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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tommaso who wrote (25535)	3/13/2005 3:51:33 PM
From: OpusX	Respond to of 116555

no worked seamlessly for me and computer then ran quite a bit faster afterward Opus

To: Tommaso who wrote (25535)	3/13/2005 6:37:58 PM
From: mishedlo	Respond to of 116555

Mortgage Fraud News priestongroup.com Mish

To: Tommaso who wrote (25535)	3/13/2005 8:28:38 PM
From: mishedlo	Respond to of 116555

The Housing Bubble is in its Final Blowoff Stage. globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Mish

To: Tommaso who wrote (25535)	3/13/2005 8:59:46 PM
From: Jim McMannis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

Tomasso, Your'e running Windows XP? pro? You need to turn off "system restore" or CCleaner will run in a loop. As will window washer and some others. System restore can be turned off from Start>Settings>control panel>system>restore tab. Be sure and turn it back on when you're finished.

To: Tommaso who wrote (25535)	3/13/2005 9:46:01 PM
From: mishedlo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

Growing fears credit boom may implode news.ft.com By Dan Roberts and David Wighton in New York and Peter Thal Larsen in London Published: March 13 2005 21:42 \| Last updated: March 13 2005 21:42 global economyBankruptcy advisers are hiring extra staff amid fears that an end to the global credit boom could spark a surge in business failures in the US and Europe. Unusually loose lending conditions have encouraged record borrowing by speculative-grade companies, with leveraged buy-outs and debt refinancing on both sides of the Atlantic generating more than $100bn of deals in the past eight months. But last week's fall in the price of US Treasury bonds, coinciding with signs that bankers are struggling to complete riskier corporate bond issues, has added to a sense of nervousness in some quarters. Although corporate default rates remain low, some fear the legacy of recent private equity buy-outs and hedge fund investments in distressed debt will be a swath of over-leveraged companies ill-equipped to survive in less benign conditions. PwC, the largest corporate recovery adviser, said it was hiring insolvency specialists in sectors such as retailing, utilities and telecommunications in preparation for the expected fall-out. Scott Bok, president of Greenhill & Co, an investment bank specialising in merger advice and restructuring, also predicts the cycle will end with a lot of companies in trouble. “In many of the deals being done today you can foresee the debt restructurings to come in a year or two,” he said. Last week, the Financial Stability Forum, a group of national and international central banks and regulators, pointed to the levels of liquidity as one of the main risks to the stability of the global financial system. Following a meeting in Tokyo, the FSF said that, according to some of its members, tight credit spreads and low long-term interest rates suggested some in the market might be underpricing risks. It urged banks and investors to monitor their exposures by stress-testing what would happen in the event of a market shock. Chuck Prince, chief executive of Citigroup, said: “The possibility of a liquidity bubble around the world concerns me. A very cautionary thing is that it feels like the world is changing and traditional indices may not give a complete picture.” Some say markets are becoming more nervous. Paul Hsi, a senior analyst at Moody's, said: “There is a little bit more caution in the market right now as some of the weaker credits come up with ‘me-too' offerings and investors take a harder look.” Ian Powell, head of European business recovery for PWC, added: “You only need one of these really big financing deals to go sour and confidence will evaporate very quickly.” However, investors say the market is more aware of the risks than in previous credit cycles and that funds are managing their exposure accordingly. “People are on ‘bubblewatch' since almost every market got burnt in the last five years,” said Stephen Peacher, head of high-yield investment at Putnam, the fund manager. “We know that bond prices are certainly not cheap but, given that default rates are so very low, we feel comfortable that spreads are in a fair value range.”

To: Tommaso who wrote (25535)	3/14/2005 12:37:44 AM
From: mishedlo	Respond to of 116555

Investors shrugging off problems? Analysts prefer to see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil SAN DIEGO (MarketWatch) -- Either investors are becoming tolerant of fraud allegations or they're simply shrugging it off as irrelevant. But the barely-batting-an-eyelash response by MBIA investors and analysts to the company's announcement last week that its financial statements will be restated going back to 1998, after learning that all was not what it appeared, is simply the latest example of this complacency. "People in America have very short memories these days," says Lynn Turner, former chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission. "Also, the incidence of fraud by management has become so common place, it seems like it is 'old news' to a lot of people. It seems as if it takes a major tumble in the markets to get their attention." By then, of course, it's too late. In the meantime, investors prefer to gamble, hoping that they'll wind up with another Take-Two on their hands. You remember Take-Two (TTWO: news, chart, profile) : It was nailed by regulators for buying product from itself. It was then, almost immediately, bailed out by one big-selling game, Grand Theft Auto about (how ironic) the crooks beating the cops. It then got merely a slap on the wrist from the SEC. Not even a "60 Minutes" report about how Grand Theft Auto game has led to real-life crime could put a crimp in investor enthusiasm over the company's potential. (Moral of that story: Crime pays -- in more ways than one.) MBIA, however, is a different story. As I noted last week in my subscription newsletter, Herb Greenberg's RealityCheck, away from issues that have prompted investigations by the SEC, the New York Attorney General and the U.S. Attorneys offices, MBIA (MBI: news, chart, profile) also suffers from what it terms "challenging" business conditions. But rather than downgrade the stock, this is a case in which analysts prefer to see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. And for good reason: MBIA is the biggest player in providing insurance needed to float many new and secondary offerings in the enormous debt markets. Would you want to be the agency or analyst that pulled the plug on the company's coveted (and required) Triple-A credit rating -- or even put it on watch with negative implications? That could be like pulling a finger out of a leaky dike. P.S.: Last week MBIA issued a press release with a headline that said that it had raised its dividend by 20 percent. But as MarketWatch reporter Carla Mozee points out, it was really just a 17 percent increase. Why the discrepancy? Mozee says she was told by an MBIA spokeswoman that the company merely "rounded it up." Can't help but wonder what else has been rounded up. marketwatch.com