Mon, 12/03/2007 - 10:21am — lambert
Online WSJ:
Ever since debt markets seized up this summer, investors have struggled with the question of how much securities backed by risky mortgages are worth.
Now, thanks to Citadel Investment Group's purchase of $3 billion in debt held by E*Trade Financial Corp., there is at least one answer. Citadel paid an average of about 27 cents on the dollar for these assets. And it received a boatload of E*Trade shares as part of the deal.
Hey, that's not so bad, right?
Except when you figure that every one of those dollars that turned out to be worth 27 cents was highly leveraged in a series of "complex," "financially innovative" schemes.
»
- lambert's blog
- Login or register to post comments
Front page
Comments
transparency is essential for civilization to continue
from an outsider's (and uneducated) perspective, "the markets" and many of the games played in/around them have seemed like ponzi scams of the first order. no real regulation, lots of wink-wink, fingers crossed, let's take the rubes sort of stuff, endemic insider dealing and corruption. it always seemed to me that such a circus couldn't go on forever without some sort of correction back into sanity, and now it seems i was right.
regulation is essential for a stable market. everyone knows this. amurkins have looked the other way for too long, and let the theives break the market and corrupt the gov't that should be watching it. oh well, as a not investor class person, i'm not really that sorry for the people losing money right now. even as i know i'm going to pay for their mistakes too.
Why, CD, I'd like to see them pay, too
Possibly through public mockery?
We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi