochdale, which employs noted bank analyst Dick Bove, is looking for a possible deal to recapitalize such as a capital injection or a merger, Bloomberg reports citing sources familiar. 

Well, it's obvious the brokerage didn't buy that trader a subscription to BoomBustBlog. I've been following Apple for roughly two years now and have been one of the (if not the) most accurate fundamental pundits on said matter, with my valuations hugging Apple's share price rather tightly for the entire time I have followed it.

aapl research accuracy copy

Reference Apple - Competition and Cost Structure 05/16/2011, which is now available for download to all due to its dated nature - even those who do not subscribe. Please note that this report only includes base case scenarios, while the latter reports included base, optimistic and pessimistic scenarios - which is much more realistic. Although some of the later reports are also stale-dated, they contain valuable knowledge that I'm not prepared to release to the public for free at this time.

• Apple 4Q2012 update professional & institutional
• Apple 4Q2012 update - retail
• "iPhone Margin worksheet - blog download

Several months ago I posted a mail from a reader's rant on FICO (see Fair  Isaac May Get Treated Unfairly When…), along with our own take on the on the situation (subscribers see FICO Note, click here to subscribe). Here's an excerpt from the said reader's take: 

Short FICO. This company engineered a stock-back program in Nov 2011. The Stock buy-back was equivalent to 20% of its market cap at the time. The three executives left the company and cash in their stock options. The company had 3 CEOs in 4 years. The Company latest quarter was slightly down, without the massive buy-back the share count would have meant that the stock had lower earnings per share YoY. What is staggering is while the company did this massive stock buy-back, some execs (including the 3 execs departing) sold at price sometimes below the price the company was buying back its stock at. If the company was doing such a good deal by buying the stock "cheap" at around 40 USD, why would the execs sell their "cheap" stock at 39 USD?

Now recently the company announced its quarterly earnings, poor data, the stock plunges by 10.5%, next thing you know SECput the Rule 201 alternative uptick rule. The next day the stock is up 10.5%, but of course nothing is done to prevent the stock to move up more than 10% a day. The same happened on the same day with Vulcan Materials which released its earnings, really crappy (a lot more than FICO), Vulcan Materials is a Einhorn short, and yet again you have the rule 201 implemented the next day....

Said BoomBustBlogger returned with some more "unfair" treatment of Fair Isaac, viewable from this link - Fair Isaac May Get Treated Unfairly When The Newest Credit Bubble Bursts. ....And here come's FCO's earnings, as reported at CNBC:

MINNEAPOLIS, Nov. 1, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- FICO (NYSE: FICO), the leading provider of analytics and decision management technology, today announced financial results for its fourth fiscal quarter ended September 30, 2012. Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2012 Results Net income for the quarter totaled $21.2 million, or $0.60 per share, versus $24.6 million, or $0.64 per share, reported in the prior year period. The current quarter results include $3.3 million, net of tax, or $0.09 per share, in restructuring and acquisition related costs.

Well. guess what happened the following day... NYSE stocks posting largest percentage decreases 02 Nov 2012  -  The Associated Press

At the very beginning of the year I was on CNBC commenting on the horrible time the FIRE sector should be expecting. Well, at year end I see FIRE burning amidst all of this Hurricane damage. First reference my warning on the MSM - Reggie Middleton Sets CNBC on F.I.R.E.!!!

I then followed this up with You Can Rest Assured That The Insurance Industry Is In For Guaranteed Losses! Well, guess what we have in today's headlines?

Insurers Face Tab of up to $20 Billion

Hurricane Sandy may cost the insurance industry up to $20 billion, which would put this week's devastating storm second only to 2005's Hurricane Katrina for insured losses, according to a new damage estimate.  44 min ago

 You see, this is more than just massive property losses for the industry. Remember, how the insurance business model works. Take in premiums, invest them for profits, then take your time paying out any claims. Well, this model only works when you have investment profits and/or underwriting profits. A combination of massive investment losses and underwriting losses, a combined ratio of less than 100 in industry parlance, means...

As the year 2012 comes to an end I would like to remind readers and subscibers alike of the impending deadline posed by the leaderless leadership in the EU. Right after the first Greek default and 3rd bailout, in Beware The Overly Optimistic Greek Speculators As Icarus Comes Crashing Down To Earth! I made it perfectly clear that Greece was actually in worse condition cashflow wise and balance sheet-wise after the default than before. This has put a deadline of roughly 2013-2014 until that nasty stinky brown stuff splatters off the fan blades - to wit:

Despite extensive, self-defeating, harsh and punitive austerity measures that have combined with a lack of true economic stimulus, Greece has (to date) failed to achieve Primary Balance. For the non-economists in the audience, primary balance is the elimination of a primary deficit, yet the absence of a primary surplus, ex. the midpoint between deficit and surplus before taking into consideration interest payments.

Greece_Primary_balanceGreece_Primary_balance

The primary balance looks at the structural issues a country may have.

Government expenditures have outstripped revenues ever since 2007 and have gotten worse nearly every year since, despite 3 bailouts a restructuring, austerity and a default!

Greece_Primary_deficit_copy

Long story short, TPTB have put Greece in a situation where it has to literally choose whether it feeds its people or it pays banks exorbitant interest. I'll let you guess which is actually taking place....

Greek Interest Imposed Poverty

Since I have released so much opinion and analysis on Apple over the last few weeks, I can keep this post short, sweet and to the point. Apple missed earnings expectations yesterday, exactly as I anticipated and expressed to readers and subscribers. This is the third miss by Apple that I called. What makes the call so interesting is that it's actually quite an obvious call and doesn't deserve much credit. That's the point! Despite the obvious evidence that Apple is following in the footprints of Research in Motion and the Blackberry, Apple is still held (and actively bought) by every hedge fund, arm chair investor, cab driver and his grand aunt's cousin's dog walker!!! Remember Research in Motion, they had very strong static fundamentals and everybody used Blackberriers (even the newly elected President who was addicted to his "Crackberry") when I first suggested my subscribers short them in early 2010 as well, reference the following:

1. After Getting a Glimpse of the New Windows Phone 7 Functionality, RIMM is Looking More Like a Short Play
2. RIM Smart Phone Market Share, RIP?
3. Many More Black Eyes for the Blackberry? A Complete Forensic Analysis of Research in Motion

If you go through all three of the posts above, you will see an iconic example of Apple and the iPhone, declining market share, ever so slight pressure on margins amid tense competition, but bulging fundamental performance and a strong brand following. Just two years later RIMM is a single digit stock. Why? Management refused to do what Microsoft is doing now (reference Microsoft Is Doing What The "Has Been Giants Of Yesteryear" Were Afraid To Do, Make A Radical Change BEFORE ITS TOO LATE!). Pooh pooh MSFT if you wish, they were one of the only recent tech companies to successully remain dominant and relevant through a tech paradigm shift. As this next paradigm shift approaches, you'd be a fool to discount and dismiss that company out of hand! RIM simply refused to accept the fact that the market demanded a larger, touch-centric screen with ample multimedia capabilities. To date, they still don't have a credible offering - THREE years later.

Well, with the advent of the iPhone 5 it appears as if Apple doesn't understand that the market demands bigger, higher res screens either. Despite the fact that the iPhone is responsible for ~70% of Apple's profits, it's offering its flagship with last year's Android tech while its competitors are innovating like bananas, offering 5.5 inch screens and 1080p resolutions with 32 hour battery lives! Both RIMM and Apple are refusing to slash their own margins, and rather would ride those fat margins out along their natural lives. The problem with this mentality - as RIMM investors can attest, is that if you don't cut your margins, your competitors will happily do it for you! Ask Samsung and Google if I'm joking... 

I have been most accurate in tracking Apple over the last couple of years, as I have been with Google and RIMM (and from a tertiary perspective, MSFT) - the only tech companies that I have analyzed since the great crash. I'm more well known as a banking/finance/global macro/real estate guy, but my success in tech is comparable.

aapl research accuracy copy

The latest Apple valuation bands (including the advanced pessimistic bands) can be accessed by paying subscribers below (click here to subscribe):

• Apple 4Q2012 update professional & institutional
• Apple 4Q2012 update - retail
• "iPhone Margin worksheet - blog download

This most recent miss is more telling than most considering Apple management's extreme earnings expectation management (subscribers see Apple Earnings Guidance Analysis 08/12/2010, non-subscribers reference “How Google is Looking to Cut Apple’s Margin and How the Sell Side of Wall Street Will Enable This Without Sheeple Investor’s Having a Clue“).

Below, I drilled down on the date and used a percentage difference view to illustrate the improvement in P/E stemming from the earnings beats.

In our analysis of Apple, we are using real world assumptions of future performance derived from backing in to the low balling this company is prone to. If you look at its history carefully you can gauge what management is comfortable with, hence what they may be capable of on the margin. Using these more realistic numbers, it was quite obvious that Apple would deliver a miss this quarter in its battle with the Android! The following is the reason why - Margin Compression

Key take aways from this quarter:

iPad sales came in low

This is a trend, not an excusable one time event as Tim Cook attempt to assert, blaming it on "expectations". See the excerpts from our subscriber docs below.

apple product chart growth

Apple 2Q2012 results analysis Final - redacted Page 2

Enterprise-wide margins came in lower than expected and lower than last quarter!

I discussed this in detail with Lauren Lyster on Capital Account. The margin discussion started at 7:55.

See how my subscribers read about the situation in detail two quarters ago!

Apple 2Q2012 results analysis Final - redacted Page 1

Apple 2Q2012 results analysis Final - redacted Page 3

Apple 2Q2012 results analysis Final Page 4

For those who haven't heard my description of Apple's arch competitor, Google's, business model, look here:

See Right On Time, My Prediction Of Apple Margin Compression 8 Quarters From My CNBC Warning Landed Right On The Money! for more on the mechanics of the margin compression theory for Apple.

In short, nearly 70% of profits concentrated in one, single product - the iPhone 4/5, whcih is so far behind the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 and S3 (roughly two years behind) that the only real sales they will get will come from extreme brand loyalty or from those who have never tried the Samsung and other competing Android products. The earnings diversification route taken was the massively successful iPad, which is already succumbing to massive margin compression AND is losing market share to superior tech at lower prices at the same time. For the first time since the iPod was released, Apple is playing catchup to Google et. al., by releasing a smaller tablet - after the fact. A tablet that, upon launch, will already be obsolesced and under priced by the competition. While these tactics may permit Apple to grow at impressive rates, basically they will start to simply cannibalize their existing user base and many new users will opt for the best and the newest tech. Just ask Research in Motion!!!

Apple may feel "Blackberried" or "RIMM"ed sooner than expected.

Follow me in the tech section of BoomBustBlog or via social media:

FB Sep 21 12 18 puts

Facebook's price bounced 20%+ between earnings announcement yesterday and the posting of this article.  Curiously enough, the stock bounced to within a mere SEVENTY CENTS of our mutliple's based valuation target the day after earnings. I feel some love is in order here, for that was  damn good call! Subscribers, please reference the FB IPO Analysis & Valuation Note - update with per share valuation released exactly 5 months ago on 05/21/2012 (click here to subscribe). Just to remember where we came from (I'm just using the time period where it was possible to short or buy puts on the stock, to keep things real)....

As for keeping it real:

MOBILE GROWTH: Roughly 14 percent of its ad revenue came from mobile advertising, up from somewhere around zero. This is to be expected, but since we don't have any real baselines or history to compare this to, it truly means nothing other than Facebook has and can make SOME money from mobile. The query du jour is how much, and when, no?

THE NUMBERS: Facebook Inc. posted a loss of $59 million, or 2 cents per share, in the July-September period. Adjusted earnings of 12 cents per share were a penny better than expected. Revenue rose 32 percent to $1.26 billion. That's also higher than the $1.23 billion Wall Street was looking for.

All should still be aware of the primary factor in this "growth company" stock's story....

image002

These facts should not have been a surprise, and blog subscribers were made aware nearly a year ago, as excerpted from our 2nd most recent forensic analysis.

FB IPO Analysis Valuation Note Page 03

As excerpted from Facebook's earnings press release: Payments and other fees revenue for the third quarter was $176 million, a 13% increase over the same quarter in the prior year and a 9% decline sequentially from the second quarter of 2012. So, where did that drop likely come from? Well reference the part about Zynga below, warned roughly 7 months before the fact!

FB IPO Analysis Valuation Note Page 04

As excerpted from BoomBustBlog Challenges Face Ripping Facebook Share Peddlers That Left Muppets Faceless And Nearly 50% Poorer After IPO:

I made it clear that those who lost roughly half of their capital at or near the IPO price simply forfeited those funds from not readign BoomBustBlog, and this sitaution was virtually guaranteed. I felt so strongly about it that I made much of my opinion available for free this time.

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...

Double your money by shorting the Street's advice! Once Again!

Here is a full year of free blog posts and paid research material warning that ANYBODY following the lead of Goldman, Morgan Stanely and JP Morgan on the Facebook offereing would get their Face(book)s RIPPED!!! Could you imagine me on a reality TV show based on this stuff??? Well, it's coming...

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
8. On Top Of The 2x-10x Return Had Off Of BoomBustBlog Facebook Research, Our Models Show How Much More Is Available...
9. Is Time For Facebook Investors To Literally Face the Book (Value)?
10. Facebook Bubble Blowing Justification Exercises Commence Today
11. Facebook Options Are Now Trading, Or At Least The PUTS Are!
12. Reggie Middleton breaks down "Muppetology," Face Ripping IPO's, and the Chinese Wall!
13. Facebooking The Chinese Wall: How A Blog Has Outperformed Wall Street For 5 Yrs
14. Why Shouldn't Practitioners Of Muppetology Get Swallowed In A Facebook IPO Class Action Suit?
15. Shorting Federal Facebook Notes Are Not Allowed Today ?
16. As I Promised Last Year, Facebook Is Being Proven To Be Overhyped and Overpriced!

It would seem that Facebook Finally Faces The Fact Of BoomBustBlog Analysis. 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. 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, and the latest iteration can be found here FB IPO Analysis & Valuation Note - update with per share valuation 05/21/2012. It is recommended that subscribers (click here to subscribe) also review the original analyses (FB note final 01/11/2011).

I have thoroughly warned (since 2009) that Spain will be one of the most catalyzing states suffering the Eurocalypse. Even more interesting, the rating agencies have a very significant (although not very utilitarian) role, see The Embarrassingly Ugly Truth About Spain: The IMF, EC and ALL Major Rating Agencies Are LYING!!!

thumb_Reggie_Middleton_on_Street_Signs_Fire

Looking at today's news, my ruminations take form, but the question of the day is that, unlike with Greece whose bonds have killed banks (see How Greece Killed Its Own Banks! and Dead Bank Deja Vu? How The Sovereigns Killed Their Banks & Why Nobody Realizes They're Dead) until the ECB bought the pain from the municipal muppets in a Pan-European Ponzi-style shell game (see ECB As European Lender Of Last Resort = Institutional Purveyor Of A Pan-European Ponzi Scheme), Spain's asset and credit bubble pop ramifications are much too large too large to simply stuff in an ECB side pocket. So, what happens to those banks that leveraged up and gorged on all of this risky ass, risk free European sovereign debt??? Well, first let's peruse today's media as Bloomberg reports Spain’s Economy Shrinks for Fifth Quarter Amid Bailout Talk

 Spain’s economy contracted for a fifth quarter, adding pressure on Premier Mariano Rajoy to seek more European aid even as the euro area’s fourth-largest economy met a bill-sales target.

Gross domestic product fell 0.4 percent in the three months through September from the previous quarter, matching the contraction of the second quarter, the Bank of Spain said in an estimate in its monthly bulletin released in Madrid today. That compares with a median forecast for a 0.7 percent contraction in a Bloomberg News survey of 10 economists.

Moody's passed on cutting Spain's sovereign rating (to below investment grade) recent and the general sigh of relief has been short-lived.  Moody's cut Catalonia's rating (by two notches to Ba3) and four other regions.  The rating agency cited two main factors.  First is the deterioration in the liquidity situation of the regions, as evidenced by the low levels of cash reserves.  Second, it cited the heavy reliance on short-term credit lines.    
Three of the regions that were downgraded (Catalonia, Murcia and Andalucia) face large redemption before year end.  Madrid had established a fund to help the regions secure financing of 18 bln euros.  Eight of the 17 regions have requested funds, including 4 of the five that were downgraded by Moody's.  These requests amount to a little more than 17 bln euros, practically exhausting the fund.   
Separately, Spain's finance ministry acknowledged that is year's deficit, as in recent years, will overshoot the government's target.  Indeed, this year's new projection of 7.3% overshoots not only the relaxed 6.3% shortfall, but even the 6.8% that Rajoy unilaterally suggested coming out of the EU meeting in which the leaders endorsed the fiscal pact.  The 10.5 bln social security (not just pensions, but unemployment compensation and other transfer payments) deficit is being blamed, which itself is partly a function of the austerity face of economic weakness.   

Below are my thoughts, but before I get into them I will like to reiterate that many pundits, investors, analysts and traders still have no clue as to the type of company that Google is. Imagine a private equity firm that has consistently put out the leaders (as in the number one company) in several industries, every 3rd year or so for 10 years straight. Now, take that private equity fund and give it it's own operations with some of the smartest engineers and strategists in the world, and have them spend 1.5 Billion (that's Billion with a "B"") in R&D annually to discover new things. Now fund that private equity fund and R&D camp with cashflow from the world's largest automated web advertising firm, whose closest competition is so far away as to barely even be known for its wares by the average person. Now, add to it the worlds fastest growing, largesta and most technically advanced mobile operating system. Then add to it the largest patent portfolio and 4th largest handset maker in the world (remember the mobile industry is where its at now). Then add to it the largest and by far the most prominent digital media destination AND publsihing property in the world. Then add to that the largest consumer and enterprise cloud operations in the world. 

Finally, add to the mix the largest, most oft use and most entrenched search engine which (when combined with the cloud properties) basically makes this company the defacto gatekeeper for digital data for the world.

What would you have with this new world conglomerate? You'd have Google, that's what you'd have. Now, on to my anecdotal quips on Google's dramatic Q3.

• Enterprise wide margins have dropped. I suspect the Motorola acquisition and the influx of mobile revenues, which alter the supply-demand landscape dramatically, thus dropping pricing power for the near to medium term. 
• Core site revenues are growing along trend line
• International growth is healthy, though hampered by FX hedging losses
• Paid clicks increased 33% YOY while costs per click decreased 15% over same period - core margin expansion!
• Traffic acquisition costs are up 8% YOY - paying more for traffic, but less than margin expanding...
• Motorola revenues are material, and their margins are weak which pulls down overall margins. This is a foreseen negative but management obviously feels it is worth it, likely due to the largest patent portfolio in the business, the 2nd largest set top box position in the industry and the 4th (roughly) best handset manufacturer in the industry. I'll side with management on this one.
• "Other costs of revenues" more than doubled YOY, which should be a major cause for concern. As a matter of fact it is such a large increase as to be akin to one-time events. These need to be investigated in detail.
• The key determinant of the value of this quarter's numbers is whether these increased expenses are (in increasing value from very bad to potentially very good):
  1. 1. - Recurring expenses signaling a structural change in the business
  2. 2. ~ Onetime expenses
  3. 3. + Investments in future revenues inaccurately characterized as cost and expense.
• My bets are that those algo traders and armchair pundits masquerading as investors and analysts are overlooking strategic investment and calling it expense. A glimpse into the EDGAR filing’s cash flow quip reveals some clues: “Cash Flow and Capital Expenditures – Net cash provided by operating activities in the third quarter of 2012 totaled $4.0 billion, compared to $3.95 billion in the third quarter of 2011. In the third quarter of 2012, capital expenditures were $872 million, the majority of which was for production equipment and facilities-related purchases. Free cash flow, an alternative non-GAAP measure of liquidity, is defined as net cash provided by operating activities less capital expenditures. In the third quarter of 2012, free cash flow was $3.13 billion. We expect to continue to make significant capital expenditures.”

You heard it direct from the horse’s mouth! Despite heavy infrastructure and development expenditures, plus the biggest acquisition ever, Google increased free cash flow. Google will make a significant push into original digital media and content. Expect YouTube to compete directly with NBC, FOX, HBO, etc.

Risky? Yes!

Potentially profitable and disruptive? Ask the classified and newspaper industries (or at least what’s left of them) if Google knows what it’s doing!!!!

As excerpted from our nearly 70 page forensic Google report (Subscribers, see Google Final Report 10/08/2010), I attempt to educate on the investment prowess of Google (that is both internal investment and external acquisition). Remember, many of Google's investments have become the largest instances of their type in the indsutry. The largest web video presence: YouTube! The largest mobile OS? Android! The largest mobile ad presence? Admob! the largest online productivity suite? Docs/Drive! I can go on with Gmail, Voice, etc., but if I haven't driven the message home yet then I probably never will. Google management has made it clear that YouTube will compete with major networks and Google Docs will compete and is actually pulling some business from Microsoft Office in the Enterprise. These are mere anecdotal examples. We all know the Android story already...

Google Final Report Sep 29 Page 49

Google Final Report Sep 29 Page 50

Google Final Report Sep 29 Page 51 

Google Final Report Sep 29 Page 52

Google Final Report Sep 29 Page 53

Google Final Report Sep 29 Page 54

Industry Leading, Subscription Based Google Research

All paying subscribers should download the Google Q1-2012 Valuation Summary, wherein we have updated the valuation numbers for Google using a variety of metrics. Click here to subscribe or upgrade. 

Google still exhibits the likelihood that they will control mobile computing for the balance of the decade.

Subscription research:

Google Q1-2012 Valuation Summmary 04/20/2012

Google Q1 2011 results 04/18/2011

Google Q3 2010 reveiw 11/08/2010

Google Valuation Model 09/21/2010 

 Google's VOIP and Telephony Services 09/16/2010

Google Cloud Based Services

Google TV Analysis

A couple of bits from our archives...

CNBC reports Greece Austerity Strike Will Hurt GDP Further even as Cyprus Expects Bailout as S&P Cuts Ratings to Junk:

Cyprus said on Wednesday it expected talks to start with lenders on badly needed aid next week, as ratings agency Standard & Poor's pushed it deeper into junk territory, implying domestic political expediency lay behind a delay in clinching a deal. One of the smallest nations in the euro zone, Cyprus sought European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) aid in June after its two largest banks suffered huge losses due to a write-down of Greek debt.

Well, our Contagion Model showed clear paths of the knock on effects of Greek infection, and we haven't even gotten started with the economic pathogen party yet!

Of course, where there is a loser, there's always a winner as well - sometimes hidden beneath all of their spoils... On Friday, 04 May 2012 I penned The BoomBustBlog Pan-European Distressed Asset Acquisition Initiative, which clearly outlined the investment opportunities forthcoming in the tiny nation state known as Cyprus, as excerpted:

Asset sale by sovereigns is can be seen in the sale of stakes in government owned infrastructure assets and corporations. However, the approach adopted to dispose of these assets is to make partial sales in tranches in order to participate in any benefits of valuation recovery.

Professional and institutional subscribers should download the full version of this document ( The BoomBustBlog Pan-European Distressed Asset Acquisition Initiative) which outlines investment opportunities in the following nation/banks: UK, Portugal, Italy, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland and Spain.  Our initiative runs the gamut from whole companies and equities, to real estate, infrastructure assets, rare earth and hard tangible assets to IP.

Dispositions by Europeans banks have consisted mostly of foreign assets outside of Europe. Most of these assets had the potential for high returns but are being offered at prices reflecting the perception that future investment performance would be robust. This is why there is so much interest in the private equity and asset management space in scanning for strong deals among those assets. However, the competition among these entities to buy quality assets at reasonable valuations has created a micro bubble of sorts, the type that make profitable vulture investing a very difficult proposition.

Over the next week I will lead readers and paid subscribers through a journey of distressed assets being disgorged by banks and sovereigns that are poised to give those who are perceptive enough out-sized returns. I find this research and foresight to be invaluable, and I believe many institutions, asset managers and UHNWers will as well. Of course, the potential winners may be those who aren't among the usual suspects, and I feel TPTB amongst the EU clan may feel downright intimidated.

Yes, Spain will contribute to this vulture-fest, as will those still hooked into Greece, et. al.

• The Embarrassingly Ugly Truth About Spain: The IMF, EC and ALL Major Rating Agencies Are LYING!!!
• European Bank Run Watch: Spaniard Edition
• And confirming opinion from ZeroHedge: Chart Of The Day: Spanish Bad Loans Hit New Parabolic Record
  • Last month we reported that Spanish bad loans jumped by the most ever, rising by over 1%
    to just under 10%. Today, last month's number was revised even higher to 10.1%.
    But the worst news is that the August bad loan total just hit a fresh
    record of €178.6 billion, or 10.5% of the total €1,698.7 billion in bank
    loans. Making things worse is that the primary bank funding lifeline -
    deposits - continues to flow out. That both Spain, and its banking sector are
    utterly insolvent, is clear to anyone but Oliver Wyman and those who have bought
    SPGBs (although granted the latter are merely hoping for a quick flip). And the
    ECB of course. Indicatively, as a % of GDP, this would be equivalent to roughly
    $2.7 trillion in US bank loans going sour (for more on the collapse of Spanish
    banking, and the laughable stress test whose worst case has already become the
    baseline, read
    here). The chart summarizing this staggering statistic is below.
  • 
• This Time Is Different As Icarus Blows Up & Burns The Birds Along The Way - Greece Is About To Default AGAIN!

Stay tuned, and follow me!

First, a quick historical synopsis of where I'm coming from. If you have followed me regularly, then feel free to jump down to the next bold heading to get started - all others please read on...

I have been warning of the collapse of the European banking system, the Euro as we know it, and periphery states of the EU for going on three years now. What many thought was tomfoolery back then, is thought of as prescient now - reference the Pan-European Sovereign Debt Crisis series which started in late 2009. I then went on to explicitly query Is Another Banking Crisis Inevitable?, of which I believe most of the realistic among us already know the answer.

Walking through European bank collapse is not enough, even through we did it in detail through BoomBustBlog, reference The Anatomy of a Serial European Banking Collapse, a nearly guaranteed scenario. If one were to even come close to marking the EU banks' books to reality, market prices, or anything in between, the Lehman situation would look tame in comparison!

As excerpted from the subscriber document (click here to subscribe): The Inevitability of Another Bank Crisis

You see, you can avoid reality for but so long, primarily because reality is... well, reality! What happens when reality hits bank asset prices and liability values... 

Now, since we have finished that quick traipse through recent history as a summary of events and opinion, let's move on to the topic at hand. Last week, ZeroHedge posted a scathing article on the IMF's "Global Financial Stability Report", as excerpted:

...especially as pertains to Europe's insolvent banking system. The most notable finding of said report is the admission that the IMF was only kidding when it said six months ago, in April of this year, that the worst case outlook now has European banks deleveraging to the tune of $3.8 trillion through the end of 2013, or over the next 14 months: now this number is 18% higher, or a gargantuan $4.5 trillion (12% of bank assets). This is how much debt Eurobanks will need to shed in a "weak policies" case in which Europe continues to delay implementing fiscal reform, aka austerity, as per Figure 2.14. Even the baseline (and this being the IMF it means it has zero chance of happening) scenario is not much better, at a revised $2.8 (7.3%) trillion in deleveraging.

Although it seems as if Tyler is being a smart ass, he couldn't be farther from the truth. Reference my piece Lies, Damn Lies, and Sovereign Truths: Why the Euro is Destined to Collapse! concerning the accuracy of the IMF's baseline scenarios...

image005.png

And back to the ZH post:

....Breakdown of IMF deleveraging forecasts for the three scenarios, of which the realistic one is highlighted:

• • Under weak policies, the withdrawal of foreign investors accelerates to twice the pace seen since 2009. Periphery spreads widen by about one standard deviation above the baseline.

The biggest loser here, as in every other category: Germany, which will end up seeing €2 trillion in TARGET2 claims which in turn will never be satisfied as the system merely accelerates its collapse into a debt supernova.

 EXACTLY!!! BINGO!!! Now, we are all starting to come to the BoomBustBlog way of thinking, aka, REALITY! In the beginning of this year, I penned The Biggest Threat To The 2012 Economy Is??? Not What Wall Street Is Telling You... In short, this piece made clear that Germany poses the biggest threat to global harmony for 2012. The widely accepted belief that Germany is economically bullet-proof and somehow immune to malaise effecting the periphery as long as it does not attend the bailout party is fallacious, indeed. Please click the afore-referenced link for the full story on Germany and why some should consider the "Bund short play". Back to Tyler...

The big picture, of course, is that even the IMF now concedes Europe is in a closed loop Catch 22: unless European countries manage to restore "foreign" confidence which in turn would mean putting their fiscal houses in order, something which has proven absolutely impossible in Europe absent such one-time gimmicks as LTROs and otherwise hollow confidence boosters as ECB warnings to not fight the ECB (which work until they are tested, but first need to be activated, ahem Mariano Rajoy), the banks will be forced to delever even more, which would mean the ECB would have to "onboard" even more of their debt as nobody else will, which means even more foreign creditor flight, which means greater deposit outflows, which means more ECB intervention, until finally, the ECB is the only player in town...

Ah, yes! The Truth gets outed... I went through this in EXPLICT detail throughout 2011-12. Reference the following:

1. On Your Mark, Get Set, (Bank) Run!
2. ECB As European Lender Of Last Resort = Institutional Purveryor Of A Pan-European Ponzi Scheme
3. The Anatomy Of A European Bank Run: Look At The Banking Situation BEFORE The Run Occurs!
4. The Fuel Behind Institutional “Runs on the Bank" Burns Through Europe, Lehman-Style
5. European Bank Run Watch: Swiss Edition - BoomBustBlog
6. European Bank Run Watch: Spaniard Edition - BoomBustBlog
7. Bank Run! Italiano Style? - BoomBustBlog
8. French Bank Run - BoomBustBlog

Back to that Tyler piece:

...a process which can be visualized (in progress) in the following capital flow image, especially Figure 1.7: