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Fed. (2) 7day RP 19.00B [net Add + 13.00B ]
Fed. (2) 7day RP 19.00B [net Add + 13.00B ]
Fed. 14day RP + 5.00B [sofar flat
The Slosh Report:
http://www.gmtfo.com/RepoReader/OMOps.aspx
CPST...Pounding the table here.
Capstone Turbine Receives Follow-on $2.6 Million C200 Order from Verdesis Suisse SA
Thursday April 3, 5:00 am ET
CHATSWORTH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Capstone Turbine Corporation (www.microturbine.com) (NASDAQ: CPST - News), the world’s leading clean technology manufacturer of microturbine energy systems, today announced that it received a $2.6 million follow-on order from its Switzerland-based distributor for its C200 MicroTurbine® systems.
Capstone’s distributor, Verdesis Suisse SA, ordered the systems which will be deployed at multiple biogas sites throughout Austria, Germany and Spain. Previous microturbines ordered from Verdesis have been deployed in a variety of applications, including biogas, at sites throughout Belgium, France, Switzerland and Germany.
“Europe continues to be a strong market for Capstone, and we continue to receive repeat business for our products from our distributors in Europe,” said Jim Crouse, Capstone’s Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing. “Verdesis, in conjunction with its Micropower partners, Wels Strom, VTA Technologie GmbH and AESA SpA, provide expertise in deploying a number of multiple unit biogas applications as well as others that offer customers effective and reliable solutions,” Crouse added.
“I continue to be pleased with the preproduction orders that we have received for our C200 product,” said Darren Jamison, President and Chief Executive Officer of Capstone Turbine Corporation.
“Headquartered in Switzerland, Verdesis and its Micropower partners have developed marketing, application, sales and servicing expertise in the power generation industry and in the supply and service of energy for a variety of customers,” said Tony Hynes, Vice President Sales, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “We are very pleased to be working with the Verdesis team and are looking forward to continued business opportunities in the future,” added Hynes.
Commenting on this new order, Verdesis Suisse SA’s President and Chief Executive Officer, Beat Naef, said, “We have installed Capstone microturbines previously with positive results. We are looking forward to deploying the new C200 microturbines that have the same technology advantages. We have been impressed with Capstone Turbine’s leadership in clean and green microturbine solutions and we look forward to working together in the future.”
About Capstone Turbine
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080403/20080403005239.html?.v=1
Futures (2) + World Indices
http://www.cme.com/dta/del/globex.html
http://money.cnn.com/data/premarket/
World Indices (2) Mini Charts
Updates every 60sec ~ Watch the dates!!
http://www.wwfn.com/commentary/oscharts.html
http://www.allstocks.com/markets/World_Charts/Asian_Stock_Markets/asian_stock_markets.html
China's great leap into gold
By Carolyn Cui and James Areddy
April 02, 2008
EDIT..see reply to 4 1st story.
GOLD-BUG fever is spreading.
From China to the Middle East, new ways to invest in gold are rapidly popping up in developing countries.
It's transforming the market for one of mankind's most venerable ways to sock away wealth.
The door is opening to a new class of investors who previously wouldn't have had access to gold futures and other tools.
Their rush to invest has helped fuel soaring prices - gold crossed $US900 an ounce for a time in the past week, and there are some calls for $US1000 - while adding volatile new dynamics to the market.
On January 9, thousands of Chinese investors jumped into the bullion market when the country's first gold futures contract were launched. Futures are agreements to buy or sell something at an agreed upon price in the future, and are traditionally the domain of the pros, not individuals.
So far, it's been a bumpy road: the most active June contract soared 6.3 per cent on its debut day, then tumbled 3.7 per cent on day two.
A slew of other new investments like these are planned in markets from Dubai to Mumbai.
In India, the top lender, State Bank of India, plans this year to launch an exchange traded fund that focuses on gold - enabling investors to trade gold much like a regular stock.
The World Gold Council, a London-based gold-mining industry group, says it is seeking to roll out its first gold ETF in Dubai this year, pending regulatory approval.
Last August, the Osaka Securities Exchange in Japan rolled out a gold-linked bond aimed at smaller investors.
In one of the largest recent scandals, a Shanghai trading firm, Liantai Gold Products, managed to find a way to trade gold futures contracts overseas - circumventing Chinese law - only to lose millions of dollars of its clients' money in the process.
Liantai's total trading volume once reached a remarkable 11.9 billion yuan ($1.86 billion), according to court documents.
The case is pending.
Until recently, most buying and selling of gold in China required lugging the metal between brokers and haggling over prices.
As recently as a decade or so ago, when Chinese tourists were first permitted to travel to Hong Kong in significant numbers, they often descended first on gold shops in the former British colony to stock up.
Only in 2002 did investors in China get the ability to trade physical gold on the Shanghai Gold Exchange, though individuals couldn't invest in actual bullion until 2005.
Even then, the opening was limited.
Today, however, some of the new products emerging in China and elsewhere can be traded over the internet like stocks.
The Shanghai Futures Exchange has warned that the product is primarily meant for big trading firms or gold consumers and producers, such as the nation's expanding gold-mining and electronics industries.
Yuan Lianbo, who heads the gold trading desk at Shandong Gold Group, one of the country's biggest gold miners, says his company has already started trading the Shanghai futures contract to hedge its price risks.
Just before trading began, the exchange tried to limit speculation by individuals by more than tripling the size of a single futures contract to one kilogram of gold from 300 grams.
It also increased the amount of margin, or collateral, that investors must post, to 9 per cent from 7 per cent of the value of the contract.
Still, while those moves lifted the minimum investment to about $US2700, analysts say gold futures are still affordable to many Chinese investors.
Among those clients signing up to trade the gold contract through brokerage China International Futures, "about 90 per cent are individual investors, most of whom were moving assets from stocks after turning bearish on the stock markets", says Lei Hongjun, deputy manager of the firm's Ningbo branch. China's stock market shot up 97 per cent in 2007, but recently has tumbled 13 per cent from its peak in October.
Of course, the new ability to trade gold in China won't automatically result in higher prices, analysts say.
But the new contract's movement will give the rest of the world a better idea of China's appetite for gold, which will be a key factor for gold prices.
Since 2003, Western investors have poured billions of dollars into a related investment, the gold exchange-traded fund.
Gold ETFs are pegged to the price of gold, but trade like stocks.
The most active gold ETF, a Big Board-listed fund called Street Tracks Gold Shares, now holds more of the precious metal than the European Central Bank or China's central bank. (ETF shares typically represent a chunk of physical gold.)
Similar funds have been launched in Australia, Britian, the US, South Africa, Mexico, Singapore and various European countries.
Gold, often in the form of jewellery, holds a special place in many Asian and Middle Eastern investors' portfolios.
Increased wealth in these regions means more people can afford to buy on impulse.
Chinese officials have suggested their country's growing demand for commodities is a reason that its three commodity futures exchanges should play a greater role in global pricing.
Sun Zhaoxue, chairman of China Gold Association, is quoted on the Shanghai Futures Exchange's website as saying the new gold contract will "improve China's influence on the global metals market and pave the way for China to set the prices in the market".
Already, a copper-cathode contract traded at the Shanghai Futures Exchange since 1999 rivals the importance of the main copper benchmark on the 130-year-old London Metal Exchange.
However, commodity benchmarks are tough to create from scratch.
The Wall Street Journal
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23446983-20142,00.html
China's great leap into gold
By Carolyn Cui and James Areddy
April 02, 2008
EDIT..see reply to 4 1st story.
GOLD-BUG fever is spreading.
From China to the Middle East, new ways to invest in gold are rapidly popping up in developing countries.
It's transforming the market for one of mankind's most venerable ways to sock away wealth.
The door is opening to a new class of investors who previously wouldn't have had access to gold futures and other tools.
Their rush to invest has helped fuel soaring prices - gold crossed $US900 an ounce for a time in the past week, and there are some calls for $US1000 - while adding volatile new dynamics to the market.
On January 9, thousands of Chinese investors jumped into the bullion market when the country's first gold futures contract were launched. Futures are agreements to buy or sell something at an agreed upon price in the future, and are traditionally the domain of the pros, not individuals.
So far, it's been a bumpy road: the most active June contract soared 6.3 per cent on its debut day, then tumbled 3.7 per cent on day two.
A slew of other new investments like these are planned in markets from Dubai to Mumbai.
In India, the top lender, State Bank of India, plans this year to launch an exchange traded fund that focuses on gold - enabling investors to trade gold much like a regular stock.
The World Gold Council, a London-based gold-mining industry group, says it is seeking to roll out its first gold ETF in Dubai this year, pending regulatory approval.
Last August, the Osaka Securities Exchange in Japan rolled out a gold-linked bond aimed at smaller investors.
In one of the largest recent scandals, a Shanghai trading firm, Liantai Gold Products, managed to find a way to trade gold futures contracts overseas - circumventing Chinese law - only to lose millions of dollars of its clients' money in the process.
Liantai's total trading volume once reached a remarkable 11.9 billion yuan ($1.86 billion), according to court documents.
The case is pending.
Until recently, most buying and selling of gold in China required lugging the metal between brokers and haggling over prices.
As recently as a decade or so ago, when Chinese tourists were first permitted to travel to Hong Kong in significant numbers, they often descended first on gold shops in the former British colony to stock up.
Only in 2002 did investors in China get the ability to trade physical gold on the Shanghai Gold Exchange, though individuals couldn't invest in actual bullion until 2005.
Even then, the opening was limited.
Today, however, some of the new products emerging in China and elsewhere can be traded over the internet like stocks.
The Shanghai Futures Exchange has warned that the product is primarily meant for big trading firms or gold consumers and producers, such as the nation's expanding gold-mining and electronics industries.
Yuan Lianbo, who heads the gold trading desk at Shandong Gold Group, one of the country's biggest gold miners, says his company has already started trading the Shanghai futures contract to hedge its price risks.
Just before trading began, the exchange tried to limit speculation by individuals by more than tripling the size of a single futures contract to one kilogram of gold from 300 grams.
It also increased the amount of margin, or collateral, that investors must post, to 9 per cent from 7 per cent of the value of the contract.
Still, while those moves lifted the minimum investment to about $US2700, analysts say gold futures are still affordable to many Chinese investors.
Among those clients signing up to trade the gold contract through brokerage China International Futures, "about 90 per cent are individual investors, most of whom were moving assets from stocks after turning bearish on the stock markets", says Lei Hongjun, deputy manager of the firm's Ningbo branch. China's stock market shot up 97 per cent in 2007, but recently has tumbled 13 per cent from its peak in October.
Of course, the new ability to trade gold in China won't automatically result in higher prices, analysts say.
But the new contract's movement will give the rest of the world a better idea of China's appetite for gold, which will be a key factor for gold prices.
Since 2003, Western investors have poured billions of dollars into a related investment, the gold exchange-traded fund.
Gold ETFs are pegged to the price of gold, but trade like stocks.
The most active gold ETF, a Big Board-listed fund called Street Tracks Gold Shares, now holds more of the precious metal than the European Central Bank or China's central bank. (ETF shares typically represent a chunk of physical gold.)
Similar funds have been launched in Australia, Britian, the US, South Africa, Mexico, Singapore and various European countries.
Gold, often in the form of jewellery, holds a special place in many Asian and Middle Eastern investors' portfolios.
Increased wealth in these regions means more people can afford to buy on impulse.
Chinese officials have suggested their country's growing demand for commodities is a reason that its three commodity futures exchanges should play a greater role in global pricing.
Sun Zhaoxue, chairman of China Gold Association, is quoted on the Shanghai Futures Exchange's website as saying the new gold contract will "improve China's influence on the global metals market and pave the way for China to set the prices in the market".
Already, a copper-cathode contract traded at the Shanghai Futures Exchange since 1999 rivals the importance of the main copper benchmark on the 130-year-old London Metal Exchange.
However, commodity benchmarks are tough to create from scratch.
The Wall Street Journal
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23446983-20142,00.html
Jim Sinclair's big bet.
Jim Sinclair's big bet.
Fed. 1day Reverse Repo -3.75B [Net Drain 7.75B]
The Slosh Report:
http://www.gmtfo.com/RepoReader/OMOps.aspx
Fed. 1day Reverse Repo -3.75B [Net Drain 7.75B]
The Slosh Report:
http://www.gmtfo.com/RepoReader/OMOps.aspx
ContraryInvestor: Wagging The Dog
Monthly Market Observations
April 2008
http://www.contraryinvestor.com/moprinter.htm
Butler: Real Regulatory Reform
By: Theodore Butler and Carl Loeb
Posted 1 April, 2008 | Digg This Article | Discuss This Article - Comments: 4
There is a lot to cover, so I apologise in advance for the length of this piece. While I have been thinking about Commodity Index Funds a lot lately, and discussing them with close associates for months, I hadn’t really planned on writing about them at this time. But events have dictated otherwise, particularly the attention given to the impact of index funds on commodity prices. Just this weekend Barrons carried an important cover story. The article basically highlighted just how large the size of the index funds’ positions had grown and what the price impact was likely to be (very negative) if these positions were sold. Regular readers may remember I have written about the role of the index funds in the past.
First, some recent updates on silver. The most recent Commitment of Traders Report (COT) indicated expected significant selling by the tech funds (not to be confused with the index funds) and buying by the commercials in both gold and silver, although not to the extent I had predicted. The total commercial net short position in silver was reduced by 12,000 contracts, or 60 million ounces, versus an expectation by me of 20,000 contracts. In COMEX gold, the dealers reduced their net short position by 33,000 contracts (3.3 million ounces) against my guess of 75,000 contracts. While my guesses were wide of the mark, the reduction in the respective commercial short positions in silver and gold was still the largest in months.
Long Read cont:
http://news.silverseek.com/TedButler/1207068209.php
Butler: Real Regulatory Reform
By: Theodore Butler and Carl Loeb
Posted 1 April, 2008 | Digg This Article | Discuss This Article - Comments: 4
There is a lot to cover, so I apologise in advance for the length of this piece. While I have been thinking about Commodity Index Funds a lot lately, and discussing them with close associates for months, I hadn’t really planned on writing about them at this time. But events have dictated otherwise, particularly the attention given to the impact of index funds on commodity prices. Just this weekend Barrons carried an important cover story. The article basically highlighted just how large the size of the index funds’ positions had grown and what the price impact was likely to be (very negative) if these positions were sold. Regular readers may remember I have written about the role of the index funds in the past.
First, some recent updates on silver. The most recent Commitment of Traders Report (COT) indicated expected significant selling by the tech funds (not to be confused with the index funds) and buying by the commercials in both gold and silver, although not to the extent I had predicted. The total commercial net short position in silver was reduced by 12,000 contracts, or 60 million ounces, versus an expectation by me of 20,000 contracts. In COMEX gold, the dealers reduced their net short position by 33,000 contracts (3.3 million ounces) against my guess of 75,000 contracts. While my guesses were wide of the mark, the reduction in the respective commercial short positions in silver and gold was still the largest in months.
Long Read cont:
http://news.silverseek.com/TedButler/1207068209.php
Caution as UBS deal gives boost to markets
By Chris Hughes in London and Michael Mackenzie in New York
Tuesday Apr 1 2008 16:05
Leading bankers cautioned against calling a premature end to the credit crunch on Tuesday as markets rallied sharply after a new round of bank writedowns and capital-raising fostered hopes the crisis had reached its nadir.
The rally was led by UBS (NYSE:UBS) , which closed up 12 per cent at SFr32.40, after the Swiss bank said Marcel Ospel, its chairman, was standing down in the wake of $19bn of new writedowns and a plan for a SFr15bn rights issue.
The bank also intends to package its exposure to troubled subprime mortgage assets into a separate entity.
Investors saw the moves as evidence that banks were finally facing up to their challenges and welcomed the writedowns as a benchmark for sizing up problems across the rest of the sector.
They also took comfort in the fact that the rights issue is to be underwritten by BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley, all of which had conducted due diligence on UBS's numbers.
The first day of the new quarter saw the S&P 500 close up 3.6 per cent at 1,370.18 points led by financials - its best day since a rise of 4.2 per cent on March 18. In London, the FTSE 100 was up 2.6 per cent, while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 rose 3.1 per cent.
Other banking stocks moved higher in sympathy, including Germany's Deutsche Bank (NYSE:DB) , which closed up up 3.9 per cent in spite of a warning of €2.5bn of new writedowns.
Lehman Brothers (NYSE:LEH) , the Wall Street bank, rose 17.8 per cent to $44.34 after increasing the size of Monday's $3bn capital raising by $1bn.
Investors also reduced their exposure to commodities and safe havens including government debt and gold, which fell to $880 an ounce, a two-month low.
But senior bankers said the rebound was driven in part by hedge funds closing short positions and warned that UBS had negative implications for the rest of the sector.
Marcel Rohner, UBS's chief executive, said the market was wrong to infer too much from UBS's situation.
"We will need a few days and weeks to understand the broader significance of where we are," he said. "One institution alone will not be sufficient to judge."
Daniel Zuberbühler, director of the Swiss Federal Banking Commission, conceded the UBS was "in first place" in terms of write-downs among European banks and cautioned: "But let's wait and see."
Analysts expect Merrill Lynch and Citigroup (NYSE:C) , the two other banks most hurt by the market turmoil, to take additional provisions when they report results in the next few weeks.
Additional reporting by Peter Thal Larsen in London, Haig Simonian in Zurich, and Aline van Duyn and Ben White in New York
http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto040120081712556642&referrer_id=yahoofinance
Capstone Receives HEV Bus Order for $5 Million from DesignLine International
Tuesday April 1, 4:33 pm ET
CHATSWORTH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Capstone Turbine Corporation (www.microturbine.com) (NASDAQ:CPST - News), the world’s leading clean technology manufacturer of microturbine energy systems, today announced that it received a 150 unit order for C30 Capstone MicroTurbines® to be deployed in ECOSaver IV hybrid electric buses manufactured by DesignLine International. This is the largest order to date for Capstone products in a Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) application.
Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, with manufacturing facilities in Charlotte and Ashburton, New Zealand, DesignLine was established in 1985 and produces high quality coaches, buses and specialty vehicles for the worldwide market with particular focus on its industry leading ECOSaver IV hybrid vehicle.
“This substantial order from our partner, DesignLine International, calls for shipments through June 2009 to their new plant in North Carolina,” said Jim Crouse, Capstone’s Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing. “One of DesignLine’s business goals is to work closely with its customers and encourage public transportation as an attractive option to private vehicles. Thus, the vehicles designed and built by DesignLine feature wide entry doors, super low floors, and spacious and comfortable interiors,” added Crouse.
“We are very pleased with the success DesignLine has had in deploying our microturbines in their buses for a number of years. Hybrid electric buses, built by DesignLine and equipped with Capstone microturbines, have been operating in various parts of the world for approximately 10 years. In recent product demonstrations the ECOSaver IV hybrid buses when equipped with our turbine have seen up to a 100% improvement in fuel economy over a traditional diesel bus which equates to fuel savings of up to 6,000 gallons per year according to DesignLine,” said Darren Jamison, President and Chief Executive Officer of Capstone Turbine Corporation. “In addition, as responsible members of the world community, DesignLine takes environmental preservation seriously. Therefore, they have been designing and manufacturing their buses for maximum fuel efficiency and the lowest possible emissions to make every effort to protect the environment including aluminum floors to remove the structurally weaker and environmentally harmful marine grade plywood,” added Jamison.
“The foundation of our company’s success is based on our innovative designs, cost competitiveness and the high quality of our products. Our vehicles are constructed with advanced extruded aluminum technology making them lightweight and very strong. The end result is the most fuel efficient vehicle available,” said Brad C. Glosson, Chief Executive Officer of DesignLine International. “A new day has dawned on the transit industry where the status quo is no longer acceptable and we, as a global community, must respond to the demand for the most fuel efficient, lowest emission and most reliable transit solutions possible. The ECOSaver IV hybrids provide unparalleled performance in all of these key areas. To achieve the goal of being the most environmentally-friendly hybrid available, DesignLine searches tirelessly for partners like Capstone. We employ the Capstone microturbine because we are impressed with the overall performance, the incredible reduction in the carbon footprint, reliable products and innovative solutions. We look forward to expanding further our successful relationship with Capstone,” added Glosson.
Capstone MicroTurbines® are the only turbine systems being sold in volume on urban transit vehicles. Three primary attributes make Capstone-energized systems almost maintenance-free:
A Single Moving Part – A single turbine/compressor shaft with integrated generator.
Patented Air Bearings – The single moving part rides on a cushion of air. Consequently, Capstone MicroTurbines® never need oil or lubrication maintenance.
Air Cooled – No radiator, water pump, thermostat, hoses, belts or external accessories.
DesignLine’s ECOSaver IV hybrid electric buses feature innovative styling, exceptional ride quality with improved gas mileage and lower emissions. During zero emission mode the noise level is near zero and with the Capstone unit running the noise level is approximately 75% lower than a traditional diesel bus. DesignLine calculates a 40% reduction in overall lifecycle cost compared to a traditional diesel bus.
About Capstone Turbine
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080401/20080401006758.html?.v=1
Fed. 1day RP + 4.00B [All Add ]
The Slosh Report:
http://www.gmtfo.com/RepoReader/OMOps.aspx
Fed. 1day RP + 4.00B [All Add ]
The Slosh Report:
http://www.gmtfo.com/RepoReader/OMOps.aspx
Futures (2) + World Indices
http://www.cme.com/dta/del/globex.html
http://money.cnn.com/data/premarket/
World Indices (2) Mini Charts
Updates every 60sec ~ Watch the dates!!
http://www.wwfn.com/commentary/oscharts.html
http://www.allstocks.com/markets/World_Charts/Asian_Stock_Markets/asian_stock_markets.html
Fed. 1day Reverse Repo -5.00B
The Slosh Report:
http://www.gmtfo.com/RepoReader/OMOps.aspx
Fed. 1day Reverse Repo -5.00B
The Slosh Report:
http://www.gmtfo.com/RepoReader/OMOps.aspx
Consider CPST
W@G1 QQQQ 03/31/08 for a 04/02/08 close
44.93 frenchee
44.50 dr_sean
44.22 bob3
43.82 Farooq
43.70 rayrohn
Futures (2) + World Indices
http://www.cme.com/dta/del/globex.html
http://money.cnn.com/data/premarket/
World Indices (2) Mini Charts
Updates every 60sec ~ Watch the dates!!
http://www.wwfn.com/commentary/oscharts.html
http://www.allstocks.com/markets/World_Charts/Asian_Stock_Markets/asian_stock_markets.html
Ray it's 3 card monte game / ur $$.
Fed. Ops: 11.00B Matures this week.
Thu:
5.00B 14day
6.00B 7day
Float: 16.00B
Paint Job 4 EOM still in play!!
================================================
Temp Ops:
Perm Ops:
=================================================
Public Debt:
Limit ~ $9,815 T
3/27 ~~ $9,412 T ** Substantial increase aside appearance of Draining
=========================================================
The Slosh Report:
http://www.gmtfo.com/RepoReader/OMOps.aspx
http://www.ny.frb.org/markets/omo/dmm/temp.cfm?SHOWMORE=TRUE
Fed. Ops: 11.00B Matures this week.
Thu:
5.00B 14day
6.00B 7day
Float: 16.00B
Paint Job 4 EOM still in play!!
================================================
Temp Ops:
Perm Ops:
=================================================
Public Debt:
Limit ~ $9,815 T
3/27 ~~ $9,412 T ** Substantial increase aside appearance of Draining
=========================================================
The Slosh Report:
http://www.gmtfo.com/RepoReader/OMOps.aspx
http://www.ny.frb.org/markets/omo/dmm/temp.cfm?SHOWMORE=TRUE
Treasury’s Plan Would Give Fed Wide New Power
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: March 29, 2008
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration will propose on Monday that Congress give the Federal Reserve broad authority to oversee financial market stability, in effect allowing it to send SWAT teams into any corner of the industry or any institution that might pose a risk to the overall system.
The proposal is part of a sweeping blueprint to overhaul the country’s hodge-podge of regulatory agencies, which many specialists say failed to recognize rampant excesses in mortgage lending until after they triggered what is now the worst financial calamity in decades.
According to a summary provided by the administration, the plan would consolidate what is now an alphabet soup of banking and securities regulators into a trio of overseers responsible for everything from banks and brokerage firms to hedge funds and private equity firms.
While the plan could expose Wall Street investment banks and hedge funds to greater scrutiny, it avoids a call for tighter regulation. The plan would not rein in practices that have been implicated in the housing and mortgage meltdown, like packaging risky subprime loans into securities carrying AAA ratings.
The Fed would also be given some authority over Wall Street firms but only when an investment bank’s practices posed a threat to the financial system over all.
The plan does not recommend tighter rules over the vast and largely unregulated markets for risk-sharing and hedging, like credit-default swaps, which are supposed to insure lenders against loss but became a speculative instrument and gave many institutions a false sense of security.
Some changes could actually reduce the power of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is charged with maintaining orderly stock and bond markets and protecting investors.
The blueprint suggests several areas where the S.E.C. should take a lighter approach to its oversight, such as allowing stock exchanges greater leeway to regulate themselves and streamlining the approval of new products, even allowing automatic approval of securities products that are being traded in foreign markets.
Under the proposal, the S.E.C. would merge with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates exchange-traded futures for oil, grains, currencies and the like.
The proposal itself began last year as an effort by the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., to make American financial markets more competitive against overseas markets by modernizing a creaky regulatory system.
Mr. Paulson’s goal was to streamline the different and sometimes clashing rules for commercial banks, thrifts and non-bank mortgage lenders.
“I am not suggesting that more regulation is the answer, or even that more effective regulation can prevent the periods of financial market stress that seem to occur every 5 to 10 years,” Mr. Paulson will say, according to a draft of a speech he plans to deliver on Monday. “I am suggesting that we should and can have a structure that is designed for the world we live in, one that is more flexible.”
Almost every element of the proposal would have to be approved by Congress, where Democratic leaders are already drafting bills to impose tougher supervision over investment banks, hedge funds and the fast-growing market in derivatives like credit-default swaps.
Mr. Paulson’s proposal for the Fed echoes ideas championed by Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. While both see the Fed taking a central role in overseeing risk across the entire financial spectrum, Mr. Frank is likely to favor a stronger Fed role, and to subject investment banks to the same rules that commercial banks must follow, especially for capital reserves.
Under the Treasury proposal, the Federal Reserve would become the government’s “market stability regulator” and would be allowed to gather information from virtually any financial institution. Fed officials would be allowed to examine the practices and even the bookkeeping of brokerage firms, hedge funds, commodity-trading exchanges and any other institution that might pose a risk to the financial system.
“The Fed would have the authority to go wherever in the system it thinks it needs to go for a deeper look to preserve stability,” Mr. Paulson said in the advance text of Monday’s speech. “To do this effectively, it will collect information from commercial banks, investment banks, insurance companies, hedge funds, commodity pool operators.”
That would be a significant expansion of the central bank’s regulatory mission, which has been limited primarily to supervising commercial banks. When Fed officials agreed earlier this month to rescue Bear Stearns, once the nation’s fifth-largest investment bank, they pointedly noted that the Fed never had the authority to monitor its financial condition or order it to beef up its protections.
In an unprecedented pair of moves, the Fed engineered a shotgun marriage between Bear Stearns and a rival, JPMorgan Chase, and then lent $29 billion to JP Morgan in order to prevent a bankruptcy filing by Bear and a chain of defaults that might have brought down much of the financial system.
For the first time since the 1930s, the Fed also agreed to let investment banks borrow hundreds of billions of dollars from its discount window, an emergency program reserved for commercial banks and other depository institutions.
Mr. Paulson’s proposal, however, would fall short of the kind of regulation that Democrats have been proposing. Mr. Frank and other senior Democrats have argued that investment banks and other lightly regulated institutions now compete directly with commercial banks and should be subject to the same kind of regulation — including examiners who regularly pore over their books and quietly demand changes in their practices.
In a recent interview, Mr. Frank said he realized the need for tighter regulation of Wall Street firms after a meeting with Charles O. Prince III, then chairman of Citigroup.
During the meeting, Mr. Frank said that he asked why Citigroup had kept billions of dollars in “structured investment vehicles” off the firm’s balance sheet. Mr. Prince’s response, Mr. Frank said, was that Citigroup, as a bank holding company, would have been at a disadvantage because investment firms can operate with higher debt and lower capital reserves.
Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, has taken a similar stance.
“Commercial banks continue to be supervised closely, and are subject to a host of rules meant to limit systemic risk,” Mr. Schumer wrote in an op-ed article on Friday in The Wall Street Journal. “But many other financial institutions, including investment banks and hedge funds, are regulated lightly, if at all, even though they act in many ways like banks.”
By contrast, Mr. Paulson’s proposal carefully limits the Fed’s regulatory authority to situations that pose threats to the entire financial system. “Such actions should not be focused on specific individual institutions,” the executive summary said.
Because the proposal would affect scores of deeply entrenched industry groups, it is likely to provoke bruising turf battles in Congress between rival agencies and rival industry groups that benefit from the current system of regulation.
Administration officials acknowledged on Friday that they do not expect the proposal to become law this year, but said they hoped it would help frame a policy debate that will extend well after the elections in November.
In a nod to the debacle in mortgage lending, the administration proposed a “Mortgage Origination Commission” that would be led by representatives from the Fed and other bank regulators and would evaluate the effectiveness of state governments in regulating mortgage brokers and protecting consumers.
But the bulk of the proposal was developed before soaring mortgage defaults kicked off a much broader credit crisis, and most of the proposals are geared to streamlining regulation.
In addition to putting the Fed in charge of “market stability,” the proposal would dramatically consolidate a slew of regulators into roughly three big new agencies.
The plan would then consolidate bank supervision — now divided among five different federal agencies — into a “Prudential Financial Regulator,” which would have the power to send examiners into any bank or depository institution that is protected by either federal deposit insurance or other federal backstops. It would eliminate the distinction between “banks” and “thrift institutions,” which are already indistinguishable to most consumers, and shut down the Office of Thrift Supervision.
Any effort to merge the Commodity Futures Trading Commission with the S.E.C. is all but certain to provoke a bruising turf battle between the agencies as well as the companies they regulate.
Specialists, however, have long argued that futures, which are contracts to buy or sell anything from corn to Treasury securities at a specified price in the future, are simply a variant of securities.
Yet another proposal in the blueprint would, for the first, time create a national regulator for insurance companies, an industry that is now regulated by state governments. Administration officials argue that a national system would eliminate inefficiencies of having 50 different state regulators, who have jealously guarded their powers and are likely to fight any encroachment by the federal government.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/business/29regulate.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Good win Mr. Default /e
Treasury’s Plan Would Give Fed Wide New Power
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: March 29, 2008
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration will propose on Monday that Congress give the Federal Reserve broad authority to oversee financial market stability, in effect allowing it to send SWAT teams into any corner of the industry or any institution that might pose a risk to the overall system.
The proposal is part of a sweeping blueprint to overhaul the country’s hodge-podge of regulatory agencies, which many specialists say failed to recognize rampant excesses in mortgage lending until after they triggered what is now the worst financial calamity in decades.
According to a summary provided by the administration, the plan would consolidate what is now an alphabet soup of banking and securities regulators into a trio of overseers responsible for everything from banks and brokerage firms to hedge funds and private equity firms.
While the plan could expose Wall Street investment banks and hedge funds to greater scrutiny, it avoids a call for tighter regulation. The plan would not rein in practices that have been implicated in the housing and mortgage meltdown, like packaging risky subprime loans into securities carrying AAA ratings.
The Fed would also be given some authority over Wall Street firms but only when an investment bank’s practices posed a threat to the financial system over all.
The plan does not recommend tighter rules over the vast and largely unregulated markets for risk-sharing and hedging, like credit-default swaps, which are supposed to insure lenders against loss but became a speculative instrument and gave many institutions a false sense of security.
Some changes could actually reduce the power of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is charged with maintaining orderly stock and bond markets and protecting investors.
The blueprint suggests several areas where the S.E.C. should take a lighter approach to its oversight, such as allowing stock exchanges greater leeway to regulate themselves and streamlining the approval of new products, even allowing automatic approval of securities products that are being traded in foreign markets.
Under the proposal, the S.E.C. would merge with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates exchange-traded futures for oil, grains, currencies and the like.
The proposal itself began last year as an effort by the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., to make American financial markets more competitive against overseas markets by modernizing a creaky regulatory system.
Mr. Paulson’s goal was to streamline the different and sometimes clashing rules for commercial banks, thrifts and non-bank mortgage lenders.
“I am not suggesting that more regulation is the answer, or even that more effective regulation can prevent the periods of financial market stress that seem to occur every 5 to 10 years,” Mr. Paulson will say, according to a draft of a speech he plans to deliver on Monday. “I am suggesting that we should and can have a structure that is designed for the world we live in, one that is more flexible.”
Almost every element of the proposal would have to be approved by Congress, where Democratic leaders are already drafting bills to impose tougher supervision over investment banks, hedge funds and the fast-growing market in derivatives like credit-default swaps.
Mr. Paulson’s proposal for the Fed echoes ideas championed by Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. While both see the Fed taking a central role in overseeing risk across the entire financial spectrum, Mr. Frank is likely to favor a stronger Fed role, and to subject investment banks to the same rules that commercial banks must follow, especially for capital reserves.
Under the Treasury proposal, the Federal Reserve would become the government’s “market stability regulator” and would be allowed to gather information from virtually any financial institution. Fed officials would be allowed to examine the practices and even the bookkeeping of brokerage firms, hedge funds, commodity-trading exchanges and any other institution that might pose a risk to the financial system.
“The Fed would have the authority to go wherever in the system it thinks it needs to go for a deeper look to preserve stability,” Mr. Paulson said in the advance text of Monday’s speech. “To do this effectively, it will collect information from commercial banks, investment banks, insurance companies, hedge funds, commodity pool operators.”
That would be a significant expansion of the central bank’s regulatory mission, which has been limited primarily to supervising commercial banks. When Fed officials agreed earlier this month to rescue Bear Stearns, once the nation’s fifth-largest investment bank, they pointedly noted that the Fed never had the authority to monitor its financial condition or order it to beef up its protections.
In an unprecedented pair of moves, the Fed engineered a shotgun marriage between Bear Stearns and a rival, JPMorgan Chase, and then lent $29 billion to JP Morgan in order to prevent a bankruptcy filing by Bear and a chain of defaults that might have brought down much of the financial system.
For the first time since the 1930s, the Fed also agreed to let investment banks borrow hundreds of billions of dollars from its discount window, an emergency program reserved for commercial banks and other depository institutions.
Mr. Paulson’s proposal, however, would fall short of the kind of regulation that Democrats have been proposing. Mr. Frank and other senior Democrats have argued that investment banks and other lightly regulated institutions now compete directly with commercial banks and should be subject to the same kind of regulation — including examiners who regularly pore over their books and quietly demand changes in their practices.
In a recent interview, Mr. Frank said he realized the need for tighter regulation of Wall Street firms after a meeting with Charles O. Prince III, then chairman of Citigroup.
During the meeting, Mr. Frank said that he asked why Citigroup had kept billions of dollars in “structured investment vehicles” off the firm’s balance sheet. Mr. Prince’s response, Mr. Frank said, was that Citigroup, as a bank holding company, would have been at a disadvantage because investment firms can operate with higher debt and lower capital reserves.
Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, has taken a similar stance.
“Commercial banks continue to be supervised closely, and are subject to a host of rules meant to limit systemic risk,” Mr. Schumer wrote in an op-ed article on Friday in The Wall Street Journal. “But many other financial institutions, including investment banks and hedge funds, are regulated lightly, if at all, even though they act in many ways like banks.”
By contrast, Mr. Paulson’s proposal carefully limits the Fed’s regulatory authority to situations that pose threats to the entire financial system. “Such actions should not be focused on specific individual institutions,” the executive summary said.
Because the proposal would affect scores of deeply entrenched industry groups, it is likely to provoke bruising turf battles in Congress between rival agencies and rival industry groups that benefit from the current system of regulation.
Administration officials acknowledged on Friday that they do not expect the proposal to become law this year, but said they hoped it would help frame a policy debate that will extend well after the elections in November.
In a nod to the debacle in mortgage lending, the administration proposed a “Mortgage Origination Commission” that would be led by representatives from the Fed and other bank regulators and would evaluate the effectiveness of state governments in regulating mortgage brokers and protecting consumers.
But the bulk of the proposal was developed before soaring mortgage defaults kicked off a much broader credit crisis, and most of the proposals are geared to streamlining regulation.
In addition to putting the Fed in charge of “market stability,” the proposal would dramatically consolidate a slew of regulators into roughly three big new agencies.
The plan would then consolidate bank supervision — now divided among five different federal agencies — into a “Prudential Financial Regulator,” which would have the power to send examiners into any bank or depository institution that is protected by either federal deposit insurance or other federal backstops. It would eliminate the distinction between “banks” and “thrift institutions,” which are already indistinguishable to most consumers, and shut down the Office of Thrift Supervision.
Any effort to merge the Commodity Futures Trading Commission with the S.E.C. is all but certain to provoke a bruising turf battle between the agencies as well as the companies they regulate.
Specialists, however, have long argued that futures, which are contracts to buy or sell anything from corn to Treasury securities at a specified price in the future, are simply a variant of securities.
Yet another proposal in the blueprint would, for the first, time create a national regulator for insurance companies, an industry that is now regulated by state governments. Administration officials argue that a national system would eliminate inefficiencies of having 50 different state regulators, who have jealously guarded their powers and are likely to fight any encroachment by the federal government.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/business/29regulate.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Fed. 3day Reverse Repo -6.00B [net Drain -12.50B ]
The Slosh Report:
http://www.gmtfo.com/RepoReader/OMOps.aspx
Fed. 3day Reverse Repo -6.00B [net Drain -12.50B ]
The Slosh Report:
http://www.gmtfo.com/RepoReader/OMOps.aspx
Fed auction attracts $86.1 billion in bids for $75 billion
2:36 PM ET, Mar 27, 2008 - 30 seconds ago 01. Fed auctions $75 billion to primary dealers for 28 days
2:36 PM ET, Mar 27, 2008 - 30 seconds ago
02. Primary dealers borrow $75 billion at 0.33% stop-out rate
2:36 PM ET, Mar 27, 2008 - 30 seconds ago
Fed.(2)3) 7day RP + 6.00B [net Drain -24.25B ]
(3)Fed. 1day RP + 6.50B
The Slosh Report:
http://www.gmtfo.com/RepoReader/OMOps.aspx
Fed.(2)3) 7day RP + 6.00B [net Drain -24.25B ]
(3)Fed. 1day RP + 6.50B
The Slosh Report:
http://www.gmtfo.com/RepoReader/OMOps.aspx
Fed. 14day RP + 5.00B [huge Drain sofar
The Slosh Report:
http://www.gmtfo.com/RepoReader/OMOps.aspx
Fed. 14day RP + 5.00B [huge Drain sofar
The Slosh Report:
http://www.gmtfo.com/RepoReader/OMOps.aspx
Louise Yamada: Dated 3/04/08
Fast Money Video
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=671700945&play=1
Run time 4min, give it time to load see her projections:
SPX 1200 .. Looks like it may go out of the bottom side of "The Triangle" .. because of the Lower Highs and Rally Selling.
USD 62.00 ..
GOLD .. Looks like in the Bag 1050 then consolidation possible B4 Next Legs Up.
1150 Target
Longer term 1250 1500 2400
Oil 124
Paulson resists more government steps in mortgage crisis
By Greg Robb, MarketWatch
Last update: 12:20 p.m. EDT March 26, 2008
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson continued to argue against more government intervention in the mortgage crisis on Wednesday, saying a cluster of ideas currently floating around would "cause more harm than good."
In a speech Wednesday to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Paulson said most of the new ideas circulating on Capitol Hill, which would generally provide taxpayer money to help reduce loan amounts and refinance mortgages at lower rates to keep homeowners from foreclosing, "are not ready for the starting gate."
"Most of the other ideas I have seen...would cause more harm than good," Paulson said in answer to question after his remarks.
Housing market woes have become a key part of the debate among the three remaining presidential contenders and members of Congress are agitating for action ahead of their elections.
It is unclear whether Paulson, a former chairman of Goldman Sachs, has the political insight to counter this momentum.
Indeed, there is a growing chorus of economists who think it would be a good idea for Congress to do more to stem the housing recession. These analysts think the Federal Reserve has been shouldering too much of the burden for reacting to the crisis and believe the central bank cannot push its short-term interest rate target much lower.
Louise Yamada: Dated 3/04/08
Fast Money Video
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=671700945&play=1
Run time 4min, give it time to load see her projections:
SPX 1200 .. Looks like it may go out of the bottom side of "The Triangle" .. because of the Lower Highs and Rally Selling.
USD 62.00 ..
GOLD .. Looks like in the Bag 1050 then consolidation possible B4 Next Legs Up.
1150 Target
Longer term 1250 1500 2400
Oil 124