Friday, March 6, 2009

From under pricing risk to over pricing risk

Two headlines caught my attention today.

1) AAA rated companies are no different from junk in credit default swap market.

March 6 (Bloomberg) -- Warren Buffett and Jeffrey Immelt are among a handful of chief executive officers whose companies are rated AAA. Yet Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and Immelt’s General Electric Co. are being treated like junk in the market for credit-default swaps.

Contracts that protect investors against a default on bonds of Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire, which has $25.5 billion in cash, cost as much as those of KB Home, the homebuilder that lost money for seven consecutive quarters. Credit-default swaps on the finance arm of GE, which holds $45 billion of cash, are about as expensive as those for building materials-maker Louisiana-Pacific Corp., which posted nine straight quarterly losses.

(click here to read the whole article)

Do I have any comment? No, I'm speechless. I have reasons to believe Credit Default Swap market or safe haven assets has entered euphoria stage -- bubble for lack of a better word.

2)This is the first time I heard about 36 South Investment Managers. They made 236% in last 12 months(very nice) and plan to closed it down[very smart move]. They were betting on black swan by buying long dated options in global currencies, fixed-income, equities and commodity market. If hedge-fund is taboo to you, don't worry - I don't know that well and not qualified to invest in them too. The point is they know lightning will never strike twice within a short span of time -- it is highly improbable that we will see the same magnitude of decline across assets. Deleveraging will still on going but it will be in much controlled manner.

March 6 (Bloomberg) -- 36 South Investment Managers Ltd., a New Zealand-based hedge fund firm set up by derivatives traders, will close its Black Swan Fund after it gained 236 percent in the last 12 months and start a fund that wagers on inflation.


(Click here for more)

For someone to bet on inflation, I would interpret that there is a good chance of economy recovery in later part of the year. Regular readers should know that I am waiting at maximum pessimism of anti-inflation assets to be trashed between now and end of 2009.

There is this chart I want to show you - Federal Reserve balance sheet has no doubt gone through the roof, passed well beyond 2.3 trillions but that is not the point. The balance sheet begin to contract which is a good sign of liquidity stress is improving. The wild card is the impact of bank recapitalization and bad assets write down(this is the grand finale that I have been waiting patiently). Let's see whether Fed balance sheet will continue to contract or expand. Contraction is a good sign and expansion will give us some clues how bad the inflation will show up.

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