When the Going Gets Weird, the Weird Turn Pro

We just don't have the words.

Morgan Stanley to Advise U.S. Department of the Treasury Regarding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac


NEW YORK -- (Business Wire) --

Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) confirmed today that it has been

retained by the United States Department of the Treasury to provide

capital markets advice to support the Treasury's responsibilities

associated with its new authorities regarding Fannie Mae and Freddie

Mac. As part of that assignment, Morgan Stanley will support the

Treasury's work to promote market stability and the availability of

mortgage credit.


Morgan Stanley Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John J. Mack

said, "Morgan Stanley is honored to have been asked to serve as

financial advisor to the U.S. Treasury as it evaluates various

alternatives for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. We are pleased to be able

to offer our services to the government and look forward to working

with Secretary Paulson and his team as they work to restore stability

to the global capital markets and confidence in the U.S. housing

market." Morgan Stanley will accept no fees for this assignment and will

receive only $95,000 from the Government toward its expenses.

($95,000 for expenses? That's a lot of Taittinger at The Palm and VIP lapdances at Camelot. Or are we talking something a little more Spitzeresque? We'll take that job in a Manhattan minute for free. It would put a certain 'edge' to our blog. Think about it Hank. - Jesse)

The Message of the Markets

Today's market action looked like a major Wall Street insiders push to break the traders/funds who were playing the long oil-long metals - short dollar-short financials cross trades. They were leaning awfully hard on them.

Just as an update we took down our short oil - long gold cross trade the past couple days. We wanted to be in a stronger cash position to be a able to move quickly in case some things unfold as we expect they might.

The volumes are just not there so far to justify this run up in the stock indices. The Fed did not do anything today to justify a 300+ point rally. The spin on financial television is running hard from the 'chief strategists.' Wall Street wants to get the market up and offload more shares to mom and pop to further damage the economy for their own benefit. That's what they do. This is why our economy is sick. It is being run by shills and gamblers for the benefit of 'the house.'

We will be very surprised if the market does not sell off tomorrow, but we have an open mind and will start considering the notion of government intervention which could sustain a prolonged 'reflation rally.' If the Fed and Treasury can get behind this in a meaningful way then all bets are off.

But for now this just looks like the Wall Street wiseguys peeking at the other players cards from their seating vantage points as insiders and limit raising the bets against the prevailing trades on the trend fundamentals. If this is the case, the prior trends should reassert themselves within the week. If not, then we might be in a new ballgame.

We will WAIT for a sign that this is the case, although we did put on a few Sept. Index shorts into the close. There is no point jumping in front of this in case it is something more profound than just the usual Wall Street shenanigans.

More on Fisher and the Theory of the Great Depression

In 2006 a Mr. Alex Grey had posted an insightful comment on one of the financial blogs which we have kept in mind. Here it is in its entirety.

There was definitely a hole in Keynes' theory of the Great Depression. This has thankfully been filled by the article "Fisher, Keynes and the Corridor of Stability" by Robert Dimand (American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 64, No. 1 (January, 2005), pp. 185-199).

This article is I think the missing link that established that the Keynesian Liquidity Trap that characterised the Great Depression was a result of debt deflation as described by Fisher. This establishes that Friedman and Schwartz's view of the great Depression has the causality reversed - the economic contraction led to the contraction in monetary aggregates, notably M3. The Fed or its the equivalent could do little to avert this.

I think averting the process of debt deflation cannot be accomplished through monetary policy (Bernanke following Friedman believes the opposite). This again points to the contrast between Keynes and Friedman.

Evidence in support of the incorrectness of Friedman's view is seen in the experience of Japan in the 1990s where the government succeeded only in increasing M1 while M3 continued to shrink (see paper by Krugman (1997 on this) and asset prices, notably housing, continued to fall. The reason why monetary policy cannot avert debt deflation is that asset prices are bid up to unrealistically high levels during booms based on the same "animal spirits" that govern investment. When markets turn then so do expectations which cannot easily be reversed and certainly not by monetary policy.

Financial innovation as described by Minsky leads to greater increases in asset prices during booms as it permits greater amounts of borrowed funds to flow into asset markets making asset prices more sensitive to the business cycle. As a result the risks of debt deflation during cyclical downturns increases over time. The reasoning behind this is simple - the ultimate effect of all financial innovation is to increase the level of debt relative to income. At the macro level this entails an increase in the debt to GDP ratio.

Therefore the Great Depression can be viewed as the natural course of the business cycle in economies subject to financial innovation. The full downswing portion of the business cycle can be forestalled by Keynesian counter-cyclical policy however this has to be accompanied by financial regulation. If not, financial innovation risks creating pro-cyclical swings in asset prices that will ultimately swamp Keynesian counter-cyclical policy.

Since 1980 we have witnessed the elimination or substantial reduction in almost all legislation governing the financial sector. This combined with disinflation and financial innovation set in motion a period of sustained increase in private credit relative to GDP. The foregoing suggests that an imminent recession could morph into an economic depression if it triggers debt deflation.

There does seems to be little doubt that Bernanke et al. believe that they can mitigate the process of credit contraction through monetary policy. There is an interesting question about the possible inflationary effects.

It is to be expected that Bernanke et al. have all thought about this, and would seek to mask the short term inflationary effects and the indicators of this very phenomenon described by Alex Grey of a sluggish broader money supply as compared to the narrow measures which are more amenable to monetary policy.

There is it seems a significant wild card which few seem to account for explicitly in the relative values of currencies and their impact on the import prices of economically important commodities.

We will be speaking more about this in the future. One of the slants on this that seems worth considering is the difference between the Japanese economic experience, which so many cite, and the Russian experience, which is qualitatively different and perhaps illuminating of important elements and differences therein.

LEH in Talks to Sell Asssets and New Equity to Raise Capital

Lehman may have to raise capital if sells assets
Mon Aug 4, 2008 12:48pm EDT
By Dan Wilchins

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc is expected to follow in Merrill Lynch & Co Inc's footsteps and sell a lot of risky assets at a loss. But shedding the assets may create another headache for Lehman -- the need to raise large amounts of new capital, including common equity.

Any capital raise would be painful for Lehman and its shareholders, given that the company just raised $6 billion in June and trades at a significant discount to its book value, or the net accounting value of its assets.

But Lehman, the fourth-largest U.S. investment bank, may have little choice as it wrestles with roughly $65 billion in mortgage-related assets, particularly after Merrill Lynch agreed to shed $30.6 billion in toxic assets at a fire-sale price of 22 cents in the dollar, analysts said.

"Lehman's caught between a rock and a hard place. They're getting more and more pressure from regulators and investors to add reserves or mark these things down," said David Hendler, an analyst at independent research firm CreditSights in New York.

"In normal times, they could wait it out, but the market wants it done now," Hendler added.

The New York Post reported on Friday that Lehman was talking to potential buyers about selling $30 billion in assets. CNBC television reported Friday that Lehman was in talks with BlackRock Inc to sell mortgage securities and other assets. Both Lehman and BlackRock declined to comment.

Lehman's chief financial officer told Merrill analyst Guy Moszkowski recently that the investment bank was willing to sell assets at a loss if the deal materially reduced risk, the analyst said in a report.

Lehman had roughly $65 billion in mortgage and real estate-related assets on its balance sheet as of May 31.

Selling at a loss seems increasingly likely after the Merrill deal last week. Lehman's assets may be of much higher quality, but Merrill's low sale price for mortgage-linked securities implies that many banks' assets connected to mortgages may be marked down further.

Lehman wouldn't have to sell assets at much of a loss before it had to raise capital.

Brad Hintz, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, wrote in a note on Monday that any loss much greater than $1.5 billion -- which translates to selling $30 billion at a discount of at least a 5 percent to their current value on Lehman's books -- would likely force Lehman to issue at least some common equity.

Selling assets at enough of a loss would force Lehman to record a quarterly charge -- eating into capital for an investment bank that many investors already believe is undercapitalized. Any big reduction in Lehman's capital could bring pressure from regulators and rating agencies to raise capital.

Depending on the price that the assets are sold for, Lehman might have to raise $4.5 billion to $7 billion in capital to offset losses, CreditSights' Hendler said. Given that Lehman's market capitalization, or value in the stock market, is currently about $13 billion, such a capital raise could leave existing shareholders owning a much smaller portion of the company.

NEUBERGER UP FOR SALE?

If Lehman needs to raise more capital, it may consider selling all or a portion of its asset management business, analysts said -- a move mentioned in media reports as a possibility for weeks.

Investment banks have increasingly been looking to sell assets instead of issuing shares since shedding businesses that provide a relatively low amount of revenue may be less painful for shareholders than dramatically boosting outstanding shares.

Merrill sold back its 20 percent stake in Bloomberg LP, the news and financial data company, to Bloomberg Inc for $4.4 billion in July. It also said last month it was in advanced talks to sell a controlling stake in its Financial Data Services Inc unit, in a deal that could value the business at more than $3.5 billion.

Lehman's asset management unit, which includes the Neuberger Berman business that Lehman bought in 2003, generated about $1.88 billion in net revenue in 2007. Analysts estimate the unit could sell for about $8 billion.

Selling a business to raise capital may be better than issuing shares, but it is generally not pleasant, in part because getting a good price in a sale is tough now. Few buyers have the capital to make big acquisitions, and any potential acquirers know the sellers are anxious to sell assets.

Merrill Chief Executive John Thain told investors in June that he saw the Bloomberg business as worth between $5 billion and $6 billion, but the investment bank ended up selling it for less than that.

The Neuberger business is a steady generator of earnings for Lehman, which has helped stabilize Lehman's overall profits....