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Market Stability
« Thread started on: Jul 27th, 2004, 02:35am » |
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How to Lose Millions in Speculative Currency Trading - Kavaljit Singh
Australia's largest bank, National Australia Bank (NAB), lost hundreds of millions of dollars in speculative currency trading. The scandal broke out in January 2004 when a fellow trader working in the Melbourne office of the bank exposed unauthorized foreign currency derivatives trading. Initial reports had indicated that the total loss could be as high as A$600 million but Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), country's banking regulatory body, found that the currency trading scandal has cost the bank A$360 million. http://www.ased.org/artman/publish/article_583.shtml
* IMF Seminars and Conferences
IMF Book Forum: Standards and Codes: Can They Prevent Financial Crises?, May 27, 2004 http://www.imf.org/External/NP/EXR/BForums/2004/052704.htm
No. 1 bond fund's manager says economy is straddling a fine line between rising and falling prices.
Gross, whose firm has $394.7 billion in assets under management, likened the situation to a circus performer walking a high wire without a net.
"All is well until something tips the walker to one side of the wire or the other," he said. "Higher inflation, geopolitical crisis and financial market volatility can tip the American consumer or the Chinese growth juggernaut to the opposite side of the wire."
http://money.cnn.com/2004/05/21/markets/gross.reut/
Paul Krugman - Interest rates to go to 8.5% in the USA
My calculations keep leading me to a 10-year bond rate of 7 percent, and a mortgage rate of 8.5 percent - with a substantial possibility that the numbers will be even higher. Current rates are about 4.3 and 5.8 percent, respectively; you can see why the I.M.F. is worried about "financial market disruption."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/20/opinion/20KRUG.html?ex=1083605260&ei=1&en=e6180b5fe2d2c889
The RBA is as useful as a stopped clock. By Henry Thornton
The Antipodean twins have high levels of international debt. The associated debt-servicing burden is low in relation to the debt only because global interest rates are low. As rates rise, the servicing burdens will become more onerous. Unless trade deficits shrink faster than interest rates increase, the overall deficits will blow out, quite possibly to levels that precipitate a currency crisis, leading most likely to a sharp rise in domestic rates of interest.
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=2197
IMF warns of housing bust - Jim Parker
The International Monetary Fund has sounded a warning about Australia's property market, saying the dramatic rise in prices in recent years has left the economy vulnerable to a destabilising correction.
http://www.afr.com/articles/2004/04/22/1082530274715.html
Four Corners Report - Till Debt do us Part - 8.30 pm Monday 24 May
Australia's total household debt now stands at $650 billion - about $32,500 for every man, woman and child - and it is rising fast. We owe more than we earn. We borrow to buy, we borrow to invest. Our level of personal debt against income is now one of the highest in the world.
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2004/20040524_debt/default.htm
New rules set to shake up balance sheets - John Somerville
The securitisation industry is anxious about the final shape of regulatory changes which may alter its framework, write John Somerville and Paul Lichtenstein.
http://www.afr.com/articles/2004/04/20/1082395860072.html
Low-doc: dodgy loan or safe as houses? - Stuart Mackenzie
The rising proportion of non-conventional loans has regulators worried about the risk to lenders, reports Stuart Mackenzie.
http://www.afr.com/articles/2004/04/20/1082395860096.html
Some big holes in UK mortgages - May 28 The Telegraph
Mortgages approved without proof of income in the United Kingdom accounted for more than 28 per cent of new advances in the second half of last year, according to the UK Council of Mortgage Lenders.
http://afr.com/articles/2004/05/27/1085641649072.html
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