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valueorama

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Posts posted by valueorama

  1. In my view, there are three reasons why hyperinflation might happen:

    1) losing monetary sovereignty (ie, central govt must float debt in foreign currency that it cannot issue by fiat)

    2) war - or - a government overthrow

    3) the collapse of domestic industrial production.

     

    wabuffo

     

    Would destruction of service economy(+ to some extent industrial production) not just in US but worldwide impact inflation?

     

  2. I think, CDS market is shrinking because of liquidity issues. Even on a good day, not all HY bonds trade. With CDS, it is even less.

     

    1. To me, the situation described sounds like  insider trading.

    2. or you can say, GSO basically got free money.

     

    If the scenario mentioned in the article is considered, i would say the CDS is grossly under-priced.

     

    ISDA should include language to remove these incentives. Otherwise, single name CDS market will be dead soon.

     

  3. This is some disturbing turn of events that i feel will kill the CDS market or at least new versions of contracts need to be drafted.

     

    ===================

    from FT:

     

    https://www.ft.com/content/69194bda-f5af-11e7-88f7-5465a6ce1a00

     

    Blackstone-led debt deal sparks outcry

    Traders say refinancing of a US housebuilder undermines legitimacy of $5tn CDS market

     

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    Joe Rennison in New York

    an hour ago

    34

     

    Derivatives traders are crying foul over a Blackstone-led refinancing deal for the US housebuilder Hovnanian, saying the controversial arrangement threatens to further undermine the shrinking market for credit default swaps.

     

    Hovnanian, which is based in New Jersey and is one of America’s largest homebuilders, has agreed with Blackstone-owned hedge fund GSO to refinance up to $320m of its debt — but the deal has a catch.

     

    In order to secure the funds from GSO, Hovnanian has agreed to skip a payment on some of its existing bonds, triggering a technical default and a big payday for the hedge fund, which placed bets on a default in the CDS market.

     

    While legal, traders say the arrangement makes a mockery of a market designed to be used to hedge the risk of real defaults at companies in genuine financial distress.

     

    “We fear that the Hovnanian situation could embolden investors to pursue manufactured credit events with other corporate issuers, which would undermine the true intention and spirit of the CDS market,” said Adam Savarese, co-head of leveraged finance trading at Goldman Sachs.

     

    GSO is able to offer attractive financing terms precisely because they stand to receive a payout on its CDS contracts, and because they have structured the proposed new lending to maximise that payout. Others, including Goldman and credit hedge funds Citadel and Solus Alternative Asset Management, are on the other side of the CDS contracts and stand to lose money, according to people familiar with their positions.

     

    “You can do your credit work but you may not know what is going on behind the scenes where someone could be trying to manufacturer a credit event,” said another fund that had sold Hovnanian CDS.

     

    Solus on Thursday launched a lawsuit against GSO and Hovnanian, asking for an injunction to stop what it called “an illegal bribery scheme masquerading as a ‘refinancing transaction’”. Goldman and Solus had earlier offered Hovnanian an alternative refinancing deal.

     

    Hovnanian’s investors face a deadline of this Friday to give a green light to the GSO plan, although it also rests on the approval of a market committee of banks and credit investors, which will have to certify an event of default to trigger the CDS payout.

     

    The tactic of making refinancing conditional on triggering CDS has been used on occasion before, although the Hovnanian situation is unusual because of the size of the deal and because the company is not in financial distress, according to analysts and traders.

    Recommended

     

        Why does the CDS market leave so many people unhappy?

        The Big Read: Blackstone’s struggle to win over investors

        FT Series: Outlook for markets in 2018

     

    CDS fell out of favour after the credit crisis and trading has further shrivelled as market players complain about a lack of transparency and liquidity. The value of outstanding “single-name” CDS, designed to hedge the risk of default on individual companies, has fallen from $33tn in November 2008 to $5tn in the middle of 2017, according to data from the Bank for International Settlements.

     

    GSO and Hovnanian say their deal represents the best financing that was available to the company for replacing debt coming due in 2019. “The company appropriately utilised the most attractive financing techniques available,” said a GSO spokesperson.

     

    But Peter Tchir at Academy Securities, who spearheaded the use of CDS during the early 2000s, said the controversy would have an impact on the market. “CDS was never designed for something like this,” he said. “I think this is going to create more and more pressure to create a better synthetic hedging vehicle than CDS.”

     

  4. Even if Tesla becomes a 0 in the future (certainly possible), there is no denying the positive impact that company has had on the auto industry and the world in general. The big automakers would have gladly sat around twiddling their thumbs with respect to electric cars had a viable competitor like Tesla not forced it upon them.

    Car companies have been doing research and introducing Electric cars for some time.

    Here is GM EV1 1996-1999 ==> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1

    People have short term memory.

    In fact as we speak GM is ahead of Tesla in introducing a EV at less than $40k. Search for Chevy BOLT. One can order it and get it this fall.

     

  5. In the US, the federal tax rate on long term capital gains is now 23.8% (20%+an additional 3.8% Obamacare "surcharge").

     

    As someone else mentioned the thresholds for this are high. $416k of income filing single and $466k filing jointly. There are 892,000 people who pay taxes at this rate. Out of the ~300 million or so citizens it doesn't seem so bad. Now granted a large percentage of that 800k might be on this board, but throwing the number out there to give some perspective.

     

    Obamacare "surcharge" is called Net Investment income tax .

     

    Filing Status                          Threshold Amount

    Married filing jointly               $250,000

    Married filing separately       $125,000

    Single                               $200,000

    Head of household (with qualifying person) $200,000

    Qualifying widow(er) with dependent child $250,000

     

    https://www.irs.gov/uac/Newsroom/Net-Investment-Income-Tax-FAQs

  6. In the US, the federal tax rate on long term capital gains is now 23.8% (20%+an additional 3.8% Obamacare "surcharge"). If you live in  California, you need to pay an additional state tax rate of up to 13%, which brings the combined tax rate on LT capital gains to nearly 37%! If you have short term gains, the combined tax rate is well over 50% in California.

     

    I am not sure if people outside California or New York realize this.

     

    Please add New Jersey to that list.

     

    http://www.fool.com/personal-finance/taxes/2014/10/04/the-states-with-the-highest-capital-gains-tax-rate.aspx

     

     

  7. As a gun-rights supporter, I'd have totally re-evaluate my views if there was more data supporting that this was the way things actually worked.

     

    Huh? I would think press freedom and free speech advocates would have to reevaluate their views. Its obvious that banning coverage of school shootings would enormously reduce their frequency.

     

    Next we will talk about removing some words from the dictionary as it gives ideas.

     

    Suddenly the year will reset to 1984.

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