Bailout

How Goldman offloaded its toxic assets

Posted on April 28, 2010
Chris Nicholson finds a particularly damning email in the mountains of evidence released by the Senate investigations committee. It's written by someone on Goldman Sachs's European sales desk:

Why did all those super-seniors exist?

Posted on April 28, 2010
Pablo Triana asks, via email, about all that super-senior risk that was sloshing around the financial system when everything imploded in 2008. Did most of it actually need to exist? Or was it a conscious and voluntary decision on the banks' part to create it and, often, to hold on to it?

Counterparties

Posted on April 27, 2010
Felix Salmon smackdown watch, organic farming edition -- Foreign Policy

Roubini on Greece

Posted on April 27, 2010
Nouriel Roubini, it can be safely said, gives good panel -- especially when the subject is the eurozone and the possible disintegration thereof. He's been bearish on the PIGS in general and on Italy in particular for many years now, but I don't think it comes as much surprise to him or to anybody else that Greece is the first country really in the firing line.

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

Talking with Glenn Yago about financial innovation

Posted on April 27, 2010
I've been having a debate with Glenn Yago on this blog about financial innovation, so it was good to be able to sit down with him and talk face-to-face:

Is it now too late to save Greece?

Posted on April 27, 2010
When Goldman Sachs noticed a pattern of regular losses in its mortgage book at the end of 2006, it decided to start going short, in a move which helped to position it as the most successful bank in the financial crisis. The markets have learned their lesson: now that Greece and Portugal have been downgraded, the rush to the exits is palpable: the flight to quality is on, and bond yields in the European periphery are going stratospheric.

The Goldman hearings

Posted on April 27, 2010
The Goldman Sachs hearings today are making for fascinating theater. The official Goldman statements are strong, especially that of Fabrice Tourre:

Counterparties

Posted on April 26, 2010
Larry Summers Defends Megabanks, Says Too Many Small Banks Make U.S. 'Less Stable' -- HuffPo

Schwab?s YieldPlus: The denoument

Posted on April 26, 2010
The LAT's Walter Hamilton makes a good point: with all the brouhaha over Goldman Sachs, how come the Charles Schwab news is considered positive for the company? Schwab's stock rose by 1% after it said it would pay $200 million to settle a class action suit over its YieldPlus fund, which imploded after the company filled it up with toxic mortgage assets.

Levin vs Blankfein

Posted on April 26, 2010
I am awed by Carl Levin's ability to orchestrate press coverage of Goldman Sachs of late. When he released some pretty benign emails from Goldman, they got splashed all over the front page of the NYT; and today's batch of emails is causing a whole new set of headlines, even after today's WSJ story along similar lines.

Did ABN Amro hedge its ACA exposure?

Posted on April 26, 2010
I just found this, buried in a Landon Thomas story on Abacus at the end of last week:

The depressing outlook for Greece

Posted on April 26, 2010
I just had a very interesting conversation poolside at the Beverly Hilton with a couple of high-profile delegates at the Milken Global Conference. The pool, one level down from where all the panels take place: is clearly the place to be: Arnold Schwarzenegger was just a couple of tables away...

Deutsche Bank and CDO disclosure

Posted on April 26, 2010
John Carney and Teri Buhl have a tantalizing story up at the Atlantic today:

The Goldman wars continue

Posted on April 24, 2010
There is no scandal whatsoever associated with Goldman Sachs emails released by Senator Levin today. They show Goldman people going about their line of work, doing what Goldman people do, taking long positions, taking short positions, sometimes even taking big short positions...

USAA?s anti-finreg campaign

Posted on April 23, 2010
The Euro-style bancassurance business model has never really taken off in the U.S., but there's one big exception: USAA, the financial services company for military families. It's an insurer which owns an excellent bank, and that structure -- which is unusual if not unique in this country -- puts it into conflict with the Volcker rule...

The Abacus prospectus

Posted on April 23, 2010
I know you've been waiting for this one -- here you go! Enjoy all 196 pages of it, and let me know what you find: Matthew Goldstein has already found a Goldman conflict of interest on page 71 (page 77 of the PDF) -- the "Initial Collateral Security that is a CLO Security" turns out to be another Goldman product...

Goldman?s biggest lie

Posted on April 23, 2010
Alea has given us Abacus for Dummies: a very useful quick overview of the structure of the deal. And in doing so, he helps to reveal Goldman's biggest lie.

How important is IKB?s sophistication?

Posted on April 23, 2010
John Carney has a defense of Goldman Sachs up at the Daily Beast, based on the not-novel-at-all idea that the investors in the Abacus deal were sophisticated.

Counterparties

Posted on April 22, 2010
Obama's speech as delivered -- White House

Has the SEC changed the culture of Wall Street?

Posted on April 22, 2010
Michael Lewis addresses the fixed-income group at Goldman Sachs:

Paulson?s letter appears, but not in the press

Posted on April 22, 2010
When the WSJ and FT wrote articles about Paulson's letter to investors yesterday, I was cross: I wanted to see it, and they neither posted it nor linked to it. Since then, it has appeared on both Zero Hedge and the Big Picture; it can be downloaded directly here.

Goldman?s Abacus fee

Posted on April 22, 2010
A reader writes in with an extremely good question -- does anybody know the answer?

Counterparties

Posted on April 21, 2010
What on earth is Bloomberg doing hiring Ben Stein to write for them? -- Bloomberg

Did ACA know Paulson was going short?

Posted on April 21, 2010
Steve Liesman has got his hands on Paolo Pellegrini's testimony to the SEC, and you can see why the Goldman case seems to be building up to the conclusion that ACA did know Paulson was going short the deal:

Revisiting rent vs buy

Posted on April 21, 2010
David Leonhardt today revists the great rent vs buy debate -- something I was talking about on All Things Considered just this weekend. He's also updated the excellent NYT rent vs buy calculator, which he uses to agree with Dean Baker that the point at which it makes more sense to buy than to rent is probably closer to 15 than to 20, if you're looking at the ratio of house price to alternative annual rent.

Zuckerman defends Paulson

Posted on April 21, 2010
Bess Levin has a Q&A today with John Paulson's biographer Greg Zuckerman:

The Paulson letter

Posted on April 21, 2010
Both the WSJ and the FT have got their hands on a letter from John Paulson to his investors, but infuriatingly neither of them have seen fit to share it with their readers. So we're left with a few snippets of direct quotes, and we have to simply guess at the overall tone of the note.

Counterparties

Posted on April 20, 2010
The full list of comments received by the Basel III committee. Happy reading! -- BIS

The Goldman and Magnetar letters

Posted on April 20, 2010
Goldman's letters to the SEC make for fascinating reading, and I've learned quite a lot from them, including where Goldman's $90 million loss came from: tt's not an unfunded equity tranche at all! Here's Goldman's first letter to the SEC:

Revisiting the Magnetar Trade

Posted on April 20, 2010
In the wake of the SEC charges against Goldman Sachs, a lot of people have been wondering whether Magnetar, or its bankers, might be next up in the SEC's crosshairs. Moe Tkacik has been looking into Magnetar for a couple of months now, and I spent a lot of time on IM with her today, learning just what it is about Magnetar which seems to drive people crazy -- to the point at which they'll happily spend seven months on a journalistic investigation of the company.

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.