2820 days ago
Moody's has downgraded its ratings on the junk bonds of Avanti Communications warning bond holders that they would probably get just 35-65% of their cash back. In that case the equity is worthless - note the explicit warning that Avanti will face a cash crisis potentially within weeks. Moody's states viz a viz the bonds " Moody's sees a default by Avanti over the next 6-12 months as almost inevitable." On that basis the target price for Avanti shares has to be ZERO. Sell while you can.
2836 days ago
For months and months Trinity Exploration (TRIN) has been in default on loans taken out with Citibank. Investors who declined to sell the worthless shares seemed to believe the truism that "If you owe the bank $1 you are in trouble, if you owe $1 million the bank is in trouble" as Citibank - which was actually owed $13 million declined to pull the plug. Until today. Instead of the normal weekly rollover announcement we are told:
3219 days ago
The German Fuhrer Frau Merkel last night told Greek PM Alex Tsipras to “shut up.” Monsieur Trichet of the ECB accuses mighty Hellas of “blackmail”. And worst of all, leaders of the three main Greek opposition parties have been invited to Brussels for talks – a coup is being planned in the birthpace of democracy.
I would not have voted for Syriza, the flaky lefty coalition party headed by Tsipras but Greeks did. They rejected the two “old parties” of corruption and deceit, New Democracy and Pasok, the latter almost being entirely wiped out. The other party invited to take part in the coup is a flaky bunch of wishy washy non-entities, Potami.
It now seems very clear that if Greece defaults
3221 days ago
The IMF banksters have made new demands of Greece which are just not acceptable. Will PM Tsipras finally show some spine and tell the banksters where to get off, default and offer hope and a future for a post bankrupt Greece. Or will he once again be a traitor to his nation and his people and cave? This is now getting very interesting. Once again I suggest Tsipras reads the great Lord Byron (HERE) and thinks about what could be for a Greece freed from the debt and the banksters.
3230 days ago
What would the good Lord Byron - a man who died in Greece during the war of Independence - say of Greece today, a country once again not its own master? To walk away from the Euro and to simply default on its debts, to stand on its own two feet and build again with pride? Or to accept further shame and humiliation and the impoverishment of its people in return for taking on yet more debts to enslave the children and grandchildren of todays Greeks?
Greece should default and walk away from the banksters of the EU and IMF with pride leaving its unpaid debts as their problem not ours.
3241 days ago
In March 1821 the Greek war of independence began as the folk in the Mani launched an uprising against the accursed Turks. The Mani, where the Greek Hovel is situated, was always quasi independent anyway but its warlike folk started a fire that could not be supressed. The first major triumph was the storming of the Turk held fortress at Kalamata. No Maniots died but the entire Turkish garrison was slaughtered.
Right now I sit opposite that fortress, in Kalamata bus station having just purchased one more ouzo for the road, to Athens. Tomorrow
3245 days ago
Jim Mellon says that the Greeks should build a statue in my honour as on Friday I opened a bank account in Greece and made a deposit. Okay it was only 10 Euro, I need to put in another 3,990 Euro to get my residency papers so I can buy a car, a bike and a gun, but it was a start. But the scenes at the National Bank in Kalamata were of chaos, you could smell the panic and they were being replicated at banks across Greece.
For tomorrow is a Bank Holiday here and if you are going to default on your debts/ switch from Euros to New Drachmas a bank holiday weekend is the best time to do it. And with debt repayments that cannot be met due on June 5 (next Friday) Greece is clearly in the merde. If it defaults all its banks go bust.
But I had to open an account and make a deposit. Outside the bank in the main street of Kalamata there are two ATMs. The lines at both were ten deep when I arrived and when I left an hour later. Inside I was directed to the two desks marked "Deposit". You go there to put in money, to open an account or if you are so senile that you cannot do basic admin of your account without assistance. As such it was me depositing cash and four octogenerians who had not got a clue about anything. Actually I lie. These folks may have been gaga but they were not so gaga that they were actually going to deposit cash, I was the sole depositer.
Friday was also the day
3302 days ago
This is no longer thinking the unthinkable. Greece could default on a debt repayment in eight days. Grexit - mighty Hellas leaving the Euro - is now being planned for. In this podcast I argue that Greece should embrace Grexit.
4063 days ago
The answer to the 1998 financial crisis was to slash borrowing costs across the globe so that we all over-leverages and misallocated our capital. On that occasion it was junk dotcom investments and property. In 2008 another crises and the same solution. The fact is that the world has been misallocating capital for decades, led by Governments freed from prudence by the abandonment of the gold standard in 1971.
With each crisis that crops up, the solution is simply to print more money and to get folks to take on even more debt. You owe too much – heck borrow some more. And so capital is misallocated and bubbles grow ever bigger. But at some stage the party ends. It will. The current set up is simply unsustainable.
And so what will be the black swan event that causes the mother of all reality checks? If offer four runners and riders. Inevitably if one occurs it will trigger the others. And it will probably be a fifth black swan that no-one has thought much about that starts the party. But here goes.
1. The Chinese property bubble. I have written before on numerous occassions about just how mammoth this is and how it really can knock the Chinese (and thus the worlds) economy for six. The answer of the authorities to the slowdown in the PRC in 2012 was to pump more hot air into this bubble. It has to be my top black swan bet. Read this piece out yesterday on Zero Hedge if you doubt me.
My major work from September 2012 on China, the misallocation, fraud an inevitably of a crash is HERE
2. A market refusal to buy US T Bonds in an auction. The US Government is three years away from having a balance sheet like that of Greece just before the crisis. An economically illiterate President and, to show balance, a spineless Republican party in Congress just cannot get to grips with what is happening. The US today is like sick Britain at the end of WW1. But it will take the US far less time than we took to see its currency tank. At some stage folks will refuse to stump up cash for a debt that yields sod all and is clearly unrepayable and unsupportable.
3. Sovereign default across Europe accompanied by widespread Civil unrest. The only folks buying Spanish debt right now are the Spanish state pension funds. Oooh lucky Spanish state pensioners. But those funds are tapped out. Spain is bust and its economy is enjoying an EU austerity driven spanking session which Max Mosley could only dream of. It is not just Spain. Italy, Greece, Portugal are in the same mess. The Irish economy and society has been beaten to a pulp in the name of fiscal responsibility and yet could still collapse. France is heading the wrong way fast as is the UK. The collapse of the Euro as we know it has to be an odds on bet it is a matter of how it occurs.
4. The Arab spring moving to Saudi Arabia. A regime with no legitimacy is kleptocratic, autocratic and barbaric. It bribes the people with a fraction of the nation’s wealth and panders to radical Islam in a most unhealthy sort of way but it is unloved. One day it will fall. Revolution in the world’s largest oil producer could perhaps trigger unforeseen events elsewhere.
Hey, maybe we can all carry on spending beyond our means, leveraging up as individuals and as States for a good while yet. We have been kicking this can down the road for decades so maybe we can carry on for another few decades. Or maybe not. One day something will happen and we will find our noses against the wall at the end of the Cul-de-sac. That day may be sooner than we think.
For more thoughts from Tom Winnifrith follow him on twitter @tomwinnifrith
