Category: Market Action

Freddie Mac has announced that they will no longer buy New York subprime mortgages:

Freddie Mac, the second-largest U.S. mortgage finance company, will stop buying subprime loans issued in New York state as a new law takes effect that holds investors accountable for mortgage fraud.

Freddie won’t buy loans dated on or after Sept. 1 that meet the state’s subprime definition, the McLean, Virginia-based company said today in a lender bulletin on its Web site. New York Governor David Paterson last week signed new foreclosure and lending laws that tighten legal protections for borrowers.

The story has been picked up – very briefly – by Calculated Risk and Naked Capitalism.

Sadly, nobody seems to want to delve into the legislation and the arguments that can be made; I don’t have a lot of information on this, so I won’t say much … but, at least to some extent, this is what I’ve been afraid of as a regulatory response: there are so many liabilities built into the system that the business is no longer worth doing. Maybe, in this particular case, this is a desirable result. As I said, I don’t have any details (if anybody has links to some informed discussion, they will be greatly appreciated!). But the regulators at all their levels are at great risk of throwing babies out with the bathwater.

PerpetualDiscounts had another good day, returning +0.42% to yield 6.18% dividends, equivalent to 8.65% interest at the 1.4x equivalency factor. With long corporates yielding 6.1% the pre-tax interest-equivalent spread is now 255bp. PerpetualDiscounts have now returned +7.63% since the July 16 nadir and the total return index has almost crawled back to July 2 levels.

There were eightteen other index-included $25-pv-equivalent issues trading over 10,000 shares today.

Today’s top news is that inflation is no longer a problem:

Schroder Investment Management’s David Scammell is so convinced inflation has crested that the bond fund manager this quarter has sold securities designed to protect from rising consumer prices.
…
Scammell is no lonely voice. A survey out today of 25 bond fund managers controlling $1.41 trillion of assets by Jersey City, New Jersey-based Ried, Thunberg & Co. found that 79 percent expect inflation “to moderate late this year into 2009.”

And certainly the market expectations computed by the Cleveland Fed are in a downturn. Isn’t it exciting? I wonder how the world will end next week!

Somebody made a massive bet against Bear Stearns just before its collapse, which is leading to mutterings that the firm’s collapse was a confidence game. This was last discussed on July 17. The Internuts’ position to date has been that BSC was a stupid firm, leveraged up to the eyeballs with junk and having a negative net worth. It will be most interesting to see if they switch to the “evil hedge fund rumour-monger” meme. As for me … sudden losses of confidence happen. Bear Stearns was an extreme example; they shouldn’t have gone under, but management shouldn’t have made them vulnerable either.

Predictions, of course, have a very poor track record. But there’s one prediction I hope comes true … the bond vigilantes were FUN:

The bond vigilantes who’ve been missing in action under George W. Bush may be preparing for a return engagement once Barack Obama or John McCain takes office next year.
…
“Though times are different and a lot of the government spending is necessary, we’re going to see rates rise in a saw- tooth pattern over the next few years,” says E. Craig Coats Jr., the head of Salomon Brothers’ government securities desk when it was the world’s biggest bond trader. Coats considers himself one of the original vigilantes, the bearish traders who drove up long-term interest rates, persuading Clinton to place deficit-reduction above fulfilling his spending promises.

That course-reversal prompted Clinton political adviser James Carville to observe at the time: “I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or as a .400 baseball hitter. But now I would like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.”

Another good strong day in the markets, with volume picking up slightly.

There were twenty-two other index-included $25-pv-equivalent issues trading over 10,000 shares today.

Another common equity dividend cut that leaves the preferreds unscathed! This sort of stuff does my heart good!

Fannie Mae, the largest U.S. mortgage- finance company, cut its dividend 86 percent after posting a loss that was more than three times analysts’ estimates and said the worst housing slump since the Great Depression is deepening.
…
Mudd has raised $14.4 billion since late last year and reduced the dividend from 50 cents since December, though still failed to quell concerns that the company is short of capital. As worries escalated, he dispatched executives to Asia to calm investors. Fannie’s core capital was $47 billion at the end of the quarter, up from $42.7 billion in March, after the company sold $7.4 billion of preferred stock.

The fact that they were able to finance themselves with preferreds underlines the importance to operating companies of maintaining the dividends … Fannie Mae issued $2-billion at 8.25%, $2.25-billion at 8.75% + mandatory conversion and $7-billion at LIBOR+423 last December. The convertable issue, of course, cannot be considered a fixed income security … but the extra security of the dividend until conversion is quite valuable!

The UK Financial Services Authority has concluded its investigation into the HBOS share collapse. Assiduous Readers will remember that the HBOS rights issue flopped. Not suprisingly:

Despite the likelihood that the rumours contributed to the fall in the share price, the FSA has not uncovered evidence that they were spread as part of a concerted attempt by individuals to profit by manipulating the share price.

Of interest is:

The effect of algorithmic trading strategies, which amplified the impact of the initial downward trend in the HBOS share price.

My expectation would have been that algorithmic trading strategies would cushion the downward trend, rather than amplifying it, as swaps between banks became more attractive. Certainly, “algorithmic” doesn’t mean anything in itself, but I would be most interested in learning the details of this automated positive feedback loop … and I bet the FSA is puzzling over this type of trading even now!

Well, a week-odd in to August and things are looking a little better! PerpetualDiscounts are up every day month-to-date, totalling 1.38%. They have had only one down-day (July 28) since the trough on July 16 and are now up 6.62% since trough-date. Average dividend yield is now 6.23%, equivalent to 8.72% interest for taxable holders with a 1.4x equivalency factor; long corporates now yield about 6.15% so the PTIE spread is 257bp … still above the previous ten-year high of 250bp.

There were seventeen other index-included $25-pv-equivalent issues trading over 10,000 shares today.

Update: Assiduous Reader prefwatcher takes me to task in the comments for not hating the Fannie Mae preferreds and suggests I look at the charts … so here’s the common vs. FNMPRG:

Clearly, not pretty for the preferreds – but, my point was, even less pretty for the common.

My glee at seeing common dividends cut while preferreds continue rolling along is, perhaps, a little exagerated … but there are so many commentators who take the view that preferred dividends are easy to cut I take great pleasure in pointing out contrary evidence. Fannie’s preferred stock is rated A1 Review-Negative by Moody’s, by the way. This note has also attracted attention at FWR.

Menzie Chinn of Econbrowser passes along a very gloomy paper on the interaction of recessions, credit contractions, housing price declines and stock market declines:

In particular, we show that recessions associated with credit crunches and house price busts are deeper and last longer than other recessions are.

Citigroup has agreed to a plan to bail-out holders of Auction Rate Securities:

Cuomo accused Citigroup of fraud in an Aug. 1 letter, claiming the firm should have told clients the auction-rate market survived between August 2007 and February 2008 only because of bidding from the bank. The letter demanded Citigroup buy back investors’ holdings in the “immediate future,” reimburse their damages and pay a “significant” fine.

Total craziness. If the politicians and the bureaucrats really think they’re helping the capital markets in the long-term with this sort of nonsense, their successors will have another think coming. All that is accomplished by this sort of thing is the creation of an aversion for anything but the plainest of vanilla offerings from the big investment banks. If any retail-scum investor actually wishes to buy things like this in the future – too bad! It will be too risky for the bank to sell it to you.

There were eightteen other index-included $25-pv-equivalent issues trading over 10,000 shares today.

Freddie Mac took a big loss on subprime:

Freddie wrote down the value of subprime and low-quality mortgage securities for the first time, taking a loss of $826 million, adding to signs the company sees tougher times ahead.
…
Freddie today reported a second-quarter net loss of $821 million, or $1.63 a share, its fourth straight loss, compared with the 54 cents a share average estimate of nine analysts in a Bloomberg survey.

The common-share dividend will be reduced to 5 cents or less from 25 cents, the second reduction in nine months. The preferred stock dividend won’t be affected, Freddie said in a statement.

Syron, 64, said in a statement today he still plans to raise capital after agreeing to sell $5.5 billion in equity.

So the common shareholders are seeing their dividends slashed and their equity diluted … while preferred shareholders are not (yet!) affected. It will be most interesting to track these things over the first decade of this century to see just how the risk/reward ultimately turns out.

There were eightteen other index-included $25-pv-equivalent issues trading over 10,000 shares today.

Another up day on extremely light volume – and even more extremely light commenting!

There were three other index-included $25-pv-equivalent issues trading over 10,000 shares today.

Another solid up-day, on very light volume.

There were five other index-included $25-pv-equivalent issues trading over 10,000 shares today.

Bloomberg reports that the CDS Clearinghouse will be running by Christmas. The New York Fed issued a press release lauding the plan which includes links to various documents. Of particular interest is:

Incorporating an auction-based settlement mechanism into standard credit derivatives documentation by the end of 2008 to increase the certainty of a transparent and orderly settlement process following a credit event

From the Supplement to the Participants’ Letter:

In relation to the process of incorporating the auction mechanism into the ISDA Credit Derivatives Definitions, ISDA reported to supervisors at the June 9 meeting that the working group had taken the decision to move forward, as a first step, with that part of the hardwiring process that will have the greatest impact in a relatively short timeframe. The group will therefore first focus on an Auction Supplement that addresses “Failure to Pay” and “Bankruptcy” Credit Events in respect of North American and European corporates, leaving “Restructuring” Credit Events to be addressed at a later date. A separate working group is addressing the settlement of potential monoline defaults in parallel.

It remains to be seen just precisely how the auction mechanism might work. The question of short squeezes upon a credit event has been previously discussed (update of 2008-3-30); there must be some wiggle-room for protection buyers to delay delivery, otherwise the entire process becomes de-linked from the actual market.

CMHC has announced:

that the Canada Mortgage Bonds (CMB) Program will be expanded to include a CMB with a 10-year maturity.

The CMB Programme buys NHA MBS, which are like American RMBS and finances them (until now) with 5-year paper. The CMHC’s description of this programme is notable for its use of the word “funged”, which is presumably the verbification of “fungible”. The CMB is distinct from the MTN programme which finances training camps for criminals political feel-good projects social housing.

Another solidly up-day for PerpetualDiscounts, again on light volume. For the month, they’re down 3.34% and closed yielding 6.32%, or 8.85% interest-equivalent at the 1.4x conversion factor. Long corporates continue to yield 6.2%, so the PTIE spread is +265bp … well down from the highs, but still well above the previous 10-year peak.

There were eleven other index-included $25-pv-equivalent issues trading over 10,000 shares today.

A solid up-day on light volume. Only one more day and this horrible month is over!

There were eleven other index-included $25-pv-equivalent issues trading over 10,000 shares today.

Accrued Interest reviews the performance of financial bonds vs. financial stocks and arrives at an interesting conclusion:

For financial stocks, the total return in percentage is graphed. What we see is that financials hit a low at -20% on March 17 (the day after the Bear/JP Morgan “merger”). At that point, the bonds of financial companies had fallen 6.5% vs. Treasuries, and high yield had fallen 10.3%. Then of course there was the rebound in April and early May, but let’s put that aside for a moment.

There are two things to notice here. First stocks, high-yield, and financial corporate bonds have all been highly correlated.
…
From May 7 to June 16, the financial corporate index had underperformed Treasury bonds by a whopping 8bps and high yield had actually outperformed by 127. From then until July 24, financial corporates underperformed Treasuries by 397bps and high-yield by 509bps.

Alright so where does this leave us? Looking in total from May 7 to July 24, financial stocks have fallen 23.6% whereas financial bonds have fallen 4.05% vs. government bonds. That’s about a 6-1 ratio. As of March 17, financial stocks had fallen 20% and financial bonds 6.5%, for a 3-1 ratio.

To me that implies that financial bonds remain overvalued vis a vie the equity.

Now, this is an empirical estimate based on not-too-many data points – only the current year-to-date is examined. I would want to see a much longer data sample before putting any credence in such a model; one not so heavily influenced by what must be regarded as one of the most severe modern-developed-market credit crunches ever experienced.

Assiduous Readers will remember my admiration of the Bank of England Financial Stability Report of April ’08 and the Figure 1.18 contained therein:

The methodology on which the charted decomposition depends was discussed in BoE Research: Decomposing Corporate Bond Spreads.

I’m all in favour of empirical analysis – a good chunk of HIMIPref™ is empirical – but such analysis becomes pretty dicey the more dissimilar the two investments being compared. And in the Accrued Interest analysis, the two series analyzed are:

• Stock Return
• Financial Bond return less Government bond return

Clearly, there is a connection; fear of extreme losses by a company will naturally affect – to a greater or lesser extent – market values of any type of investment in that company – but I want a deeper theoretical underpinning of why the two series should be connected with any sort of gearing ratio, with Accrued Interest contending he feels the 3:1 ratio of Dec 31 to March 17 being a better baseline than the 6:1 ratio of May 7 to July 24.

This might be restated as a variant of CAPM, with there being something of a conundrum in the definition of the risk-free rate; but basically, AI is claiming that a Beta of 0.33 for corporate bonds is more appropriate than a Beta of 0.16.

To my mind, I haven’t seen a good discussion of what constitutes the “liquidity” premium in the BoE research. Sure, a big chunk of it is, in fact, liquidity, but that’s kind of a touchy-feely concept used by academics who can’t bear to use the word “irrational” when describing market behaviour. What’s needed is some kind of theory that will describe both stock and bond prices in terms of an overlapping set of factors. Once such a model has been described and parameterized, perhaps we will see that a common factor has been forcing down the prices of both asset classes, perhaps with some kind of ratio attached. If we can show that this factor has a theoretical reason for being – and isn’t just a plug, useful only in describing investments in the financial sector during the period Dec 31, 2007, to July 24, 2008 – then, and only then, will we have something.

I was unable to quantify the historical relationship between financial bonds and financial stocks over time, but I was able to come up with this:

from the Bank of France Financial Stability Review of December 2006.

I am fully prepared to agree that there is a common factor between the returns of an entity’s stock and its bonds – so much is obvious! Don’t get me wrong; I certainly agree that there will be an element of corellation between financial stocks and financial bonds over time, regardless of whether this element dominates, is swamped or is amplified by other factors; I am also aware that by using the difference between financial bonds and government bonds as the return characteristic of note, AI is focussing on spreads, which will lend a great deal of orthagonalization to the picture … albeit not as much as one might think, because spreads tend to go contrary to rates.

Ortenca Kume of Robert Gordon University notes:

• Strong positive impact of leverage ratios on credit spreads
  • Positive impact of the changes in leverage on the changes in credit spreads
• Strong positive relation between company’s stock volatility and credit spreads
  • Positive impact of the changes in stock volatility on the changes in credit spreads
• Changes in credit spreads are significantly positively related to changes in the probability of bond prices’ jumps
• negative impact of the issue size on credit spreads
• credit spreads not significantly related to the variables of:
  • free-cash flows
  • return on equity

I will also note a paper by Campbell & Taksler (full paper republished by Harvard) that points out that in “the late 1990’s the US equity and corporate bond markets behaved very differently … stock prices rose strongly, while at the same time, corporate bonds performed poorly.” There is also an interesting paper by Wesley Phoa Implications of Merton Models for Corporate Bond Investors … but most of the data shows a strong corellation for junk credits. The paper looks at Nextel in detail, but for most of the period Nextel wasn’t just junk, it was distressed. Junk is really just equity dressed up as bonds, and the transition to distressed status simply adds make up to the costume. This paper from 2006 emphasizes volatility over return. And finally – for now – there is a BIS paper by Zhang, Zhou & Zhu, Explaining Credit Default Swap Spreads with Equity Volatility and Jump Risks of Individual Firms:

A structural model with stochastic volatility and jumps implies particular relationships between observed equity returns and credit spreads. This paper explores such effects in the credit default swap (CDS) market. We use a novel approach to identify the realized jumps of individual equity from high frequency data. Our empirical results suggest that volatility risk alone predicts 50% of CDS spread variation, while jump risk alone forecasts 19%. After controlling for credit ratings, macroeconomic conditions, and firms’ balance sheet information, we can explain 77% of the total variation. Moreover, the marginal impacts of volatility and jump measures increase dramatically from investment grade to high-yield entities. The estimated nonlinear effects of volatility and jumps are in line with the model impliedrelationships between equity returns and credit spreads.

Finally, I will refer to Accrued Interest‘s post, A disturbance in the Force, January 4, 2008, in which he published the following graph:

and commented:

From my seat, watching corporate bond spreads widen dramatically over the last 6 months, you’d certainly think recession is on the horizon. In fact, if you draw a horizontal line from where we are now in corporate spreads, you’d see that we’ve rarely been wider than current levels. We are wider than the worst points during the 1991 recession and 2001 recession, although we did touch a bit wider during 2002.

And yet the stock market is very near all-time highs. I did this graph up through 12/31, so the S&P would be a bit lower. But the basic story would be exactly the same: the stock and bond markets don’t agree about where we’re going next.

There are some logical reasons why stocks and bonds can diverge. One is that companies are increasing leverage. So equity returns might increase but bond risk rises. That’s not happening right now. Financial companies have gone into capital preservation mode, and all companies are finding the bond market quite inhospitable.

Expectations of a “gearing factor” that may be used by itself to evaluate financial stocks and bonds as rich/cheap against each other will require a correlation that is large, positive and stable. I find it a little hard to believe and want to see more data! I will also note that, as shown in the very hastily prepared literature survey above, the academics are plumping for volatility rather than performance as the equity characteristic of importance to bond spreads – which makes sense when you think about it terms of individual investors.

For instance, say each investor is characterized on a scale of 1-5, 1 being “raging bull” and 5 being an apocalyptionist. At any time, the universe of investors (dollar weighted!) will be “3”, since if it isn’t then the market level will adjust until they do.

A high volatility environment will result when the distribution of these views is flatter than normal; i.e., there are more 1s and 5s than there are in a normal distribution. The volatility will result from the marginal traders amongst the 1s and 5s temporarily gaining ascendency over their mirrors for a short period of time.

It makes sense that such a high-volatility environment will see increased spreads on corporates: if you’re a raging bull, you’re not going to bother with bonds and if you’re an apocalyptionist you’re going to be buying governments.

Or so goes my mapping of the statistics onto individual behavior, anyway!

For my own part, I suggest that spreads on financials are too wide, not too tight. It takes two to make a market!

Speaking of spreads on financials, PerpetualDiscounts had a good day today, up 0.6031% to yield 6.34%, interest equivalent 8.88%, about 268bp over the long corporates yield of 6.20%. In terms of total return, we are just a little below the closing value of July 9, down 3.67% on the month-to-date, but up 4.81% from the low of July 16. Which gives you a rough idea of just how low the low was!

There were eightteen other index-included $25-pv-equivalent issues trading over 10,000 shares today.