Archive for November 19th, 2008

OMG, Mr. Paulson Agreed with Us Twice in One Week!

Andy Spero | November 19, 2008 | 0 Comment(s) |

Update (01-20-09): now that Mr. Paulson’s term as Treasury Secretary has ended, we must admit that the small bit of optimism we exhibited in this post was sadly and unfortunately misplaced.  It was out-of-character for us, but we’re a hopeful pesimist.  He quickly reverted to his behavior of September and October, and for that, the markets, the nation, and the world have and will continue to suffer.

We hope that his earlier actions haven’t caused irreparable damage, but we’re doubtful.

This is a longish post that covers several aspects of theRead the rest

Warren Buffett, Jimmy Buffett and Luck

Andy Spero | November 19, 2008 | 0 Comment(s) |

We were surfing the web this morning, and found this very nice analysis of Warren Buffet at Yahoo Finance: Down $16 Billion – Has Warren Buffett Lost His Touch?

It’s well-balanced and well-written, but the author, Simon Maierhofer, notes that the last two months of reality have not been very kind to Mr. Buffett.

We’re not into hero worship; so, we could never understand the fascination with Mr. Buffett (or anyone else for that matter).

We understand that the business media focus on personalities as they are much more interesting thanRead the rest

CMBS Is Like Lumpy MBS and That's Not Good

Andy Spero | November 19, 2008 | 1 Comment(s) |

We’ve discussed Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities or CMBS in a number of posts.  So, it’s worth mentioning that spreads on AAA CMBX (CDS) increased substantially on Tuesday.  At about 550 basis points, those spreads seem to be twice as high as the previous all-time high, which was reached in the late winter of this year, and are seven or eight times higher than on January 1.

It’s much harder to say where spreads on CMBS (bonds) are since they tend not to trade.  Historically, they didn’t trade much, and now… Read the rest