Global Correction

[glyph]

"you forgot again to jerk off today Bingo? "

In the Olypics weightlifting, they have the "clean and jerk". Bingo does it the other way around.

[bingobongo]

"you forgot again to jerk off today Bingo? "

In the Olypics weightlifting, they have the "clean and jerk". Bingo does it the other way around.

come on glyph, dont hate be becasue you are financially inept, rather than attack, provide some insight, speaking of olympics, what does it feel like to be ridden financially like a pommel horse by a young gymnast?

Japan Stocks Extend Weekly Drop on Oil Surge; Tiremakers Slump

Japan stocks fell, capping the Nikkei 225 Stock Average's biggest weekly loss in two months, on concern surging oil prices and rising credit costs will reduce earnings at manufacturers and financial companies.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...amp;refer=japan

[Thai at Heart]

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett claims America's struggling state-backed mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "are too big to fail" but shareholders could "lose a lot of money".

Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett believes the two companies don't have any net worth

"The game is over," the 77-year-old Berkshire Hathaway chairman said in a live blog on CNBC today.

"They were able to borrow without any of the normal restraints. They had a blank check from the federal government."

Asked if Fannie Mae is going under, Mr Buffett replied that in a sense both companies already have because they wouldn't survive without government backing.

"They priced risk wrong," he said. He believes the two companies "don't have any net worth".

advertisement

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae hit 20-year lows yesterday in New York on increased concerns that the US government will now be forced to lead a bail-out to prevent the mortgage market from becoming destabilised.

US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson won approval from Congress last month to pump emergency capital into the companies, which account for more than half of the country's $12 trillion (£6.5 trillion) mortgage market.

Any rescue is likely to leave shareholders with nothing.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtm.../bcnbuff122.xml

[cloudhopper]

Here's to Hoping Nouriel Roubini Is Proven Wrong: William Pesek

Commentary by William Pesek

Aug. 22 (Bloomberg) -- It's hard to forget your first Nouriel Roubini experience.

Fifteen months ago, I watched an Asian Development Bank audience in Kyoto squirm and fidget as the chairman of Roubini Global Economics LLC gave his bleak, contrarian opinion that the global financial system was about to hit a wall.

``After listening to you, I feel like I need a drink or a hug or something,'' I joked to him afterward. Roubini gets a lot of such quips, and as his direst predictions about a once-in-a- lifetime bust in the U.S. economy come ever closer to reality I find myself hoping he'll be proven wrong.

Hats off to Roubini. How many times in the past year did we hear people say ``this credit crisis is containable'' or ``the worst is over'' or ``subprime-loan problems won't spread to other asset classes,'' and the like?

Roubini didn't waver, and he took considerable flack for it.

That said, Asia had better hope Roubini's economic fears are proven wrong. Ditto for the gloomy predictions of Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Meredith Whitney, who recently was toasted on the cover of Fortune magazine.

Perhaps the magazine-cover curse will kick in and the attention being tossed at Roubini, profiled last week by the New York Times, and Whitney means the worst really is over. Of course, they might say it's just a matter of public perception catching up with the reality -- a financial system in tatters.

Subprime System

One reason to think Roubini won't be proven wrong is his argument that the problem isn't the subprime mortgage market -- it's a subprime U.S. financial system. Fixing the problems sending financial contagion around the globe will require tough decisions in Washington and reforms in Wall Street's securitization system. And that's hardly happening.

How far Wall Street's reputation has fallen since the collapse of Bear Stearns Cos. was revealed by the Aiful Corp. saga. Japan's biggest consumer lender by assets threatened to sue Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in June after analyst Walter Altherr called Aiful ``arguably insolvent'' in a report.

Lehman retracted the report earlier this month, yet not before Japan's investment community had a good chuckle. The fourth-largest U.S. securities firm, with a share price down 79 percent this year, calling another institution shaky? Talk about the proverbial pot calling the kettle black.

`Muddle Along'

Even the best-case scenario for Asia looks gloomy. As analysts like Mark Matthews of Merrill Lynch & Co. in Hong Kong point out, the next few years will see Asia-Pacific markets excluding Japan ``muddle along.'' Wasn't it just a year ago that investors were claiming Asia had decoupled from the U.S. economy?

The reasons Asia should hope Roubini eats some crow are many.

For one, the region remains too reliant on exports. While Asia made some progress boosting domestic demand, slowing U.S. growth will chip away at living standards from Seoul to Jakarta. For another, emerging markets may slide further if global investors become even more risk adverse.

Mark Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Asset Management, may indeed be right to call the decline in emerging- market stocks ``overdone.'' Still, a deep recession in the world's biggest economy could accelerate those losses.

Asia central banks amassed trillions of dollars of currency reserves in recent years, a move that won't seem illogical if Roubini is proved correct. That cash will be needed to provide insurance to global investors that the region won't see a repeat of its 1997 crisis.

U.S. Contagion

A decade ago, Asia was exporting financial contagion potent enough to send the Dow Jones Industrial Average down hundreds of points here and there. These days, the U.S. is returning the favor, just as Diwa Guinigundo, deputy governor of the Philippine central bank, predicted to me a year ago. Hats off to Guinigundo; he was absolutely right.

Where do we stand now? ``One year later, in the U.S. the lack of improvement in the money markets is still taking center stage,'' Roubini said yesterday. And the Federal Reserve, on top of cutting its benchmark interest rate 325 basis points, continues to expand its liquidity facilities ``without significant impact on credit creation.''

That's affecting emerging markets. For example, Roubini said, ``the global credit crisis has exacerbated home-grown liquidity squeezes in countries like South Korea.''

The question is how Asia would weather further weakness in the U.S. China's boom has provided some cushion, yet officials in Beijing are busily working to tame inflation. It also would be a mistake to think a U.S. recession won't slam China.

So here's to Roubini for having a good couple of years of economic prognosticating. And here's to hoping he'll be less right in the future. Asia's prosperity may depend on it.

(William Pesek is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: William Pesek in Tokyo at [email protected]

Last Updated: August 21, 2008 20:23 EDT

[ace]

Here's to Hoping Nouriel Roubini Is Proven Wrong: William Pesek

Commentary by William Pesek

Aug. 22 (Bloomberg) -- It's hard to forget your first Nouriel Roubini experience.

............................................

One reason to think Roubini won't be proven wrong is his argument that the problem isn't the subprime mortgage market -- it's a subprime U.S. financial system. Fixing the problems sending financial contagion around the globe will require tough decisions in Washington and reforms in Wall Street's securitization system. And that's hardly happening.

.........................................

Even the best-case scenario for Asia looks gloomy. As analysts like Mark Matthews of Merrill Lynch & Co. in Hong Kong point out, the next few years will see Asia-Pacific markets excluding Japan ``muddle along.'' Wasn't it just a year ago that investors were claiming Asia had decoupled from the U.S. economy?

.........................................

For one, the region remains too reliant on exports. While Asia made some progress boosting domestic demand, slowing U.S. growth will chip away at living standards from Seoul to Jakarta. For another, emerging markets may slide further if global investors become even more risk adverse.

.......................................

Mark Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Asset Management, may indeed be right to call the decline in emerging- market stocks ``overdone.'' Still, a deep recession in the world's biggest economy could accelerate those losses.

I saw this Roubini guy on CNN last night and yes he is kind of hard to forget. Doesn't blink. Once I think in a 20 minute interview, To be honest with his delivery, if he was reading Harry Potter it would be doom-laden, Lucky he's not a bull. I also note that no mention is made in the media about his history, just that he was bearish last year & had good publicity. You can keep crying wolf, one day one will turn up.

Now I'm no financial expert, just a punter really, but my private pension is heavily weighted to the Asian region. So I have been hit hard lately. It's put I think 2 years on my retirement and that's not good. At least I have the opportunity to rebuild my pension, others are not so lucky.

So I agree with Mobius. I am puzzled at the market reaction. Why does China lose the most, and Japan keep sinking slowly, and the emerging markets of Asia suffer much more than the American markets or even UK ? I mean, they didn't even hold so much US mortgage derivatives? OK oil etc. cost more but same for everyone outside of OPEC.

Let me put some data on the table:

SSE down 50% since 11/7

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=000001.SS

China's export growth accelerated in May, easing concern that a strengthening yuan and a slowdown in U.S. demand may be in the process of slowing excessively the Chinese economy. Overseas sales rose 28.1 percent from a year earlier, after gaining a revised 21.9 percent in April, according to the Chinese customs bureau today.

Exports to the U.S. rose 9.1 percent in the first five months from a year earlier, up from the 6.9 percent gain through April, the customs bureau said. Shipments to the European Union climbed 27.4 percent, an increase from 25.4 percent.

Machinery and electronic exports climbed 59 percent from a year earlier. Trade with India surged 70 percent in the first five months, the quickest gain among China's top 10 trading partners, the customs bureau said.

China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew 10.4 percent to 13.06trillion yuan (1.9 trillion U.S. dollars) in the first half over the same period last year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS)said on Thursday

Price rises for oil and farm produce worldwide would likely continue and shore up China's inflation, as the Chinese economy's reliance on the outside world is now more than 60 percent thanks to its 30-year-long opening-up.

Real GDP growth is forecast to slow but will remain impressive, easing from 11.9% in 2007 to 8.6% in 2012.

http://www.economist.com/countries/China/p...Economic%20Data

Nikkei down 20%

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=^N225

Mainland China has emerged as Japans top export destination

Exports rose 8.1 percent in July from a year earlier, topping a median market forecast for a 5.6 percent rise.

Exports to Asia, which account for roughly half of the overall shipments, rose 12.7 percent from a year earlier, while those to China jumped 16.8 percent, with shipments in value terms to both destinations marking the highest on record.

Adding to the gloom, high crude oil and raw material prices pushed Japan's import bills to a record high, slashing Japan's trade surplus by nearly 90 percent from a year earlier.

GDP growth is forecast to average 1.3% a year in 2008-12

http://www.economist.com/countries/Japan/p...Economic%20Data

FTSE 100 down 12%

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=^FTSE

UK economy comes to a standstill

UK economic growth ground to a halt between April and June, official figures show, heightening fears of a recession.

The public finances are forecast to deteriorate sharply as economic activity slows, with only a modest improvement expected later in the forecast period.

http://www.economist.com/countries/Britain...Economic%20Data

DJIA down 15%

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=^DJI

After a substantial slowing in 2007, GDP growth will weaken further in 2008, as the housing downturn and the credit crunch take their toll on households and companies. We expect growth to slow to 0.8% in 2008 and that the economy will experience a recession during the year. The main concern is that consumers will be hit more seriously than currently factored into our forecast. Growth will recover only slowly, to 1.1%, in 2009, owing to the lingering effects of the housing downturn and continued bank balance-sheet adjustment.

http://www.economist.com/countries/USA/pro...Economic%20Data

Of course there's a whole lot more out there, for example, recent Chinese banking record results.

Really, I don't get it. Why is China getting hit so hard? Is it because it is such a young market, difficult to invest in, frothy (that's my theory, either that or stupidity)? If so can we expect similar gains once the World economy gets it's house in order? And when will markets start to pick-up on the decoupling and increase in domestic demands for Asia?

[Naam]

Really, I don't get it. Why is China getting hit so hard? Is it because it is such a young market, difficult to invest in, frothy (that's my theory, either that or stupidity)? If so can we expect similar gains once the World economy gets it's house in order? And when will markets start to pick-up on the decoupling and increase in domestic demands for Asia?

if you mean the SSE by "China getting hit so hard" you have to look at the bigger picture and select a longer period. the SSE bubble is not related to China's economy but based on "hausse feeds hausse" and a few million compulsive gamblers who thought trees grow sky high.

[bingobongo]

the time is coming children, learn patience ................

The government in Thailand faces serious urban unrest

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displa...ory_id=11998386

[glyph]

"dont hate be becasue you are financially inept..."

You are not important enough to hate.

[bingobongo]

glyph,

why do you despise me so (not that i care)

dont hate me because thailand is going nowhere fast and has no future (politically or financially)

hate yourself because of your poor choices in life, not me because i am merely stating facts

when your midlife crisis ends, only then will your realize your mistakes

[Naam]

are

we

supposed

to

read

between

your

lines

Bingo?

[bingobongo]

why all the hate when in fact you and you alone are responsible for being separated from your money? dont blame me becasue some of you have about as much vision as a blind beggar

rates rising, civil unrest, and baht weakening.................dont catch a falling knife

rates up, asset prices down.......

Thailand Raises Rate for 2nd Time to Tame Inflation #

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...&refer=asia

[Naam]

why all the hate when in fact you and you alone are responsible for being separated from your money?

last time i looked my money was still there

[Naam]

(bingobongo @ 2007-08-17 20:25:54)

The global bust is coming and not all the liquidity, denial, and som tham in the world will prevent it........

377 days and counting.

[Crushdepth]

Stocks jump on better-than-expected GDP, jobs data

The Commerce Department's report that gross domestic product rose at an annual rate of 3.3 percent for the April-June period followed several economic readings this week that have left guarded investors somewhat optimistic. The weaker dollar helped boost U.S. exports, which pushed GDP growth beyond the government's initial estimate of 1.9 percent as well as economists' forecast of 2.7 percent...

....Also Thursday, the Labor Department said the number of newly laid off people seeking jobless benefits fell for the third straight week. Claims dropped to a seasonally adjusted 425,000, down 10,000 from the previous week. That was slightly better than the 427,000 expected by analysts surveyed by Thomson/IFR.

378 days, and I'm still waiting for the Global Catastrophe of Doom with my tinfoil hat. But wait, whats this...light at the end of the tunnel? Can we call it a recession if economies are still growing?

Edited August 29, 2008 by Crushdepth

[glyph]

"why do you despise me so (not that i care)"

If you don't care, why did you ask the question? I don't despise you. You represent the socially-challanged, the disenfranchised, and the marginalized farangs that are thisclose to collecting plastic bottles. You are a black hole of fear and ignorance and, ss such, you are a constant source of amusement and entertainment to the rest of us. Keep up the good work.

[PCA]

How sick this thread becomes. Really time to close it. The only thing what might be annoying is the arrogant style of the OP which doesnt change the fact that he was right with his predictions so far.

A global correction happened. Financial markets are down and interest rates below inflation. The average earners from low- and middle class now have less purchasing power than a year ago. Is it the end of the world? No.

[cclub75]

378 days, and I'm still waiting for the Global Catastrophe of Doom with my tinfoil hat. But wait, whats this...light at the end of the tunnel? Can we call it a recession if economies are still growing?

A "global catastrophe" like you say takes time to build up.

More seriously, we need to look at the details of the revised Q2 GDP in the US, before to cheer up, and run to buy a new house, another car etc.

-the deflator is still ridiculously low.

The rule is : the lower the deflator is, the higher will be the "real" GDP. And when we do year on year comparison we take always real GDP (constant prices).

Everything is explained here.

-exports, boosted by weak USD, gave a boost to the GDP. Fair enough. But we can doubt to have a trend there... Since Q2, we can see slowdown in many other countries (Eurozone for instance, Japan). That should not fuel the US exports in the future.

-Q2 was "pay day" with the US government giving away free money to the tax payers... What will happen now, when this money is already spent ?

-basically, nothing is solved in front of the financial crisis : more write off, more losses, more layoffs. Is this situation healthy, as far as GDP is concerned ?

-no bottom in sight for the real estate crisis. Again, it is a reason to be optimistic ? More foreclosures, more pressures on financial assets etc.

So, basically nothing has changed : the "global catastrophe" is still scheduled. Time is running out. They (brilliantly) managed to keep up until the elections... But after...

[pkrv]

From memory I believe the cost of a US fighter aircraft such as the Mustang cost 250K USD during the Second World War. They were tipped into the sea when ‘finished’ with and then there were tanks, food rations etc….

Err a manipulation of economics, not crisis, may be a better explanation.

[dotcom]

China, with a growth rate of 8-10% is busy hatching a "Stimulus Plan".

Inflation is not an issue.

YET.

[Naam]

How sick this thread becomes. Really time to close it. The only thing what might be annoying is the arrogant style of the OP which doesnt change the fact that he was right with his predictions so far.

A global correction happened. Financial markets are down and interest rates below inflation. The average earners from low- and middle class now have less purchasing power than a year ago. Is it the end of the world? No.

i beg to differ. Bingo's post have quite some entertainment value

[bingobongo]

the amount of financial pain that is coming to LOS will not be mitigated by adult diapers, retirement visas, viagra, young thai women making old farang benefactors feeling young again, or seniors dealing with midlife crisis delusion....

Thailand's political crisis deepens amid protests

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/thai...3687F86E88D5%7D

[Naam]

entertainment. i told you so!

[Naam]

Thailand's political crisis deepens amid protests

good! Baht weakens.

[bingobongo]

LOS is oh so predictable....................

Thai Baht, Stocks Slump; Samak Imposes Emergency Rule

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...&refer=asia

[pkrv]

Thanks Bonkers - I was just pondering 'bumping' this tread, as it fell off the first page - Keep it up PLEASE.

[bingobongo]

it isn't going to work, so better hold onto your som tham.........

Central bankers in Asia intervene as dollar gains

The Bank of Thailand said it had sold dollars to put a floor under the baht, which hit a one-year low of 34.49 per dollar on growing political tensions.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/02/business/bankers.php

[midas]

I thought this was quite revealing :-

[LaoPo]

Borrowing by Depository Institutions from the Federal Reserve

From December 2007 to May 2008 they borrowed 195 Billion Dollars which is 22 times more than in the past 6 years.

Is that corret what it says ? (badly visible image) that's quite a bit of money in 5/6 months

LaoPo

[Naam]

where is Bingo? i am worried!

[bingobongo]

strap in, for those who did not sell on the bounces, get ready to bend over.............

all markets will be affected........the stupid deserve to be separared form their money

U.S. Stock Futures Tumble on Concern Lehman to File Bankruptcy

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...&refer=home