When I was reading “Street Fighters – The last 72 hours of Bear Stearns, The toughest firm on Wall Street” by Kate Kelly, the news broke out that MF Global, one of the world leading broker for futures and options has filled bankruptcy. According to the news, the collapse of MF Global was due to […]
Legg Mason Investment Conference 2011
Today I attended Legg Mason Investment Conference 2011 at The Fullerton Hotel. The title of the conference is “Beyond the market turmoil“. I feel some of the insights from the event are worth sharing given the current volatile markets. The European Crisis Presented by Michael R Story, the first slide states, “This is not a […]
Why Dexia Bank Collapsed Even After It Passed Stress Test
On 10 Oct 2011, Belgium, France and Luxembourg agreed to nationalise Dexia, Belgium’s biggest bank. Ironically, this happened just 3 months after it passed the stress test. In the press release on July 15, “2011 EU-wide Stress Test Results: No Need for Dexia to Raise Additional Capital”, it said “The EU-wide stress test, carried out […]
Moody's cut the long-term debt ratings of Société Générale SA and Crédit Agricole SA
According to Wall Street Journal, Moody’s Investors Service has cut the long-term debt ratings of Société Générale SA and Crédit Agricole SA on Wednesday and kept BNP Paribas SA under review for a downgrade. European banks are under tremendous pressure now, and the downgrade will just make the funding of the banks even more difficult. […]
The probablility for Greece to default
According to an report from bloomberg last week, the record high Credit-default swaps on Greek government debt is “signaling a 91% chance the nation will fail to meet debt commitments”. So Why did the situation become worse and worse. The article “What an impeccable disaster” in today’s Straits Times describe the event vividly: Investors, for […]
European Banks Under Pressure
According to Bloomberg, some of the European banks are being quoted higher rates in the commercial paper market. Premiums on short-term loans are rising as odds of a default by Greece grows. Moody’s is planning a downgrade on some of the banks. The eight biggest U.S. money-market funds reduced their investments in French banks by 46 percent […]