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After Apple’s Rise, a Bruising Fall - (www.nytimes.com) Wall Street has turned viciously on its one-time iDarling. The rout in
Apple’s share price — it fell nearly 2.7 percent on Thursday, bringing the
damage since late September to 44 percent — has many wondering when, and where,
all of this will end. The answer, of course, is that no one really knows. Yes,
Apple is slowing, as companies inevitably do. But Apple remains enormously
profitable and the envy of corporations worldwide. And yet Apple’s decline in
the stock market has been so swift and so brutal that the development has begun
to change the way investors view the company. Apple no longer looks like a sure
thing.
Treasury's Miller: No banks will be bailed out - (www.marketwatch.com) No financial institution, regardless of its size, will be bailed out by
taxpayers again, Treasury Undersecretary for Domestic Finance Mary Miller said
Thursday. As a result of the Dodd-Frank bank regulatory reform,
"shareholders of failed companies will be wiped out; creditors will absorb
losses; culpable management will not be retained and may have their
compensation clawed back; and any remaining costs associated with liquidating
the company must be recovered from disposition of the company's assets and, if
necessary, from assessments on the financial sector, not taxpayers,"
Miller said in a speech at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. Miller
also said evidence was mixed on whether large financial institutions continue to
benefit from lower borrowing costs.
Swiss
Join Depositor-Confiscation Bandwagon With New "Bail-In" Law - (www.silverdoctors.com) The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) has quietly
joined the growing parade of western nations who have quietly re-written
banking laws to allow depositor bail-ins upon the next banking crisis. If
Switzerland, the once ultimate safe haven for banking deposits across the world
is preparing to confiscate depositors funds, there truly is no protection
anywhere other than physical gold and silver in your own possession! In the
event that a bank is failing or where its capitalization is no longer adequate,
the Swiss Financial MarketSupervisory Authority (“FINMA”) may take measures to
improve such bank’s financial viability rather thanliquidating it. “Loss
absorption” and “bail-in” are important instruments to support any such
measures.
Low
MLS inventory a boon to homebuilders - (www.ochousingnews.com) Monday, in the post Can the Fed reflate the housing bubble
without negative side effects?, I discussed the various market
distortions resulting from the federal reserve’s zero-interest-rate policy. The
inflated asset values are byproducts of the fed’s actions, but with respect to
housing, the distortion of market prices is what the federal reserve wants to
happen. To make the stimulus have good effect, lenders stopped foreclosing on
delinquent mortgage squatters and hoped to bait them into temporary loan
modifications with the carrot of rising home prices. The slowdown in
foreclosures caused the MLS inventory to evaporate. The result of the federal
reserve stimulus and the lack of MLS inventory is a supply of homes that fails
to meet current demand. Builders are taking advantage of the situation to ramp
up construction to deliver the supply the banks are not.
Cyprus
bail-out vote stirs fresh jitters as slump fears grow in Europe -
(www.telegraph.co.uk)
`Cyprus has stunned EU officials by ordering a vote in its parliament on
the terms of the EU-IMF Troika bailout for the country, risking a rejection by
angry lawmakers and a fresh eruption of the crisis. Attorney general Petros
Clerides said the assembly must have a say on the accord, which will inflict
huge losses on depositors at Laika and Bank of Cyprus. The Orthodox Church of
Cyprus expects to lose €100m, crippling its charities. It is unclear whether
the government can muster a majority as popular fury erupts. The Communists and
Socialists have been vehement critics of the deal. Green MP George Perdikis
told the Cyprus Mail that he would vote against it to uphold the “freedom” of
his country. “It is a crime to deliver Cyprus into the hands of the troika and
allow it to become a colony.”
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