Fanni & Freddie

[teejay]

Hi TJ,

I don't trade any asian markets, only take a look daily, but never at the internals. I see Shanghai took a pretty good hit today.

My rule is, when I'm confused I get out. I have a roadmap for what I expect to happen, when it doesn't I get out or reverse my position.

While you know I like volatility I place liquidity at much higher premiun. The Hang Seng, for me, is to volatile without sufficient liquidity. Even if one is right one might have to take a drawdown that I would find unacceptable.

Not haven't sufficient background in the area you're talking about, my only advice is, if you feel you've lost your bearings, or if the reasons you entered the trade are no longer extant, get out. Best of luck.

That's great advice lanna... get out when you lose your bearings... sometimes things trade so far from what I'd expect and I just gotta learn to let it go and get out...

[Naam]

Massive debt is deflationary. Deflation is a magnet for currency inflows. Many people in Thailand have large portions of their assets denominated in foreign currencies. Hence it's a relevant thread, just like "where's the GBP or USD or THB going?".

and i haven't heard of any farang retiree who draws a pension which is in Thai Baht and not in a foreign currency

[Naam]

Somebody make a 1-2 week predictions... Guesses are fine (well that's all they are, anyway right Naam ), I just wanna hear some input because today stunk to high heaven IMO. Vegas, bingo, and everybody in the middle can chime in too!

i predict that over the next 1-2 weeks we'll see some sunshine as well as some rain in Thailand. temperatures might vary between 25 and 35ºC and the average temperature in my house will be 26.5ºC (based on the assumption there are no power cuts).

[LaoPo]

The Fannie & Freddie Rescue Operation by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was applauded by the USA and the rest of the financial world.

Nevertheless:

FREDDIE MAC dropped a stunning -82.75 % today (Monday Sept. 8th)

whilst

FANNIE MAE dropped even further with -89.63 %

AND:

Some hedge funds win big with Fannie, Freddie bets

Mon Sep 8, 2008 3:56pm EDT

By Svea Herbst-Bayliss

BOSTON (Reuters) - Hedge fund managers who bet that housing finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would plummet further won big on Monday, while investors in the common shares who expected a recovery saw their losses widen.

"We are still short," said Douglas Kass, head of hedge fund Seabreeze Partners Management, as the two widely held mortgage companies' stock prices plunged to below $1 a share after the U.S. government seized the companies over the weekend.

People familiar with Kass' fund said he is up about 25 percent this year, ranking him among a small group of investors who turned conventional wisdom on its head and delivered huge gains while long-time investment icons like Bill Miller and David Dreman got it wrong.

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssFinanci...0080908?sp=true

LaoPo

[LaoPo]

Is America sinking ?

After Fannie & Freddie now we have Lehman Brothers; shocking....

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (Public, NYSE:LEH) -94% since 1 year ago (-80% in a week or so)

Freddie Mac (Public, NYSE:FRE) -99% since 1 year ago.

Fannie Mae (Public, NYSE:FNM) -99% since 1 year ago

Anyone a cookie with your coffee ?

I would love to hear the thoughts of 'our' TV Financial specialists about the contradiction of a rising USD and the -almost- bankrupt Financials/Banks and Mortgage Institutes on such a grand scale.

Warren Buffett this week told one of his Insurance Companies to back off insuring (banking) clients for more than the Fed is securing; more than 1,500 US Banks are in danger...

The trust in the American Dream has vanished, gone, out of the window....foreclosures are rising, people dropping the keys on the mail to the mortgage lenders and the Greenback is rising...

Other Giants, like the BIG 3 from Detroit are begging Washington for 50 BILLION $'s in order to survive; I could go on.

WHAT WENT WRONG ?

Anyone ?

Note:

I want to make clear here and now that I am NOT trying to bash upon America.

The US economy is far too important for the entire world that it is not my intention to bash upon whatever country. We live in a Global society and we need each other, and America is a very important part of the world economy and social life in that same -small- world.

LaoPo

Extra Edit:

Will Lehman be forced to break up?

By MarketWatch

Last update: 6:45 p.m. EDT Sept. 13, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The forced breakup of Lehman Bros. or even its liquidation became a possible scenario over the weekend as talks dragged on unsuccessfully Saturday between top U.S. financial officials and executives at major Wall Street firms trying to forestall the collapse of the investment firm and to keep weakness among financials from spreading.

Global concerns intensify

Global fears intensified over the weekend that the possible collapse of the country's fourth-largest investment bank would hurt markets and damage confidence.

Entire article:

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/lehm...14883CDBA87C%7D

Edited September 13, 2008 by LaoPo

[the scouser]

Paulson Plans to Bring Fannie... Under Government Control

As another poster previously commented: the schoolboy within me wants to smirk.

However, in all seriousness, what's happening is simply a consequence of capitalism. What really irks me are those who are willing to take a dividend when times are good, but who then go crying to the government as soon as things take a bit of a downturn. For heaven's sake: investors should live or die by their investment.

Scouse.

[LaoPo]

Paulson Plans to Bring Fannie... Under Government Control

As another poster previously commented: the schoolboy within me wants to smirk.

However, in all seriousness, what's happening is simply a consequence of capitalism. What really irks me are those who are willing to take a dividend when times are good, but who then go crying to the government as soon as things take a bit of a downturn. For heaven's sake: investors should live or die by their investment.

Scouse.

In bold:

You're right but that is not my point and was not the basis for my question.

The point is that the whole financial BASIC system is rotten into it's deepest roots and it started in the US and rolling out over the entire world.

I am not talking about gaining or losing money by investors. Investing money, whether on the stock market, setting up a business, buying real estate as an investment...there is ALWAYS a risk. We all know that.

This is different.

LaoPo

[OlRedEyes]

Time for another war....

[LaoPo]

Feds, Wall Street race to try to save Lehman

By JEANNINE AVERSA and JOE BEL BRUNO The Associated Press - Sunday, September 14, 2008; 7:39 AM

NEW YORK -- The field of possible buyers for Lehman Brothers narrowed Saturday, but the parties involved in the discussions over the wounded investment bank's future were at loggerheads over how to finance the rescue.

An investment banking official said Bank of America Corp. and Britain's Barclays Plc have emerged as the front runners for Lehman Brothers after a possible cash injection from its rival Wall Street banks and brokerages.

Top officials from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department and executives from several Wall Street banks met at the New York Fed's downtown Manhattan headquarters Saturday for the second day in a row try to hash out a deal to rescue Lehman Brothers.

The financial world was watching. Failure could prompt skittish investors to unload shares of financial companies, a contagion that might affect stock markets at home and abroad when they reopen Monday.

Discussions are expected to continue Sunday, said Andrew Williams, a spokesman for the New York Fed.

The investment banking official, who asked not to be named because the talks were ongoing, said the investment houses were balking at paying to polish up Lehman's balance sheet so Bank of America or Barclays could buy a financially clean firm.

He said the investment banks were angling for the government to provide some money, as it did when it helped JPMorgan Chase & Co. buy Bear Stearns in March, because they would get little to nothing in return for their help.

The government has drawn a line in the sand over using taxpayer money to help rescue Lehman Brothers, however.

The official said the talks were tense and neither side appeared willing to back down.

Besides selling the company whole or piecemeal, Lehman could be liquidated, perhaps with financial firms agreeing to still do business with the company as it wound down.

Or, a financial company or companies could buy Lehman's "good" assets. Its shunned or devalued real-estate assets could be placed in a "bad bank" financed by other banks.

Saturday's participants included Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Timothy Geithner, president of the New York Fed, and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox.

Citigroup Inc.'s Vikram Pandit, JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s Jamie Dimon, Morgan Stanley's John Mack, Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s Lloyd Blankfein, and Merrill Lynch & Co.'s John Thain were among the chief executives at the meeting.

Representatives for Lehman Brothers were not present during the discussions.

They gathered on the heels of an emergency session convened Friday night by Geithner _ the Fed's point person on financial crises.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is actively engaged in the deliberations but wasn't in attendance.

Geithner convened the meeting Friday evening and told bankers gathered at the New York Fed to come up with a solution or risk being the next to go under, investment banking officials with direct knowledge of the talks said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks were ongoing.

A spokesman for Lehman declined to comment about the meeting.

Other potential buyers could include Japan's Nomura Securities, France's BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank AG. All have declined to comment.

Participants in Saturday's meeting were also trying to tackle a broader agenda that includes problems at American International Group Inc. and Washington Mutual Inc., said the investment bank officials, who were briefed on the talks.

AIG, the world's largest insurer, and WaMu, the nation's biggest savings bank, have taken steep losses during the past year from risky investments. Investors, worried they do not have enough cash on their balance sheets to withstand further hits, unloaded their shares on Friday.

AIG's shares dropped about 31 percent on Friday. WaMu's shares shed about 3.5 percent. Shares of investment bank Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. also lost 12.3 percent. Lehman's stock closed at $3.65 Friday _ an all-time low and down nearly 95 percent from its 52-week high of $67.73.

Lehman Brothers and AIG are the top priorities, said the investment banking officials. WaMu insisted Friday it has adequate capital to fund its operations even as it announced another multibillion dollar write-down on bad mortgage loans.

WaMu has 76 percent of its deposits insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., an independent agency created by Congress to insure deposits in banks and thrifts up to at least $100,000. AIG has lost more than $18 billion over the last three quarters due to investments tied to subprime mortgages.

Global fears intensified Saturday that Lehman's collapse would stagger markets and undercut confidence in the U.S. financial system.

Germany's Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck urged that a resolution be found before Asian markets open, warning ominously, "the news that is coming out of the U.S. is bad."

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. put itself on the block earlier this week. Bad bets on real-estate holdings _ which have factored into bank failures and taken out other financial companies _ have thrust the 158-year-old firm in peril. It has been dogged by growing doubts about whether other financial institutions would continue to do business with it.

Richard S. Fuld, Lehman's longtime CEO, pitched a plan to shareholders Wednesday that would spin off Lehman's soured real estate holdings into a separately traded company. He would then raise cash by selling a majority stake in the company's unit that manages money for people and institutions. That division includes asset manager Neuberger Berman.

Government officials want to avoid a Bear Stearns-like bailout; the Fed in March agreed to provide a loan of nearly $29 billion as part of JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s takeover of the firm. Unlike Bear, Lehman can go directly to the Fed to draw emergency loans if it needs a quick source of ready cash. In recent weeks, though, there's been no indication that Lehman has done so.

Bear's sudden meltdown led the Fed to engage in its broadest use of lending powers since the 1930s. Fearful that other firms could be in jeopardy, the Fed temporarily opened its emergency lending program to investment firms, a privilege that for years was granted only to commercial banks, which are subject to tighter regulation.

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Those actions _ along with the Bush administration's take over of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac just last week _ have spurred concerns that taxpayers could be on the hook for billions of dollars and companies will be encouraged to take on extra risks because they believe the government will come to their aid.

Paulson and Bernanke, however, have said they needed to help Bear Stearns and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to avert a financial calamity that would devastate the national economy.

Lehman's Fuld is currently a member of the New York Fed's board of directors.

--Washington Post

LaoPo

[LaoPo]

"Jim Rogers : Let the Fannie and Freddie go bancrupt"

Amazing How Jim Rogers was right -again- July 15th, 2008; that's 2 months ago

This is a YouTube Video Interview....

http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=vWa9AfkjwoY&...feature=related

Hope you guys can watch it.

LaoPo