vittello

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    • Thu Jun 26th 09:50 AM
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      Help for the Guarantors - From an Unexpected Source
      Top notch explanation. This is exactly how the crisis can be unwound without leaving too many bodies in its' wake. I hope congress/the president grant the $300B for central bank loans as it will make this strategy much easier to digest for the banks. Mr. Brown's coverage of this situation is always spot on and backed up by facts rather than emotion. The shorts in this stock just don't have a strong enough grasp on macro-economics to justify what they are doing. So far, collusion, conflict of interest and fraud have allowed them to profit-those days are numbered.
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    • Fri Jun 20th 15:18 PM
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      Downgrades Come Easy, Upgrades Come Hard
      These credit rating agencies have too much power, given their track record in this sub-prime debacle. Having rated structured finance in various forms for decades, how can anyone believe they were honestly rating tranches as recently as last summer at a-aaa, then within weeks/months downgrading them when there wasn't even time for anything material to change since being originally rated. And the fed/sec has stood there and watched for years as this bubble formed and did nothing to intervene before it was to undermine the US economy (just like crude)-and they are still fumbling around on the sidelines, unable to provide an aggressive and clear direction to get out of this mess. Then again, these are the same folks that authorized down-tick shorting and dark pool trading last year, at perhaps the worst possible time in the market. I am now convinced they work for the same people as the ratings agencies-the miniscule class of elite investors that are destroying this country with an unchecked paradigm of financial terrorism for profit. How in the world can regulators allow warren buffet to jump into a business sector after companies (Moody's) he is well into have created a temporary crisis for the established players. For the little ones, it is more than temporary, but for the leaders it is mind-blowing to watch the product creators, ratings agencies, market makers, media, speculators and regulators all gang up on them and just push their long-standing, blue chip businesses to the edge, via. the nefarious tactics of collusion, conflict of interest and fraud. This situation is way, way out of control and nobody is doing anything meaningful to address it. The American empire is going to collapse and the people who did it will just take off to a tax free domicile and never be held to account.
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    • Fri Jun 20th 01:46 AM
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      Fund Manager Ackman Shorting Financial Security Assurance
      Please don't glorify this ...... What he's doing is making predictions that require very little capital to fulfill. no brilliance here, just a guy with a loud mouth that deserves to be investigated by the sec. OK, you made your money, now please push on somewhere else and allow these stocks to be re-connected with their legitimate values.
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    • Thu Jun 19th 01:23 AM
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      Two More Homebuilders Go Bust
      It amazes me that people still criticize ABK/MBIA at their current share prices. "Potential" losses have been overpriced into the stock. Not only have insiders been buying over the last few months, but institutions have been adding to their positions as well. It looks like a few of their smaller competitors are going out of business and the banks have certainly become weary of credit default swaps that cut into ABK's market share. Seeing as reduced tax bases in many municipalities will lower their credit worthiness, I think they will not only need to raise funds at the lowest rates possible, but will require the insurers high grade wrapper to get this done. Even at Aaa/AA, ABK is in better shape than most banks, municipalities and competitors. Ex-unrealized gains and losses, this stock has a book value around $30. At $2, this is one of the best opportunities I have ever seen in my last 20 years of investing. Jump all over it!!!

      And, the way you short sellers make money-by disconnecting share prices from fundamentals based upon unrealized losses is anti-American. The real life pain you, the market makers and media inflict on undeserving quarry via the use of down-tick shorting, dark pool trading and fear mongering is absolutely criminal in intent and consequences. "Ganging up" on a share price to force it down to the point where people are losing their livelihoods so people like you can make an illegitimate profit does not illustrate investment savvy, it just displays the blunt ethics of a sadistic scumbag.
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    • Thu Jun 19th 00:34 AM
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      MBIA Vs. NYT
      Felix, you are a good man. Know that your efforts to pierce the mafiaesque ambitions of the mass media, market makers, dark pool participants and down-tick short sellers are tremendously appreciated by us "little guys". Please keep up the honest work and hoist the flag of trust to newcomers. The establishment is rotten to the bone-and heart. Thank you.
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    • Wed Jun 18th 16:11 PM
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      Rating: 0 0
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      Whitney Tilson’s Response on the Monolines
      It amazes me that people still criticize ABK/MBIA at their current share prices. "Potential" losses have been overpriced into the stock. Not only have insiders been buying over the last few months, but institutions have been adding to their positions as well. It looks like a few of their smaller competitors are going out of business and the banks have certainly become weary of credit default swaps that cut into ABK's market share. Seeing as reduced tax bases in many municipalities will lower their credit worthiness, I think they will not only need to raise funds at the lowest rates possible, but will require the insurers high grade wrapper to get this done. Even at Aaa/AA, ABK is in better shape than most banks, municipalities and competitors. Ex-unrealized gains and losses, this stock has a book value around $30. At $2, this is one of the best opportunities I have ever seen in my last 20 years of investing. Jump all over it!!!

      And, the way you short sellers make money-by disconnecting share prices from fundamentals based upon unrealized losses is anti-American. The real life pain you, the market makers and media inflict on undeserving quarry via the use of down-tick shorting, dark pool trading and fear mongering is absolutely criminal in intent and consequences. "Ganging up" on a share price to force it down to the point where people are losing their livelihoods so people like you can make an illegitimate profit does not illustrate investment savvy, it just displays the blunt ethics of a sadistic scumbag.
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    • Wed Jun 18th 15:48 PM
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      Rating: 0 0
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      Disagreeing With Tilson on the Monoline Insurers
      MBIA asked Fitch to take a hike months ago. Why? "Issuers choose Fitch Ratings because our independent research and ratings heighten investor awareness, raise the liquidity of the issuer's securities and reduce the cost of funds" is what Fitch CEO states on their website. Fitch Group is majority owned by Fimalac SA (Paris based, with luxembourg based holding company all basically run by one French guy)(80%) and Hearst (20%). Fitch ratings is 100% owned by Fitch Group. Interestingly, the vice-chairman of Merrill Lynch sits on the international advisory committee of Finch Ratings, along with volker (former fed chairman) and the vice chairman of hearst corporation. Put all this together and one could say that the ratings agencies "reduced the cost of funds" (pay less interest due to AAA ratings) for the issuer by deliberately mis-rating the tranches/CDOs put together by people like Merrill and then insured by companies like ABK and MBIA. So, why should ABK subscribe to their service when clearly, the ratings agencies have been working too closely with the street in packaging up garbage they were hoping to pass onto insurers. And did in part, but many of these claims are being questioned/disputed by ABK. This is why the stock price has been crushed in the last year-the street is pissed ABK isn't just going to eat the claims sold to them by false ratings.
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    • Wed Jun 18th 14:55 PM
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      Rating: 0 0
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      Bond Insurer Buying: Time to Dabble Soon?
      It amazes me that people still criticize ABK/MBIA at their current share prices. "Potential" losses have been overpriced into the stock. Not only have insiders been buying over the last few months, but institutions have been adding to their positions as well. It looks like a few of their smaller competitors are going out of business and the banks have certainly become weary of credit default swaps that cut into ABK's market share. Seeing as reduced tax bases in many municipalities will lower their credit worthiness, I think they will not only need to raise funds at the lowest rates possible, but will require the insurers high grade wrapper to get this done. Even at Aaa/AA, ABK is in better shape than most banks, municipalities and competitors. Ex-unrealized gains and losses, this stock has a book value around $30. At $2, this is one of the best opportunities I have ever seen in my last 20 years of investing. Jump all over it!!!
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    • Tue Jun 17th 11:46 AM
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      Whither Municipal Bond Insurance?
      This is a decent article on Abk. I found the phrase, "Municipal defaults are often caused by treasurers getting out of their depth in terms of derivatives they don't understand" most relevant to predicting the future of this industry/company. There is no way serious bond investors are ever going to invest in something that is not insured because Mr. Solomon's point in the above quote is now clearer than ever. And, as stated in the final paragraph , AAA "ratings have never been less valuable"-therefo... it is not the monlines that need to have faith re-kindled, but I suggest the ratings agencies themselves.
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    • Mon Jun 9th 15:46 PM
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      MBIA and Ambac: Edge of the Cliff, Ratings-Wise
      Everyone is missing the story here. Up until about a year ago, MBI and ABK were blue chip companies with a nice stock price and a quiet, well managed business. Then they, along with many others, insured a wall street product blessed by the major ratings agencies as recently as last summer. Having rated structured finance in various forms for the past few decades, the ratings agencies will state that they were more than competent to judge the tranches individually and the CDOS as a whole. As the NY AG pointed out last week, these agencies were working too closely with the banks on getting products of a certain high grade to the market whether they deserved it or not. So, ABK/MBI et.al insure the products based upon the ratings assigned-shortly thereafter, the ratings on these tranches start to decline and the insurers are now sitting on a rmbs cdo portfolio of junk for the most part. Fortunately, companies like ABK have the reserves neccessary to maintain a AAA rating and decide to protect those reserves by choosing to not write new business which would have required them to raise their reserves, thus jeopardizing their ratings again. If you check their website and review their June 4 presentation, you will get an accurate, timely insight into the company. Just after this presentation, the ratings agencies attacked them out of nowhere and raised the bar on them. In the meanwhile, wall street has been steadily, building up the short pressure on the share price. Why? Because ABK started to indicate that they would contest claims (even though they have plenty of invested capital to handle these interest/principal payments as they come due over the next many years) and hand the bag back to wall street/ratings agencies. As the ratings agencies have very little in the way of cash reserves, it's basically to the street-which some say could be on the hook for another $300B in writedowns. ABK will state that they have about $400m a year for the next few years in insurance premiums guaranteed, as well as around $1B of investment income annually for the next few years-and have 4X in reserves needed to pay this years maximum potential claims. Ex-unrealized losses and gains, their stock has around a $30/sh book value. Once the insurers, ratings agencies and wall street make a deal to get through this, they will and ABK will return to it's former glory within a few years. Short-term bankruptcy is out of the question, unless they are mis-reporting figures, or a new catastrophe arises.
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