Sunrider

Politics aside - this guy seems to be a narcistic, volatile, know-it-all who is just as happy taking shots at people in his own team than at the opposition (real or imagined) ... how long do you suppose he will last ... or more importantly, how long do you think the people on the team that we believe are competent, fair-minded, and with the right motivations ... how long will they stick around under friendly fire? ... just saying ...

@cherzeca I've not gone through all the docs but much seems to be made by IU of the talk by Treasury officials of 'winding down' F&F. Given the recent ruling (which for now stands) that FHFA can choose to act as a conservator or liquidator as it sees fit (and switch in between), these revelations don't really mean much legally, do they? What's your take on this re impact on the various cases? Thank you. C.

Maybe Chris/Mekhet can comment - Epstein seems to equate the court's "expectations" with "rights attached to shares". As a layman that seems eminently sensible but given everything else we've seen to date, is that the breach through which yet another course will send its troops by arguing 'sure, the rights transfer, but they should've expected that the rights have no value anymore, hence no loss, no damages, etc.' If that argument were made, of course at least it would be established that there are rights and they did not just end, but I wonder whether this then ends up as a Pyrrhic victory? Thanks.

Hmm. Been wondering this myself. I think you're right.

Ermm ... no. It depends on the difference between the price you can buy and sell them. There are two variables and whilst you can look at the purchase price every day the market is open, you'll have to make assumptions about the price you'll sell at. As various people here have been trying to tell you, they consider it likely that preferred gets par or equivalent in terms of common. If it is par as cash, then the return calc is easy. If it is par in terms of common shares issues then it's a bit more complex, but inevitably it means that common gets diluted so those $7/share (don't recall exactly) earnings you're using in your valuation may be closer to or less than $1. (e.g. 9 new shares for each current common share). Ok, you can argue that you can still apply a multiple to that and get $10 per common, and with FNMA at 2.5 that's a 4x return. Well FNMFN is at about 10.5, so that's 4.7x. Even if they were the same prospective pay-offs, you may wish to ask yourself what you would rather hold - an asset whose intrinsic value depends heavily on a dilution event or an asset that has a fixed liquidation value for which any sort of conversion would need to be pegged to that value (even if done at an explicit or implicit discount). That is, of course, without trying to get into any sort of argument as to whether the property right attached to that liquidation preference still means anything in the US legal system.

More interestingly - with the Muppet in Chief spending his next months trying to character assassinate Comey and second-guessing his own shadows in pursuit of the special investigator, and many loyal sycophant Republicans trying to support him in this respect ... does that make Mnuchin more or less likely to do something without a distracted congress/house? Thanks.

Ermm ... while I share your frustration, I'd say that you should lay that at the feet of the populus as a whole and their elected representatives. It's not that there should be transparency because it serves investors - it should be there because it's good for democracy. Emily, I appreciate your comments and thoughts on this board. With that said, I do get the hunch that you're on tilt. About two weeks ago you were very worried about this investment, then a few days ago you wondered if you should even sell common at the low price of $20, and again today you are convinced that something needs to be done within 2 weeks or we're toast. I understand emotions can cause swings but just wanted to caution against letting that drive your decisions. I hope this is well received, not meant to be preachy, just hopefully helpful. Thanks.

Because those are just projections based on assumptions. They amount to nothing until someone is willing to pay you (and others) that much for the shares. As with all other shares, that may or may not happen. If it doesn't happen then what does that mean for your ability to pay fees? If the stock goes to $0.02 then what? I happen to believe that there is a better chance for a good pay-off but I agree with everyone here that it seems inordinately risky to put your school nest egg into this. I need at least $230,000 for school and have 10,000 shares @4.05. When should I exit or keep them till they hit $20.00? What would be safer as you say 'all the things that could go wrong' . You all are very smart and deserve every penny you can make here. My hats off to those who have held this since 2008. This has already been answered. This is an incredibly bad idea and you should not be in this investment for college. What ? All this analysis is not good? I see a $19-$20 valuation for commons, why not?

Didn't his tool for forecasting 10 year returns get debunked by some blog (philosophical economics?) by showing that it just so happens that in a key period the errors offset but that there was no good structural reaosn why that should be so? C.

+1. as trump would say, sad! +1 Chris

Could you elaborate please - why do you think you'll profit from the puts till the hearing with the market soaring after? The way this is going seems to me that people realise what a nutball djt is and how that will ultimately prevent much of what the market hopes for being implemented? Thanks C.

Nice call, Cardboard. And thanks for the idea! Indeed! Thank you. (now we just have to keep an eye on those rig-count figures .... out of interest, is the spring/summer/falls time in the Canadian oil regions less busy because of the inability to get equipment into swampy areas, or is that not a major factor?) C.

Money is fungible, how would you determine where the Dollars for a specific expense is coming from? The whole idea makes no sense to me, unless you talk about money laundry. if you read all of corsi's reports, including a couple with govt data, and then the 200 page joint congressional report on the CSR payments, I think you too will think there's a real chance the GSE profits were used for the Ocare subsidies. I believe spekulatius is correct. HERA enables all payments to go to Treasury's general funds. It's in the law signed in 2008. Once in general funds the money gets lost. That money -whether dividends, legal settlements or DTAs- will be no different than any other money Treasury receives. This Ocare payments strategy should be abandoned, in my view. The more transparent theme regarding the NWS has always been "never to share a dime of profit with shareholders". There is even a Treasury memo about it. I think I said it this way a few pages ago: A dollar is a dollar :)

Yup but would make it obvious what the heart of the issue is - if this was the case for any other company there would be no discussion that it is unfair (illegal) taking of property without compensation! @luke. i noticed that there were some errors in the article originally posted that have since been cleaned up. FHFA's argument is that HERA provides blanket cover. So even if you do this and set up a precedent, it is not going to work.

I wonder if we shouldn't start a company in some state, adopt Delaware law for corporate purposes, re-enact the the nws between know parties, then sue each other in parallel to the current case, get that case resolved fasr (as controlling both sides of arguments so no delays) thereby creating a precedent for the courts to go by ;) Chris - I think you should represent the pro NWS side and merkhet the shareholder side ... I mean you could write for both sides but I'm not sure if the court would see that as too much of taking a mickey. C. @luke. i noticed that there were some errors in the article originally posted that have since been cleaned up.

Haha - clearly I should've looked more closely! Duh! ;D Chris - do you agree with this fellow's legal analysis? Thanks. My hunch is they have the exact same opinion :)

Chris - do you agree with this fellow's legal analysis? Thanks.

Proof? Stats? I've heard this before but never saw much evidence that the system leads to bad patient outcomes ... patients that pay, of course, and yes, the US system is the most expensive in the world (for structural reasons, perpetuated by relevant lobbies). Let's not forget that it is also at the forefront of research and new care - you don't get a lot of that in a socialised system ... or when is the last time you heard of a great breakthrough in a hospital in Sweden? (No offence to anyone here - half my family is Swedish and so I know a little bit about the troubles of getting proper care there.)

not sure a dollar is a dollar. as far as I can tell there's the standard monies appropriated by congress and then some other slush funds which are far smaller than the other category and likely the source of the subsidy payments. I suppose so but do you happen to know how much of Obamacare is funded by this slush fund? I don't and it simply seems odd - if it was material, then surely Trump could just turn of that discretionary tab and disable Obamacare that way :). In other words, for me, unless someone can show me that a very material part of Ocare is funded by money not appropriated by law but from some sort of kitty, then I don't buy ... let's not forget, this argument was put into the public domain by the "Elvis is an alien and not dead/national enquirer type crowd". ;-)

My thoughts on this are that a dollar is a dollar - what the discussion below refers to is how the media may / may not do mental accounting. A second question would be how their mental account helps or does not help the GSE Investors' cause. C.

I agree with your logic - the timing and probability is uncertain and no one will know if this is a bubble that's gonna burst soon or a bull market run that's just beginning. Other Catalysts: - Capital control by the Chinese Government. (Usually ineffective as people will always find a way) - Anti-immigration policy, Reduction of student permit/parents visa/work permit. by the Canadian Government - not likely given the current political environment - New immigrants preferring other cities instead of Vancouver/Toronto - I dont see how that's probable - Racism riots/Terrorist attack in Toronto/Vancouver - probability unknown, but that will be enough to scare off some immigrants who are here for their kids. - increased capital gain tax of any kind on property. That will trigger short term selling - We will know today. - Sudden jump in CAD - back to 1:1 USD? - Government providing significantly more permits for condo development in the next few years Valuation of housing is always relative. imagine a new Chinese immigrant from a major city come over and look at what $2MM can buy in Markham. And it comes with free English schools+free healthcare. Most would find it a steal. Our 35mm population just find it hard to understand what the 1.4B ppl are thinking. True - although you then also need to take a view on how many Chinese with $2m to plop down (they won't get that as a mortgage without a job in Canadia) there are to come over as immigrants each year (since you're presumably saying that these are now the marginal buyer setting the price)?

Can you elaborate - why would Turing completeness have anything to do with that? The split had to do with the DAO hack, no?

Well, as someone who's lived in Canadia for a while and now doesn't live there anymore but still has a bank account - it's no surprise. I'm with TD Cluster F&&ck (and yes, I think they also changed my account to fee paying along the way without my knowledge). It amazes me that Canadian banks continue to persist in the stone ages and that customers haven't come out with pitchforks yet. Where else in the world is it so impossible to accomplish a simple task as moving money from an arbitrary account to someone else's arbitrary account at another bank? In Europe you can even do it cross border ... and world-wide through a wire transfer that you don't need to go to a branch for (the latter is hard to do if you're not in the country and it beggars belief that you'd have to do a wire in branch or otherwise to transfer from, say, TD to BMO). Customer service helpfully steered me to interac-e shite (works via email, so can't make a transfer to a company's account) or Visa e-pay (not sure who cooked up such a shitty proprietary solution with such low limits and high fees). In Europe I can authenticate myself sufficiently to move multiple tens of thousands via online transfer. Even in the US they now have a transfer system. Canada? About as user-friendly as SÉDAR! I wonder ... then I remind myself that it is perfectly sensible, if you want to hold on to your customers' money and keep your fees high. Oh well ... <rant ends>

True, but let's not forget that it is a reserve for something ... so first that something needs to not happen (or happen to a lesser extent) before you can release it. ;) I think the author's point is that this reserve doesn't immediately count towards earnings and so the NWS won't take it away until it is released. If the NWS is stopped, this reserve could even count towards a recap.

Uh no - it's an accounting reserve, it can be released into earnings ....