by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Financial Engineering Wildest Since The 2007 Bubble
Financial engineering had a glorious year. Now finally, after five years, the crazy fun is back, and the good thing is: this time, it’s different. This time, the smart money is selling!
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Junk-Debt Time Bomb: Ticking Till The Fed’s Money Dries Up
Discount retailer Loehmann’s did what other retailers – and a large number of other junk-rated companies – will do once the Fed allows a sense of reality into the markets: it filed for bankruptcy. Investors had refused to fund further losses.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Fear and Trembling In Muni Land
Municipal bond investors, a conservative bunch eager to avoid rollercoasters and cliffhangers, are getting frazzled. Bankruptcies and the Fed’s taper cacophony are a toxic mix. So they’re bailing out of muni bond funds at record rate. Losses are mounting. And so are the fears.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on How Crazy Is The Auto Financing Frenzy?
A “positive spiral effect?” Lenders are closing their eyes, sales are soaring, risks are piling up, auto loan balances jumped 15% in 12 months to an all-time high, and repossessions in the subprime segment more than doubled.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Growing Expectations Of TBTF Bank Creditor Bailouts Tighten Their Tentacles Around Taxpayers
One of the few rebellious Fed heads, Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker, fired a salvo when testifying before the House Judiciary Committee. He hit Wall Street risks covered by implicit government guarantees in the size of America’s GDP.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on The Stock Bubble In Context (Will The Last Bear Please Turn Out The Lights?)
Stock market bubbles – they allow investors to make the mostest the fastest – don’t happen in a vacuum. They happen in a context. But this time, the context is different. Very different.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Municipal Bankruptcy? Why Not! And so The Floodgates Open
Individual investors have a unique opportunity now to buy sewer bonds – yup, that’s where they belong – issued by a bankrupt county to pay off holders of defaulted sewer bonds who’ll get a fashionable haircut as part of the deal – a deal made in bond-bubble heaven.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on The Day The Bubble Became Official, And Everyone Was Happy
A new era has dawned: there is now a consensus that this is a stock market bubble. We’re back where we were during the last bubble, or the one before it. How do I know it’s not just some intrepid souls on the bleeding edge who are claiming this, but a consensus?
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Money Manager Nightmare: “How Can I Explain To My Clients That We Had A Third Crash In 15 years?”
Sign of trouble: A wealth manager told me some of his elderly clients were now coming into his office, and they’d say, “My kids tell me that I can make 25% a year with stocks.” How much were they were willing to lose? “Nothing,” they’d say.
