Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac - the big bailout?

[Arbitrary]

I'm buying silver personally.

[Mimirswell]

Originally Posted by Eduardo

What I would invest in if I had even a quarter of the money some of you rich fucks have: Mountain House freeze dried food.

That is also probably why you aren't a "rich fuck".

[prescient63]

Originally Posted by Soriak

If the economy slows down, oil usage is going to grow slower (or even decrease) as well. Construction is the first thing to slow down. Not sure on what a good alternative is... treasury bonds? TIPS?

If you have a decent amount of money and are truly worried about a place to park it you can put in into USY which is a currency ETF, and you'll be insured up to $500k. A few more would be BZF, EU, JPY, or BZN. Strangely I'm not optimistic about anything right now and that's really rare for me. It's probably just because I've been hearing nothing but doom and gloom for the last week. TIPS are probably a good place to park money but it would of been much better if you did it last Wednesday as there was a flight to safety + a Fed rate cut is being priced in now. I do like shorting AIG assuming they don't get anything together tonight. The market didn't really seem to care about their $20b loan to themselves, and I think unless the Fed gives them a loan short sellers are going to make a killing tomorrow morning.

What I'm finding most interesting about this whole debacle is that a seemingly smart group of people at Bank of America just massively overpaid for ML. Seriously dunno WTF they were thinking on that one. Yeah having ML's wealth management division will probably produce a nice synergy over at BAC, they also get Van Eck, a good IB, and 1/2 of Blackrock but why pay a 70% premium? Maybe they know something nobody else outside the deal does but i doubt it. The market beat them up for it today. Was trying to get some friends to dump their MER stock this morning before it started to lose its gains.

Edit: Oh yeah borrowing against your own stock is the win!

[Fammaden]

Originally Posted by Jysin-DW

Money market accounts fall into this category. I dont see anywhere else to put my money right now. Housing = shit, stocks = bombing, Certificates = too low yields, ????

My cash is all in an MMA.

Yeah, I thought that might be the case.

Originally Posted by chu

With regards to your bonds/stocks and what not... You don't have to worry about losing those. Your brokerage is simply acting as a middleman and is holding those on your behalf; it isn't actively selling and trading them. It's different than money in a savings account because that money is being used by the bank to make money essentially.

Ok, thanks. Wasn't sure, but it didn't seem at all kosher that your would be tied to that bank just because you wanted your shit in a real account, rather than stuffed under your mattress or some shit.

[Gilgamel]

Originally Posted by prescient63

If you have a decent amount of money and are truly worried about a place to park it you can put in into USY which is a currency ETF, and you'll be insured up to $500k. A few more would be BZF, EU, JPY, or BZN. Strangely I'm not optimistic about anything right now and that's really rare for me. It's probably just because I've been hearing nothing but doom and gloom for the last week. TIPS are probably a good place to park money but it would of been much better if you did it last Wednesday as there was a flight to safety + a Fed rate cut is being priced in now. I do like shorting AIG assuming they don't get anything together tonight. The market didn't really seem to care about their $20b loan to themselves, and I think unless the Fed gives them a loan short sellers are going to make a killing tomorrow morning.

What I'm finding most interesting about this whole debacle is that a seemingly smart group of people at Bank of America just massively overpaid for ML. Seriously dunno WTF they were thinking on that one. Yeah having ML's wealth management division will probably produce a nice synergy over at BAC, they also get Van Eck, a good IB, and 1/2 of Blackrock but why pay a 70% premium? Maybe they know something nobody else outside the deal does but i doubt it. The market beat them up for it today. Was trying to get some friends to dump their MER stock this morning before it started to lose its gains.

Edit: Oh yeah borrowing against your own stock is the win!

Don't be surprised if we find out tomorrow that the ML buyout is not all that it appears.

[Heavens_Myst]

Just an FYI, you can have a lot more than $100,000 insured at one bank by the FDIC depending on how the accounts are titled.

If you have a joint payable on death account with your wife for instance. Assuming you have 3 children to name as beneficiaries up to $600,000 would be insured by the FDIC, as each beneficiary is insured up to $100,000 per person on the account. You could also each have your own single accounts and get the $100,000 insurance on that. It's per specific account title, so if you title accounts in all the different ways you can really put a lot into even one bank without fear.

http://www.fdic.gov/deposit/deposits/insured/yid.pdf

[Hal2005]

Asian indexes already continuing the selloff (-5% ).

Money market funds sadly are not meeting the 4% non-core inflation currently in the US. Which sucks, as retail investors are going to get happily raped over the next two days, unless you want to go ultra long (2y window).

[rinthea]

asia was closed yesterday, so its playing catchup

Worse news on inflation is, is that its worse than what the FED says... lies to manage expectations

[Hal2005]

Originally Posted by rinthea

asia was closed yesterday, so its playing catchup

Worse news on inflation is, is that its worse than what the FED says... lies to manage expectations

True, but I didn't see anyone mention the contagion is happily spreading and at a ferocity not seen since the Russian adventure. No time to follow discussion today.

I'm really interested in seeing how distressed asset funds are going to cope this week (or is it next ?) when their market paper rolls over.

The fed index was shit when it was first built. Everyone knows you top up 2% to whatever they say; it's been that way since before, and After Volker left...

[prescient63]

Originally Posted by rinthea

asia was closed yesterday, so its playing catchup

Worse news on inflation is, is that its worse than what the FED says... lies to manage expectations

They might understate it but PPI is down, every single commodity is down, and oil dropped to $92 in asia. Globally the economy is slowing and much of the world is worse off than the US. If anything this is good news for inflation. I forsee AIG failing tonight as there is no way that anyone is coming up with the $70-75B they are currently looking for from JP Morgan / Goldman and as their credit rating drops they will have more and more collateral calls coming due. This also debilitates their ability to function in their primary market. Interesting times indeed.

[rinthea]

Originally Posted by prescient63

They might understate it but PPI is down, every single commodity is down, and oil dropped to $92 in asia. Globally the economy is slowing and much of the world is worse off than the US. If anything this is good news for inflation. I forsee AIG failing tonight as there is no way that anyone is coming up with the $70-75B they are currently looking for from JP Morgan / Goldman and as their credit rating drops they will have more and more collateral calls coming due. This also debilitates their ability to function in their primary market. Interesting times indeed.

yeah i know, i just get shirty when people take government figures literally... especially inflation... I think a lot of this commoodity, currency moves are unwinding trades, not fundamnetal moves

GS down a boatload in premarket, market didnt seem to like those earnings... I couldnt resist a stab on them. Lucky I held out for today, I had to strap myself down not to take 135 yesterday.

[prescient63]

Now that I was thinking about it consumer staples are probably a good place to park money at the moment. Supermarkets, Sams Club, Walmart, maybe something like cvs/walgreens who depend on their pharmacies.

[Morbeas]

Well, it seems the Fed will bail AIG via a $85B loan for an 80% stake in the company. While I do think AIG should be saved, I'm not sure I approve of the Fed's stance on it. Hell, why wait 'till now? If they had done this back on Sunday, the Fed would have only had to come up with $25B or so. Also, why punish the stockholders?

[Gurgeh]

Originally Posted by Morbeas

Also, why punish the stockholders?

Because they bet on the wrong horse ? If a corporation needs to be nationnalized to be saved, governments should make damn sure that shareholders lose every single penny they invested and that people that were in charge gets fired as quickly as possible, without preferably without multiple millions $ of indemnity.

Seriously this should be a move to save the economy, not to bail out people that invested on the wrong stock or to save the job of people that sucked more than it should be possible to suck.

[Morbeas]

Originally Posted by Gurgeh

Because they bet on the wrong horse ? If a corporation needs to be nationnalized to be saved, governments should make damn sure that shareholders lose every single penny they invested and that people that were in charge gets fired as quickly as possible, without preferably without multiple millions $ of indemnity.

Seriously this should be a move to save the economy, not to bail out people that invested on the wrong stock or to save the job of people that sucked more than it should be possible to suck.

You're an idiot that clearly does not understand the overall picture.