Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Wednesday January 21 Housing and Economic stories

TOP STORIES:

Hey, You—Keep Your Hands Off My Loan – (www.businessweek.com) What do money managers Highland Capital Management, Fortress Investment Group (FIG), and Cerberus Capital Management have in common? All three are on a list that bars them from buying any part of a $155 million loan to Quadriga Art, a company that helps charities raise money—even though the loan trades on U.S. markets. RBS Holding, which owns Quadriga Art, last year banned those three companies and seven others from investing in the loan, according to two people with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be named because the decision was private. RBS deemed the companies to be too demanding in debt restructurings that take place when a borrower runs into financial trouble, the people say. Executives at RBS, which has no connection to the Royal Bank of Scotland, took a potential restructuring into consideration as Quadriga’s business faltered.

A New Year 'Bail-in' Resolution - [2015-01-12] - ``Depositors with large cash balances are the worst positioned to face the next banking crisis due to their status as unsecured ... G20 leaders asked the Financial Stability Board (FSB) to develop a policy framework to address the systemic risks associated with large financial institutions. The FSB developed a set of policy measures that included, among other tools, mandatory creditor-funded recapitalizations (in other words, “bail-ins”). This framework was endorsed at the Seoul Summit in 2010 and implementation of these measures has started in 2012, with full implementation targeted for 2019. Unsurprisingly, the creditor-funded recapitalization template laid out by the FSB has been endorsed by the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) who have also released position papers in support of the bail-in framework. The below reports released by powerful supranational institutions that are shaping our financial system highlight this shift in policy: Financial Stability Board , 2011, Effective Resolution of Systemically Important Financial Institutions

$50 Oil Kills Bonanza Dream Making Greenlanders Millionaires - (www.bloomberg.com) Greenland, an island that may be sitting on trillions of dollars of oil, has had to acknowledge that its dream of tapping into that wealth looks increasingly far-fetched. Back when oil was headed for $150 a barrel, Greenlanders girded for a production boom after inviting in some of the world’s biggest explorers, including Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM)Now, with Brent crude dipping below $50 last week, Deputy Prime Minister Andreas Uldum says Greenland’s hope of growing rich quickly on fossil fuels was “naïve.” “I myself believed back when I was first elected” to parliament in 2009 “that billions from oil and minerals would start flowing to us the next year or the year after that,” he said in an interview in Copenhagen. “However, that’s just not the reality. I don’t know any politician in Greenland today who won’t admit to having fueled the hysteria.”

Billionaire Paulson Hit by 2014 Losses; Advantage Plus Fund Declines 36% - (www.bloomberg.com) Billionaire John Paulson posted the second-worst trading year of his career in 2014 as a wrong-way energy bet added to declines tied to a failed merger and investments in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The worst performance was in the Advantage Plus fund, which plummeted 36 percent last year, two people with knowledge of the returns said. The event-driven strategy, which uses leverage to make bets on companies undergoing transformations such as spinoffs and bankruptcies, lost 3.1 percent in December, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The 59-year-old manager also lost money in a credit pool, special situations fund, and barely broke even in a fund that bets on company mergers. Paulson & Co.’s performance placed it near the bottom of the hedge fund pack last year as the industry returned a meager 1.4 percent. The manager, who shot to fame after making $15 billion on the housing crisis in 2007, has struggled to regain its footing since 2011 when bets on the U.S. recovery went awry, losing money in all of its main strategies -- including a 51 percent tumble in the Advantage Plus fund. Paulson also lost money in investments tied to gold and Europe’s economy, causing assets to dwindle to $19 billion, half the peak in 2011.

Gold Hits $1235 As Commodities Crash To 12-Year Lows Amid $45 Oil - (www.zerohedge.com) The only other times that Bloomberg's broad-based (i.e. not all OPEC's fault) Commodity Index has fallen so far so fast was in 1999 (before stocks crashed) and 2008 (before stocks crashed). At 12-year lows, the raw material of the world's economies is flashing a big fat red warning signal that all is not well (despite stocks being a 'smidge' off record highs). WTI traded with a $45 handle...but apart from that, everything's great (oh wait and the 230 pip USDJPY roundtrip). Amid all this turmoil, gold just broke to $1235 - its highest in a month.





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