La mappa dei pignoramenti a fine 2008

RealtyTrac reported this week that in 2008, the U.S. had a total of 3,157,806 foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — on 2,330,483 U.S. properties. This was an 81% increase over 2007, and a 225% percent increase from 2006.

The report also shows that 1.84 percent of all U.S. housing units (one in 54) received at least one foreclosure filing during the year, up from 1.03 percent in 2007.

The Big Picture

Altri Madoff all'orizzonte?

Politico suggests that the Obama Administration is concerned that during the current financial turmoil matters may become even more destabilized by the surfacing of additional frauds. One commentator noted that there was probably "another Bernie Madoff out there." Possible evidence?

Are there other firms out there with unblemished quarterly records? Yes. According to research done for Politico by Morningstar Inc., there are 1,684 hedge funds that have disclosed their results for the past 20 consecutive quarters. Of those, Morningstar found that 34 have never reported a down quarter in the past five years. And of those 34, at least seven funds, or their parent firms, are in some way connected to the Madoff scandal as investors in Madoff’s operation. That leaves 27 firms that have a five-year track record of gains and no known connection to Madoff.

To the extent that additional frauds surface and hedge funds rest at the center (either as the perpetrators of the fraud or as depositors with advisors who commit the fraud), it is worth remembering that on this issue the Securities and Exchange Commission tried to be proactive. 

It adopted a rule that required hedge funds to register with the agency and file reports about its activities.

What happened to the rule? The DC Circuit, the circuit full of political appointees who are often too toxic to get appointed in their own circuit (and who often want to attract the attention of those looking for prospective Supreme Court nominees), struck down the modest rule. Why? Parsing through the contorted reasoning of the decision, the panel largely objected to increased government regulation of the markets. In other words, it was less about law and more about an excessive deference to the market place. That philosophy explains in large part why we are in the current mess.

Theracetothebottom

The 10 most unethical people in business

1. Bernard Madoff. Turns out a lot of people were suspicious of Madoff's ability to deliver high percentage returns like clockwork for long periods of time. It also turns out that he allegedly ran a $50 billion Ponzi scheme that, when discovered, ruined many a life savings. It's not yet clear how many people at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities knew of the scam, but it's clear that Madoff was the mastermind.
2. David Colby. Colby, the former CFO of Wellpoint, was caught carrying on multiple affairs, even once texting "ABORT!!" to one of his many girlfriends after discovering she was pregnant. He carried on relationships with over 30 women and proposed to at least 12 of them.
3. Rod Blagojevich. Blagojevich is the governor of Illinois who allegedly tried to "sell" the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. Some reports say he tried to trade the seat for ambassadorships, money and positions within pro-union groups and even a $150,000 salary for his wife.
4. Heinz-Joachim Neubürger, Karl-Hermann Baumann and Johannes Feldmayer. The two former CFOs and former chairman of Siemens, respectively, got busted over bribery and their company was fined billions. The bribes that they paid to earn contracts could not have been worth more than the $1.4 billion settlement the company agreed to pay.
5. Ted Stevens. Stevens is the former senator from Alaska who was found guilty of failing to report gifts given to him by various contractors. He faces up to five years for each of the seven counts against him. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for February 25.
6. Bruno A Kaelin. Kaelin, a former senior vice president and head of corporate compliance at Alstom, was arrested in Switzerland in August following a joint Franco-Swiss-Italian investigation into his alleged role in running a bribery slush fund and laundering hundreds of millions of euros. Prior to that, Kaelin was convicted in a separate bribery case in Italy involving payoffs to two officials of the Italian electric company Enel.
7. Adam Vitale. Vitale was sentenced to 30 months in prison and $180,000 restitution to be paid to AOL after he found a way to spam 1.2 million AOL users in a way that avoided being caught by AOL's spam filter. Vitale also had 22 prior convictions, including running an online prostitution ring through Craigslist.
8. Robert Rubin. Rubin, like it or not, became one of the faces tied to the 2008 financial crisis. His position of deregulation when he was Treasury secretary is now faulted by some for many of the problems of today. He also became the fall guy for Citigroup's business strategy of leveraging more risk.
9. Marco Benatti. Benatti, a former Italian director of advertising for WPP, was accused of libel last year for calling WPP chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell a "mad dwarf" and was alleged to have secretly pocketed millions of pounds from a deal he helped to broker. WPP's lawyers, claiming up to 12.5 million pounds for breach of "fiduciary duty," alleged at a court hearing in London that Benatti was the "secret beneficiary" of most of the proceeds from a 17 million pound takeover of Media Club, an Italian advertising company. Benatti sued back, alleging unfair dismissal. He argued that he was really let go because he had fallen out with Daniela Weber, WPP's chief operating officer in Italy, with whom he alleged Sorrell was having a relationship. In last year's libel case, Sorrell accused Benatti of circulating a computer-generated image showing him with Weber labeled "the mad dwarf and the nympho schizo."
10. James M. DiBlasio. DiBlasio makes the list for going on a three-day bender and hacking into the computers of his company, Ski.com, while drunk. Fortunately for him, the CEO of Ski.com wasn't too angry about the situation and decided not to pursue charges.
    

Marketwatch

Citi e Merrill Lynch

Citigroup on Friday reported a net loss of $8.29 billion

Merrill Lynch results indicate a fourth-quarter loss of $15.31 billion.

Marketwatch

Nortel in Chapter 11

Toronto-based Nortel is reeling from the sudden drop in demand for its voice-only telecom-network equipment and has been trying to cut costs and sell assets to survive the downturn. It is expected to file for protection from creditors in Canada, as well.

Nortel was facing a $107 million bond interest payment this week. The company owes bondholders more than $3.8 billion, according to court filings.

In December, the company had received notice from the New York Stock Exchange that it faced delisting if it couldn't bring its share price above the required $1 minimum in the next six months. It was last trading at 32 cents a share.

Nortel's shares plunged last year as customers reduced spending amid the economic downturn.

The company also filed for protection under Chapter 15 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Chapter 15, added to the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in 2005, opens the door for a company or court-appointed administrator to seek a U.S. bankruptcy court's recognition of a foreign bankruptcy case as the main, or controlling proceeding.

WSJ.com

Alitalia / Air France

CAI ha acquistato gli assets di Alitalia pagandoli 427 milioni. 

CAI, dopo soli 3 mesi, ha rivenduto ad Air France il 25% per 323 milioni, attribuendo così alla Nuova Alitalia un valore complessivo di circa 1,2 miliardi. 

Non male come rivalutazione dell'investimento.

A noi contribuenti restano invece da pagare circa 600 milioni per i debiti della Vecchia Alitalia.

I tagli delle rating agencies alla Nuova Zelanda e alla Spagna

«The New Zealand dollar plunged more than 3 per cent against both the Japanese Yen and the US dollar on Tuesday, after ratings agency Standard & Poor’s warned it could downgrade the Kiwi’s foreign currency debt rating.

S&P lowered its outlook for New Zealand’s rating to negative from stable, citing the country’s rising current account deficit and worsening fiscal outlook, though confirmed a stable outlook for the local currency rating.

The Kiwi was sold off heavily in the wake of the news, sinking 3.5 per cent against the US dollar to US$0.55, and breaking through the psychologically important Y50 level against the Japanese yen, at one point losing 4 per cent to touch an intraday low of Y49.20.

Analysts said the Kiwi was further hurt by deteriorating demand for commodities amid the global economic downturn, and news that business confidence in the country had hit a 34-year low, according to the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research’s quarterly survey.

The dismal survey results increased speculation that New Zealand’s national bank would cut interest rates by at least 100 basis points on January 29.

David Woo at Barclays Capital said the Kiwi could have further to fall: “Waning investor optimism, declining equity and commodity markets and a very weak reading in business confidence are likely to weigh significantly on the NZD, while the S&P news adds to the downward pressure.”

On Monday, S&P cut its outlook for Spain’s foreign currency debt to negative from stable. Analysts warned this might not only damage the market for Spanish bonds, but would also put pressure on the euro. The eurozone currency extended two sessions of losses against the dollar to slide 0.4 per cent at $1.33, and also fell 0.6 per cent against the yen at Y118.44.

Steve Barrow at Standard Bank said: “We definitely think that we will hear more and more talk about downgrades within the periphery eurozone bond markets this year and, who knows, maybe the ratings agencies will actually get their knives out and cut. Hence, this story is set to get bigger, with the implication that it eventually starts to unsettle the euro.”

Elsewhere, a broad based return to risk aversion in the markets saw the safe haven yen stage gains against all the major currency crosses. Against the dollar, the yen extended Monday’s move below the significant Y90 level, slipping a further 0.2 per cent to Y89.05. The yen also jumped 1.8 per cent against the high yielding Australian dollar, to Y59.69, and added 0.5 per cent against the Swiss franc to Y79.68.

Sterling was weaker across the board after the release of worse than expected retail sales and housing data, and an exceptionally grim business survey from the British Chamber of Commerce. The pound fell 1.1 per cent against the euro to £0.9115, and was 1.5 per cent lower against the dollar at $1.4595».

FT.com

Qualcuno uscirà dall'Euro?

Secondo FT le probabilità che qualche Paese esca dall'area Euro non sono così remote come si potrebbe pensare.

«The market fears the Greeks, even when bearing gifts. It is also scared about the Irish and the Spanish.

Greece has always been treated as a peripheral eurozone member, not only in geography. Even before last year's civil unrest, its bonds traded at a significantly higher yield than those of Germany - showing a higher perceived default risk.

The market is nervous about other nations on the eurozone's periphery, notably Ireland and Spain, which grew overextended during the credit bubble.

A eurozone country defaulting and leaving the euro is close to an unthinkable event. But Friday's news from Standard & Poor's that Greece and Ireland were on review for a possible downgrade, followed yesterday by Spain, left many thinking the unthinkable.

The spread of Greek bonds over German bunds is 2.32 percentage points, almost 10 times its level of two years ago. Spanish spreads yesterday rose above 90 for the first time. An Intrade prediction market future puts the odds on a current eurozone member leaving the euro by the end of next year at about 30 per cent.

The euro dropped more than 1 per cent against the dollar within minutes of the Spanish news, and is down 9.8 per cent in the last few weeks.

A crisis over Greece might be the euro's ultimate "stress test" (to borrow a phrase from Daniel Katzive of Credit Suisse). If the eurozone could find a way to deal with a default, that might confirm the euro's status as the world's next reserve currency.

But if the eurozone could not work out a solution, and a country exited, any such ambition would be over.

The dollar-euro exchange rate affects many other assets.

Now that fears are in the open that Greece (or another peripheral country) could be the Trojan horse that breaks up the euro, any news on this front could shake many other markets».

The short view

Sony e Toshiba

Sony ha chiuso con una perdita dell'8,9% sulla base di un report gionalistico in cui si prevede che il colosso giapponese chiuderà i conti del 2008 - per la prima volta dopo 14 anni - in perdita, mentre Toshiba ha perso l'8,6% dopo che NHK ha previsto  per la stessa Toshiba una perdita dopo 7 anni.  

Bloomberg.com