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HomeWhat Do CA, AZ, FL, IL, MI, NV, NJ, OR, RI, and WI Have in Common?
Posted by Larry Doyle on November 12th, 2009 2:25 PM |
No, these states are not holding a Powerball Lottery . . . although the states themselves could use the winnings.
These states, amongst others, are barreling toward economic disaster. Don’t take my word for it. None other than the Pew Center on the States produced a report entitled Beyond California: States in Fiscal Peril:
(High five to MC for bringing this to our attention)
California’s financial problems are in a league of their own. But the same pressures that drove the Golden State toward fiscal disaster are wreaking havoc in a number of states, with potentially damaging consequences for the entire country. (more…)
Municipal Bond Fund ‘Swan Dive’
Posted by Larry Doyle on October 13th, 2009 12:08 PM |
Investors have traditionally bought municipal bond funds for income purposes. The tax-exempt status provides real appeal and the default rate on municipals has always been exceptionally low. Against that backdrop, ‘munis’ have always proven to be less volatile than equities and many other sectors of the bond market . . . until now.
If a picture tells a thousand words, this graph of a Nuveen National Municipal Closed End Fund (ticker NXR) is more than a short story. From the Sense on Cents link to The Wall Street Journal’s Market Data page, we learn:
That cliff-like drop on the right side of the graph represents approximately a 7% decline in the value of this specific fund culminating in a precipitous 5% drop just yesterday. Part of the decline is explained by the fact that yesterday this fund traded “ex-dividend,” meaning that investors who purchased the fund yesterday are not in line to receive the October dividend. That dividend represents a minor part of the overall decline in the value of this fund.
What does the decline truly represent? The fact that bonds in this $185 million fund declined in value. Why would that happen? The municipalities which had issued these bonds are likely having problems refinancing their debt. What does that mean? Those municipalities will be forced to pay higher rates. And what does that mean? Their outstanding bonds, such as those in this national fund, decline in value. Additionally, the higher rates mean the municipalities will remain hard pressed not to cut services and employees.
Keep your brokers and financial planners honest and compel them to fully explore the credit quality of investments (whether bonds or equities) prior to investing. Otherwise, picture yourself as having invested in this fund a month ago and now eating a 7% loss as you take a ’swan dive’ off the right side of the above graph.
LD
IOU? . . . No You Don’t
Posted by Larry Doyle on July 7th, 2009 11:00 AM |
They may make nice bathroom wallpaper, but major banks have no interest in continuing to accept California’s IOUs. The Wall Street Journal highlights this pathetic fiscal folly in writing, Big Banks Don’t Want California’s IOUs.
These IOUs, respectfully designated as warrants, will pay a rate of 3.75% and mature in early October if financial institutions choose not to redeem them. The statement by the major Wall Street banks speaks volumes. What are they saying?
1. They have no confidence in the California legislature to start putting their fiscal house in order.
2. They have no reason to believe Uncle Sam will step in to bailout California as that would open the door for 49 other wayward ‘children’ to march on Washington looking for the same handout.
3. They do not believe the rate of 3.75% properly prices the risk, especially relative to other opportunities to allocate capital.
If these large banks are not willing to accept the IOUs, then why should any individual? I wouldn’t.
Where is this situation headed? I think we can get a strong hint of the direction this situation is headed from an article I posted in the Newsworthy tab here at Sense on Cents. This article from The Washington Post, States Straining to Repair Budgets, highlights that:
The Obama administration has studied several Capitol Hill proposals to help the states but has decided not to move forward on any of them, according to an authoritative government source who spoke on the condition of anonymity because no announcement has been made about the discussions, which were private. One idea was to let struggling local governments borrow at lower rates from the municipal bond market.
Lower rates from the municipal bond market? What? Do you think California would be issuing IOUs if they could tap longer term financing via the municipal bond market? I seriously doubt California could successfully place longer term debt at anything resembling a reasonable rate of interest.
Then just what does the administration mean about “letting struggling local governments borrow from the municipal bond market?”
With short term interest rates on CDs, Treasury bills, and money market funds so excessively low, do not be surprised to see municipalities across the land trying to lure funds via issuing x-Tender securities covered up in municipal money market funds.
For regular readers here at Sense on Cents, you know that I believe these x-Tender securities (municipal auction-rate securities) represent significant risk. Prior to purchasing a municipal money market fund, please review my post entitled “Municipal Money Market Funds: Caveat Emptor.”
Municipal Money Market Funds: Caveat Emptor
Posted by Larry Doyle on June 29th, 2009 6:17 PM |
If and when your money market fund “breaks the buck,” will you be there to collect the change?
I believe it is increasingly likely that money market funds will “break the buck.” The recent SEC statement put forth by SEC Chair Mary Schapiro, which I highlighted in writing “The Buck Is Beginning to Break”, addresses this topic.
In that post, I specifically referenced my concern for municipal money market funds given the recent launch of a municipal version of an Auction-Rate Security, designated as an x-Tender by Wall Street. I walked you through the processing and packaging of this mystery meat in writing, “The Wall Street ‘Sausage Making’ Process.”
Today the Wall Street Journal offers another whiff of the factory and gives us further reason to stay away from municipal money funds specifically. The WSJ writes, Mutual-Fund Giants Give Mixed Reviews to SEC Proposals:
The SEC proposed requiring retail money-market funds to have at least 5% of their assets in cash, U.S. Treasury Securities or securities that are accessible within one day and at least 15% in assets that can be converted to cash within a week. Institutional money-market funds would be required to have at least 10% of assets in instruments that could be converted into cash within one day and at least 30% in securities that could be converted within one week. The rules wouldn’t apply to tax-exempt, municipal money-market funds. (LD’s emphasis)
Why and how is it that newly designed rules for a $3.8 trillion sector of the market can exclude a sector encompassing municipal funds? My antennae went up immediately upon reading that. What is different about municipal money market funds that would exclude them from a set of rules designed to protect investors?
Why doesn’t the WSJ itself pursue this line of questioning in writing the article. How can the industry segregate municipal money market funds?
Municipal finance has been largely dependent on newly defined Build America Bonds which entail an obligation by Uncle Sam. Call me suspicious, but I wonder if the exclusion of municipal money market funds is due to the hoped for salvation of municipal finance via the municipal auction-rate security, x-Tender, otherwise known as Porky Pig here at Sense on Cents.
I will keep my nose to the ground in an attempt to sniff this out. Anybody who can help us determine the nature of this stench, please share. In the meantime, stay away from municipal money market funds.
LD
The Wall Street “Sausage-Making” Process
Posted by Larry Doyle on June 20th, 2009 9:01 AM |
Why do pigs need to go through such a curing process before finding their way to market? The innards of a pig are filled with all sorts of waste. In the same vein, the new Wall Street pig, otherwise known as an x-Tender security (but hereby deemed Porky Pig at Sense on Cents), is also filled with similar “junk.” I will try to make this quick, but bring a mask as we navigate the Wall Street sausage factory.
Please recall from my post yesterday, “An Auction-Rate Pig by Any Other Name Is Still a Pig”, that this ‘new’ Wall Street product is merely a revised version of THE LARGEST fraud perpetrated in the history of finance. This “pig” allows municipalities to address long-term funding needs via the short term debt market. The arbitrage involved in that process is akin to slaughtering the pig and making sausage.
Given the stench surrounding this product, take a deep breath as we tip-toe through the pigsty and move into the sausage factory. The Wall Street Journal can serve as our tour guide as it writes, Belt-Tightening by States Squeezes Cities and Towns. Let me connect the dots.
As this article highlights, municipalities across our country are increasingly financially strapped by a combination of decreasing tax revenues and lessened state funding. Regrettably, these municipalities are forced to cut expenses via a reduction in services and layoffs. Additionally, it is only logical to expect that municipalities will increase taxes to bridge their financial gap.
Add it all up, though, and it is very clear that an overwhelming number of municipalities in our nation are not as creditworthy today as a year or two ago. When credit ratings decline, borrowing costs go up. Those increased borrowing costs further squeeze the municipalities. What to do? Let’s enter the sausage factory.
With the blessing of the SEC, and the wizardry of financial engineers on Wall Street, municipalities can address long-term funding needs by borrowing money via the short-term market with a ‘promise’ to repay the funds if the short-term market shuts down. These municipal deals, much like sausage, are packaged and distributed via money market funds that incorporate a variety of short term deals. As such, the poorer credit quality of the municipality is “processed” and sold without investors fully appreciating the contents of the money market fund.
This works, right? The municipality receives the badly needed funds and the Wall Street banks earn their fees. Meanwhile, investors – who by nature move in and out of money market funds expecting them never to “break the buck” (meaning the funds will always maintain a $1.00 net asset value) – are kept in the dark.
Investors should appreciate that money market funds will likely “break the buck” going forward. All one needs to do is review the fiasco involved with the longstanding money market fund, The Reserve Fund. Investors in that money market fund are now involved in a protracted legal dispute and the value of the fund is truly a great unknown. What happened? The fund took increased credit risk in a variety of products. Investors were clueless of these credit risks.
The same “sausage-making” is going on with this new x-Tender product. I exhort every investor to “check the contents” and ask the “butcher”, that being your broker or financial planner, as to what is going into that money market fund before you buy it.
LD
An Auction-Rate Pig by Any Other Name is Still a Pig
Posted by Larry Doyle on June 19th, 2009 10:20 AM |
The brazen balls of both Wall Street and Washington know no limits. Hat tip to Kathy for pointing out to me that Wall Street is now running a new version of the Auction-Rate Securities play.
Recall that the Auction-Rate Securities fraud has left thousands of investors and billions of dollars frozen. While that fraud remains outstanding, Wall Street is calling an “audible” but at its core it is the same play. This smells!! Make sure you wear some heavy boots as we take a walk through the sty.
The Wall Street Journal highlights the particulars of this charade, New Security Shifts Risk to Borrower:
It didn’t take long for Wall Street to dress up an old idea and make it seem new again.
Wall Street firms including Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley & Co. have introduced a new security for the damaged municipal-bond market, meant to fill the role once played by securities that lost investor confidence in the peak of the market panic.
Their effort is part of Wall Street’s search for new ways to create business after a crippling nine months of crisis and government intervention. Much like auction-rate, variable-rate, and corporate floating-rate debt, the new tax-free “Windows” or “X-tender” securities offer municipalities the ability to borrow for the long term while paying only short-term interest rates.
This model proved dangerous during the credit crisis. Banks and bond insurers — who offered both express and tacit guarantees to backstop the debt — failed to live up to some of their promises. These securities became untradeable and dropped in value, leaving money-market funds in jeopardy of “breaking the buck.” Borrowers like municipalities, nonprofit institutions and student-lending companies faced penalizing interest rates well over 10% for months.
Like auction-rate securities and other variable-rate debt, the new instruments have an interest rate that resets every week, but this one is based on a short-term municipal debt index. The securities act like short-term debt and are appealing to money market funds that need to be able to sell their investments quickly.
This time, though, the banks removed some of the weak links from auction-rate securities and variable-rate demand bonds. Instead of banks or bond insurers acting as a guarantor or buyer of last resort at the auctions — which they were increasingly forced to do last year — the borrower itself promises to accelerate repayment. The borrower has seven months to repay.
Let’s review some of the driving forces and principles behind this new “Porky Pig” designated as ”Windows” or “X-tender” securities:
1. Muncipalities are increasingly unable to finance themselves via the long term debt market. If municipalities can finance themselves, the rates are extremely high. This “pig” offers them a vehicle to sell into the deep, short term money-market arena with a “promise” by the municipality to repay these obligations if auctions fail.
2. The banks and brokers remain on the hook for tens of billions of dollars for not having lived up to the same ‘promise’ in the previous iteration of Auction-Rate Securities. That said, they are more than happy to facilitate this version and collect the fees for doing so.
3. Money market funds are flush with cash from investors who are increasingly risk averse. How will the funds that purchase these “pigs” market the fact that they are taking this degree of risk in the fund? Will brokers and managers fully highlight that fact, or will it be business as usual and keep the investors in the dark?
Wall Street and Washington are, once again, willing to oblige this version of a Ponzi scheme because there is lots of up front money to be made. The WSJ offers as much:
Despite the risks, the Securities and Exchange Commission blessed the instruments, allowing money-market funds to buy the debt.
Banks are also taking advantage of pent-up demand from municipalities that need money. Outstanding issuance of variable-rate debt has shrunk by approximately $100 billion in 2008 — a 20% drop, according to Municipal Market Advisors. The banks are now estimating as much as $10 billion in such “Windows” deals could hit the market over the next six months. So far, at least two municipalities have sold the debt and another deal is close to completion.
Sense on ¢ents strongly encourages investors to take the following approach:
1. Stay as far away from this product as possible. I am willing to bet this product will not be sold directly, but will strictly be ‘buried’ inside money market funds. Be careful!!
2. Ask your brokers or advisers if they are aware of this product; bring this to their attention!
3. If a broker or adviser is pitching a money market fund to you, make sure the fund does not have exposure to this garbage.
Oink, oink!!
LD
Municipal Finance: Will Uncle Sam Post Bail?
Posted by Larry Doyle on May 26th, 2009 3:09 PM |
Is every village, town, city, and state in our country poised to receive a “get out of jail” free card from Uncle Sam? I linked to The New York Times article, Localities Want U.S. to Support Muni Bonds, in the Newsworthy section of Sense on Cents. Upon further review, it deserves comment.
In my opinion, this support of the municipal market may very well represent the greatest violation of a moral hazard to date. Why? Municipalities are by edict required to balance their budgets. A municipal budget which is able to obviate the tough decisions and choices in the budgetary process will lose that rigor.
Politicians of all stripes will make the case that the municipal default rate is extremely low and, as such, a federal backstop in the form of bond insurance is truly a very low risk proposition. Please allow me to opine that the same argument was made in the quasi-guarantee provided to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Those two giants are now wards of the state having been utilized by politicians from both sides of the aisle as campaign “piggy banks” for the better part of twenty years.
The New York Times highlights that the federal guarantee of municipal debt is not all that Uncle Sam may be asked to bail:
“All kinds of municipal borrowers are facing revenue shortfalls,” said Mr. Decker. “California is the largest example. Some states are better off than others. But all outstanding debt is backed by tax revenues. And municipalities are facing a greater or lesser level of distress.”
Also clamoring for help is a group of municipalities that purchased Lehman debt, which is now nearly worthless. Legislation authorizing the use of relief money to make these purchases was introduced by two California Democratic representatives, Jackie Speier and Anna Eshoo. If approved, this would be more like a bailout than a guarantee, because the federal government would be paying face value for debt that otherwise has little value.
The price tag on that proposal is around $1.6 billion. The argument promoted by the two congresswomen is that the Treasury and Fed allowed Lehman to fail, causing governmental bodies to lose money.
Whether a price tag is $1.6 billion, $1.6 million or $1.6 trillion a potential federal bailout of a poor investment decision is the antithesis of free market capitalism. Where does it end? (more…)
