My verdict -- Fabrice did a great job with his testimony to Congress.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Sizing Up Seven Key Elements of Financial Reform
Time magazine has done a really good job summarizing the seven key elements of financial reform and explaining the implications of each element. Click on the links below to read each of the elements.
Preventing Another Wall Street Meltdown
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1984020,00.html#ixzz0m6jDvbSX
Michael Lewis Says the Bond Market Will Never Be the Same
Michael Lewis is having way too much fun with the SEC's Goldman Sachs case. This case has all the makings of a good Hollywood movie.You just can't create some of the characters involved -- "Fabulous Fab", the Frenchman and "Frankenstein Derivatives" that turn on themselves! "Wall Street"'s Gordon Gekko is almost boring in comparison.
You have to have experienced a trading room floor to fully appreciate the humor!
You have to have experienced a trading room floor to fully appreciate the humor!
Michael Lewis Says the Bond Market Will Never Be the Same
Posted Thursday, April 22, 2010 - 10:04am
If you happen to be sitting on the Goldman Sachs (GS) bond-trading floor, life must feel horribly unfair.
You did nothing worse than live by the ethical assumptions of your market—any money-making event short of obviously illegal is admirable—and now your own grandfather thinks you’re some kind of monster. Your world feels upside down: What was right is now wrong; what was good is now bad; what once felt like winning now feels like losing.
You are probably wondering: What next? What will the angry rabble—all those ordinary people who can never really understand your business—now demand that you explain to them, so they can disapprove of you all over again?
A few possibilities:
No. 1: Full knowledge of the inner workings of your proprietary trading desk.
In particular: The moment-to-moment dealings of your correlations traders from late 2004 (when they first exploited American International Group’s (AIG) idiotic willingness to sell cheap insurance on pools of subprime mortgage loans) until the end of 2007, when they would have taken most of their profits from the total collapse of the subprime bond markets.
Your bosses claim to have lost almost $100 million on the Abacus trade for which your firm is being sued. This seems, to put it mildly, disingenuous. In March 2007, the time of this particular Abacus trade, your prop traders were already short the subprime market. Would they really have taken a naked long position in a deal you helped to construct precisely so that it would fail without offsetting in some other way on their books?
Ritual Sacrifice
Sadly, it will not suffice to offer up Fabrice Tourre as a ritual sacrifice. No one is going to accept a then-27-year-old Frenchman, whose job was apparently to keep sweet the patsies on the other end of your trades, as the world’s authority on your trading positions.
His name isn’t even on the top of the list of Goldman traders listed on the $2 billion Abacus deal for which you are being sued. The name on top of that document is Jonathan Egol. Egol appears to have been the bond trader at the center of your Abacus program. The same Jonathan Egol who told fellow traders in 2006—a year before this transaction—that the subprime market was doomed.
The public eventually will ask: Who is Jonathan Egol, and what exactly was his game?
No. 2: A far better understanding of your relations with the inaptly named “CDO manager.”
Read more: http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/judgments/2010/04/22/michael-lewis-says-bond-market-will-never-be-same?page=full
Read more: http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/judgments/2010/04/22/michael-lewis-says-bond-market-will-never-be-same?page=full
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Africans need to take more responsibility for managing their own commodity risk!
It is blatantly unfair for one of the commentators of the article below to refer to Sir Sam Jonah, former CEO of AshantiGold and former President of AngloGold Ashanti as an "idiot". Dr. Jonah is a mining engineer and not a financial or derivatives expert. Yes, as the CEO of Ashanti -- the buck ultimately stopped with him. However, there was a lot that was going on in the gold market at the time, in addition to the uncertainties regarding the business cycle, interest and currency rates, counter-party risk, and Central Bank actions.
In retrospect, it did not make much sense to hedge as much of its future gold production as Ashanti did. However, Ashanti was faced with some daunting prospects -- significant financial risk due to an increase in debt financed by IFC that was used to finance its expansions and acquisitions. Also, gold prices declined from a high of $850 per oz in 1979 to $250 per oz. soon after Ashanti became listed on NYSE.
The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) article best explains the circumstances and shenanigans that led to the near bankruptcy of Ashanti Goldfields. The immediate precipitating action that resulted in the near collapse of Ashanti was the European Central Bank's (ECB - comprising European Central Banks) decision to stop selling gold in an effort to shore up the value of the Euro -- the so-called "Washington Agreement". This decision led to a sharp rise in the gold price from the low prices at which Ashanti had negotiated its forward and option contracts. This is not an action that Ashanti could have foreseen but it is precisely this kind of uncertainty that makes it necessary to engage in a counter-hedge strategy to limit the downside risk, if the original intent of the hedging strategy is not speculative. This is why Goldman can be both long and short on a hedge position. I don't call this betting against the client -- I call it common sense!
Most African countries have significant exposure to commodity price risk due to their economies' dependence on a few commodities. African countries have been actively engaged in commodities trading for more than 100 years. There is now no excuse for them to be relying entirely on outside experts. It would be best for African governments to invest in the training of commodities and derivatives experts that can help them to better manage and monitor commodities risk.
A significant part of any African government's revenues and budget is subject to significant commodity price risk -- yet how many African countries devote any attention to the subject?
With Ghana set to begin production of oil later this year, it would be just a matter of time before there is some hue and cry about irregularities in the oil industry and the usual accusations and prosecutions for financial loss to the state. This is the time for the Ghana government to identify and train experts to help manage its commodities risk instead of relying entirely on international investment banks like Goldman Sachs to do their homework for them.
In retrospect, it did not make much sense to hedge as much of its future gold production as Ashanti did. However, Ashanti was faced with some daunting prospects -- significant financial risk due to an increase in debt financed by IFC that was used to finance its expansions and acquisitions. Also, gold prices declined from a high of $850 per oz in 1979 to $250 per oz. soon after Ashanti became listed on NYSE.
The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) article best explains the circumstances and shenanigans that led to the near bankruptcy of Ashanti Goldfields. The immediate precipitating action that resulted in the near collapse of Ashanti was the European Central Bank's (ECB - comprising European Central Banks) decision to stop selling gold in an effort to shore up the value of the Euro -- the so-called "Washington Agreement". This decision led to a sharp rise in the gold price from the low prices at which Ashanti had negotiated its forward and option contracts. This is not an action that Ashanti could have foreseen but it is precisely this kind of uncertainty that makes it necessary to engage in a counter-hedge strategy to limit the downside risk, if the original intent of the hedging strategy is not speculative. This is why Goldman can be both long and short on a hedge position. I don't call this betting against the client -- I call it common sense!
Most African countries have significant exposure to commodity price risk due to their economies' dependence on a few commodities. African countries have been actively engaged in commodities trading for more than 100 years. There is now no excuse for them to be relying entirely on outside experts. It would be best for African governments to invest in the training of commodities and derivatives experts that can help them to better manage and monitor commodities risk.
A significant part of any African government's revenues and budget is subject to significant commodity price risk -- yet how many African countries devote any attention to the subject?
With Ghana set to begin production of oil later this year, it would be just a matter of time before there is some hue and cry about irregularities in the oil industry and the usual accusations and prosecutions for financial loss to the state. This is the time for the Ghana government to identify and train experts to help manage its commodities risk instead of relying entirely on international investment banks like Goldman Sachs to do their homework for them.
How Goldman Sachs Screwed Ghana
Former Goldman Sachs clients are coming out of the woodwork with complaints that the notorious bank bet against them too. Including the country of Ghana -- or rather its former largest company, Ashanti Gold (via Credit Writedowns):
In 1998, Ashanti Gold was the 3rd largest Gold Mining company in the world. The first "black" company on the London Stock Exchange, Ashanti had just purchased the Geita mine in Tanzania, positioning Ashanti to become even larger. But in May 1999, the Treasury of the United Kingdom decided to sell off 415 tons of its gold reserves. With all that gold flooding the world market, the price of gold began to decline. By August 1999, the price of gold had fallen to $252/ounce, the lowest it had been in 20 years.
Ashanti turned to its Financial Advisors - Goldman Sachs - for advice. Goldman Sachs recommended that Ashanti purchase enormous hedge contracts - "bets" on the price of gold. Simplifying this somewhat, it was similar to when a homeowner 'locks in' a price for heating oil months in advance. Goldman recommended that Ashanti enter agreements to sell gold at a 'locked-in' price, and suggested that the price of gold would continue to fall.
But Goldman was more than just Ashanti's advisors. They were also sellers of these Hedge contracts, and stood to make money simply by selling them. And they were also world-wide sellers of Gold itself.
In September 1999 (one month later), 15 European Banks with whom Goldman had professional relationships made a unanimous surprise announcement that all 15 would stop selling gold on world markets for 5 years. The announcement immediately drove up gold prices to $307/ounce, and by October 6, it had risen to $362/ounce.
The full article at Ghana Web tells how Ashanti was driven to bankruptcy and sold to AngloGold. What really gets at the Ghanaian author and several hundred commenters is that every character in the story, down to the British gold company, was represented by Goldman Sachs.
Of course, there's nothing necessarily illegal about betting against a client -- Ghana or ACA. It depends on the exact circumstances. But this is the aspect of the Goldman SEC charges that will piss off past and future clients.
Friday, April 23, 2010
The Pitchbook For Goldman's Abacus Deal
If you are wondering what the Goldman Sachs case is all about, scroll down to see the actual "pitchbook" (sales material) for the Abacus transaction that is now the subject of the SEC's case against Goldman Sachs.
Typically, a transaction such as the Abacus deal would also be described in detail in a prospectus. The prospectus is a legal disclosure document that is prepared by underwriter's counsel and subject to review by several key players in the transaction.
However, a sales "pitchbook" is not subject to the same level of legal scrutiny although the firm's compliance officers often review and approve any non-standard material that is used to "pitch' a sale to clients.
If you flip through the document to the last few pages you will see a list of all the people that participated in the transaction. There is also a chart and detailed listing of the underlying mortgage securities that comprised the Abacus deal.
Typically, a transaction such as the Abacus deal would also be described in detail in a prospectus. The prospectus is a legal disclosure document that is prepared by underwriter's counsel and subject to review by several key players in the transaction.
However, a sales "pitchbook" is not subject to the same level of legal scrutiny although the firm's compliance officers often review and approve any non-standard material that is used to "pitch' a sale to clients.
If you flip through the document to the last few pages you will see a list of all the people that participated in the transaction. There is also a chart and detailed listing of the underlying mortgage securities that comprised the Abacus deal.
The issue in this case is that the Goldman Sachs trader, Fabrice Tourre, who pitched the sale of the Abacus deal to clients is alleged to have omitted critical disclosure that a hedge fund, Paulson & Co., that helped to select the undelying securities in the transaction was also short (taken a bet through a short trade position that the value of the underlying securities will decline).
The SEC believes that this is material information that should have been disclosed to the parties to the transaction, including ACA Capital and clients who subsequently lost significant money while the hedge fund, Paulson & Co., made a significant gain. All the clients are institutional clients -- so called "big boys".
Paulson & Co. has not been charged by the SEC because it is not their responsibility to provide full disclosure to Goldman Sachs' clients.
The Pitchbook For Goldman's Abacus Deal
Goldman Sachs prepared a 66-page presentation on the deal back on February 26th of 2007 to show to parties involved in the deal, such as Paulson & Co., ACA Capital, and RBS.
Check out the presentation
Image: Goldman Sachs
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