A Financial Market Crash is a Process, Not an Event

[Charles Mackay]

Re: A Financial Market Crash is a Process, Not an Event

Fred posted Eric's "Market Crash" commentary late Thursday morning--~ 48 hours it's been up.

It has drawn 17,111 views, which from what I can determine is way more certainly than anything else posted in the same time-frame.

I also noted just now there are 24,876 Currently Active Users, which I think may be the most users ever online.

What all this suggests to me is there is a lot of nervousness amongst investors.

It sure would be nice if some of them would post remarks regarding what are their concerns.

Jim, did you see the crash in T Bill rates? ... from 5% to 3.7% in the last few weeks. And then the run on banks (Countrywide) and the run on hedge funds. It appears that the fear is insolvency and default. I think the switch from risk taking to hoarding is in full gear... as well as it should be with 80 million aging boomers.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: A Financial Market Crash is a Process, Not an Event

Jim, did you see the crash in T Bill rates? ... from 5% to 3.7% in the last few weeks. And then the run on banks (Countrywide) and the run on hedge funds. It appears that the fear is insolvency and default. I think the switch from risk taking to hoarding is in full gear... as well as it should be with 80 million aging boomers.

Yes, I watch, or try to watch, a lot of markets, and through good luck have not suffered much in the way of losses in the past month--but I have lost some. It just struck me that the increased numbers online here at iTulip and reading EJ's note on "Crash" that was getting a helluva lot of hits was prompted by something going on in the investment world.

My assumption was there suddenly was a lot of fear amongst investors--which might have no validity at all.

No FNG's seem to have taken up my invitation to comment on their concerns, so perhaps there are no greater concerns now than usual, though I doubt it.

Incidentally, Charles MacKay, is that your real name or the name of the same guy Tet quotes in all his signatures?

[GRG55]

Re: A Financial Market Crash is a Process, Not an Event

Jim: From the market behaviour in Asia and Europe today it would appear that fear is still some distance from convincingly trumping greed. However, the need for cash last week was rather acute. There are reports that some European banks were calling borrowers last week asking them to kindly advance their next monthly mortgage payment by a few days.

[nksantabarbara]

Re: A Financial Market Crash is a Process, Not an Event

This may be a little off topic but what I cannot figure out is why nobody is complaining about the obvious insider trading on Thursday by those who knew about the discount window rate cut in advance. It is the only reason why the market could have moved up 300 point to finish about even on Thursday. For those of us who were short the S&P thru VIX options and wanted to cash in our hedges on Thursday or Friday, it was a major blow (not to mention that Schwab shut down right in the middle of the day when the moment shifted so there was no way to cash out your options). It seems obvious that the SEC should look into who bought all those financial company shares once word got out to push the market up so suddenly. And it is amazing that Bernanke and the Fed would manipulate the market by choosing options day to ruin all those short positions - wonder who was long or who had written all those S&P puts.

[jk]

Re: A Financial Market Crash is a Process, Not an Event

And it is amazing that Bernanke and the Fed would manipulate the market by choosing options day to ruin all those short positions

greenspan did the same thing. i forget the date.

[Charles Mackay]

Re: A Financial Market Crash is a Process, Not an Event

This may be a little off topic but what I cannot figure out is why nobody is complaining about the obvious insider trading on Thursday by those who knew about the discount window rate cut in advance. It is the only reason why the market could have moved up 300 point to finish about even on Thursday. For those of us who were short the S&P thru VIX options and wanted to cash in our hedges on Thursday or Friday, it was a major blow (not to mention that Schwab shut down right in the middle of the day when the moment shifted so there was no way to cash out your options). It seems obvious that the SEC should look into who bought all those financial company shares once word got out to push the market up so suddenly. And it is amazing that Bernanke and the Fed would manipulate the market by choosing options day to ruin all those short positions - wonder who was long or who had written all those S&P puts.

Welcome to a world run by Henry Paulson types... you can forget transparency and oversight until the TEOTWAWKI ... Did you see that they just made shorting on down ticks legal again last week? That rule was put into effect during the last TEOTWAWKI event in the 30's. :eek:

[bill]

Re: A Financial Market Crash is a Process, Not an Event

Rumour or?

http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/...fx4039427.html

AFX News Limited
WALL STREET OUTLOOK down on talk large US bank filed for Chapter 11 protection
08.21.07, 10:43 AM ET

LONDON (Thomson Financial) - Wall Street is now expected to open lower amid widespread talk that a major US investment bank has filed for Chapter 11 protection, although dealers have dismissed the talk.
'We've heard vague talk a US investment bank is in trouble,' one dealer said.
Another said he had heard that a banking group has filed for Chapter 11 protection, but pointed out that any such news would be on the SEC website.
'I don't believe it for a moment.'
Even so, the rumours are unsettling market watchers and US futures moved lower, he said.
S&P futures -- which stop trading 15 minutes before the S&P 500 index opens -- closed down 3.9 points, or 0.27 pct. Earlier, futures had indicated a higher open.
deborah.hyde@thomson.com
dlh/lce

[FRED]

100 Years of Progress in Banking: Bank runs pictures as color digital images

Where are we in the crash process?

Run on the bank: 1896




Run on the bank: 1914




Run on the bank: 1933




Run on the bank: 2007



Fifth Day of Christmas?

[GRG55]

Re: A Financial Market Crash is a Process, Not an Event

Another brick in the wall?
Basel regulators believe crisis far from over
Fri Oct 5, 2007 9:12am EDT
By Thomas Atkins
ZURICH, Oct 5 (Reuters) - The global credit crisis is far from over and may come in waves, a source close to the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision said on Friday.

Regulators from around the world will meet next week to discuss what the source described as the "hard-core liquidity crisis" which has forced central banks to inject billions of dollars in emergency liquidity into the banking system.

But the source, who declined to be named, said the Basel Committee was unlikely even to discuss suggestions that central banks should become market makers of last resort when liquidity dries up, saying such an idea is out of the question.

Stock markets have hit record highs in recent days due to optimism that the worst of the credit crisis may be over, while primary U.S. bond markets and some loan markets have revived following the Federal Reserve's interest rate cut on Sept. 18.

But regulators on the Basel Committee are less optimistic as they gather in the Swiss city. "In banking and in supervisory circles, this crisis is far from over," said the source. "This crisis may unfold itself in waves."
The Committee will put the liquidity crisis, in which banks have been largely unwilling to lend to each another, at the top of its agenda, the source said.

"Liquidity hasn't played a big role so far but now we can see that we have a hard-core liquidity crisis," said the source. "This is something that has very rarely happened before ... where banks don't trust each other."
Liquidity -- or lack of it -- is one of the top risks for banking institutions, but rulebooks such as the international Basel II accord which the Committee drew up have focused instead on capital requirements.


STRESS TEST
Committee deliberations are unlikely to result in proposals for a new liquidity risk charge -- which would force banks to set aside more emergency cash -- but rather in guidelines or "soft regulations" on how to cope with crises, the source said.

"The core of the issue is stress testing and contingency plans," the source said.

The source said Committee members were unlikely even to debate suggestions by some private-sector bankers that central banks become market makers of last resort for illiquid assets to keep the wheels of international finance turning.

"This is out of the question. This is something the market wants but at the current time there is no debate on this," the source said.
"If any central bank opened this possibility, they would be flooded, literally flooded, with hundreds of billions in asset backed commercial paper," the source said. "This would be a classical case of bailing out the speculators."

The global credit crisis that developed in August was triggered by defaults on U.S. mortgage debt that had been extensively repackaged and sold as asset backed securities to institutions, including hedge funds, around the world.

Regulators have been torn between ensuring that markets keep working by providing emergency liquidity, and the risk that this will simply inflate another market bubble following the equities boom of the late 1990s and the property boom of this decade.

They are also anxious to avoid "moral hazard" in which investors, shielded from risk by official bailouts, are encouraged to behave increasingly recklessly.

Link to article:
http://www.reuters.com/article/bonds...64880620071005

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: A Financial Market Crash is a Process, Not an Event

Another brick in the wall?
Basel regulators believe crisis far from over
Fri Oct 5, 2007 9:12am EDT
By Thomas Atkins
ZURICH, Oct 5 (Reuters) - The global credit crisis is far from over and may come in waves, a source close to the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision said on Friday.

Regulators from around the world will meet next week to discuss what the source described as the "hard-core liquidity crisis" which has forced central banks to inject billions of dollars in emergency liquidity into the banking system.

Nice find, GR.

Below in what John Hussman, PhD, writes about "injecting liquidity" into the banking system. http://hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc071008.htm

October 8, 2007
The Bag Will Not Inflate, And Liquidity Will Not Be Flowing
John P. Hussman, Ph.D.
All rights reserved and actively enforced.
Reprint Policy

As expected, the Fed entered $28 billion of repurchases on Thursday to roll over existing repos that were due on that day. The Fed did not “add” or “inject” reserves to the banking system, nor has any amount of overall reserves been added in recent weeks. There have been no “permanent” open market operations, and “temporary” ones have been pure rollovers of existing repos. Aside from $3 billion that banks briefly borrowed from the Fed a few weeks ago, the Fed has not “added liquidity” through the discount window either. The total amount borrowed by the banking system through the discount window fell to just $202 million last week. Meanwhile, the total reserves of the banking system remain about $45 billion, nearly all of which represents temporary repurchase agreements that are continuously rolled over as they become due.

Fed Open Market Operations: http://www.ny.frb.org/markets/openmarket.html
Total Discount Window Borrowings: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/TOTBORR.txt
Total Bank Reserves: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/TRARR.txt

Roughly $30 billion of repos will roll over this Thursday; $24 billion of 7 day repos from last week, and another $6 billion in 14 day repos from the week before.

The reason all of this is worth noting is because investors are putting so much false hope on the notion that the Fed is “injecting” all sorts of “liquidity” into the markets. Analysts discuss this as fact, when they evidently have not even looked at the facts. They literally make things up and present their claims as truth. At one particular moment last week, a guest on one of the CNBC morning programs spoke authoritatively about the enormous amount of liquidity the Fed is pumping into the economy, and how “all that liquidity has to go someplace, and a lot of it is finding its way into the stock market.” At that point I stopped watching out of the instinctive will to live.

My immediate objection to that statement, of course, is that there is no liquidity being “injected” at all. The Fed certainly has a psychological effect on investors, provides coordinating signals to banks, manages an interest rate on a very stable $40-$45 billion pool of reserves through its “temporary” open market operations, facilitates the predictable issuance of $30-$50 billion annually of currency in circulation through its “permanent” open market operations, and even has a useful role to play in providing temporary liquidity in the face of seasonal factors (most notably, the year-2000 turn). But the Fed does not provide meaningful amounts of ongoing liquidity to the $6.3 trillion banking system (the quantity of loans has literally zero relationship with the small, stable pool of bank reserves, which has been falling since the early 1990's). Nor does the Fed control the $13.8 trillion U.S. economy. Foreign purchases of U.S. Treasuries outweigh the Fed's actions many, many times over.

My second objection is that the stock market is not some balloon into which money “flows into” or “out of.” Every purchase is matched by a sale. Every sale is matched by a purchase. Stock prices move because the buyer is more eager than the seller or vice versa. A purchase doesn't put money “into” the market, nor does a sale take money “out.” Even in the case of new issues, the proceeds go to the issuing company. Money “on the sidelines” stays on the sidelines. Stocks, bonds, commercial paper and currency simply change hands between Ricky, Mickey and Nicky. There is no stock market balloon holding all the money that people invest. There are only certificates traded between people at prices on which they mutually agree from day to day.

You can count on the fact that if you save $100, somebody, somewhere in the world ends up acquiring $100 worth of tangible investment goods or services. This is a well-known economic identity, and you can prove it. Even if you save $100 by stuffing it under your mattress, it must be the case that total spending has fallen short of total output by that $100, in which case we know that somebody has involuntarily accumulated $100 in “inventory investment.” Even if your $100 went “into” the stock market, the fact is that your $100 immediately went “out” of the stock market in the hands of the seller, and then to someone else, and someone else, until your $100 eventually made it into the hands of someone who used it to buy (or in the case of inventory investment, accumulate) real goods and services.

You know how flight safety demonstrations always include the phrase “even though the bag will not inflate, oxygen will be flowing”? Well the same is not true of “Fed liquidity” and the stock market. There is no bag that inflates, and if you look at the data, no liquidity is flowing either.

The stock market has advanced in recent weeks on very dull volume and relatively tepid breadth. This type of action is typically associated with short-squeezes and a backing-off of sellers, without robust underlying demand. If you look at the dull price-volume behavior, the trailing breadth in the recent rally, and the growing divergences between the major indices and other market internals, it is not clear that buyers are particularly eager.

JN emphasis

I am way too ignorant to sort out just what is the truth about the relationships of CB's and the liquidity issues. Does anyone know the truth and care to put it forth?