Reggie Middleton Boom Bust Blog

Yesterday, I bluntly called out the European state of economic affairs as I saw them in "Liar, Liar, European Pants on Fire!" Today, I present the article published by Property EU, one of the leading real estate publications in Europe which illustrates much of my thoughts on the topic of how and why Europe is nowhere near out of its economic malaise, and more importantly how this may pull the value of real estate down. The vast majority of European banks lend against real estate and when the value of said collateral goes down in conjunction with the value of what many are carrying on their books at par as risk free and hold to maturity assets at 30+x leverage... Well, you can use your imagination for the Lehman like results... 
This week I will go through several property devaluation scenarios as applied to what looks like very promising cash flow scenarios using real life examples of NYC commercial real estate starting tomorrow, and culminating with a more in depth analysis for subscribers next week. The most interesting part of the analysis will be the application of our real asset protection program to hedge against the risk of property value decline. Stay tuned, it should be exciting, and if you are not a finance nerd like me - at the very least interesting...

A short interview clip on BNR, in Dutch. See http://www.bnr.nl/static/jspx/play.jspx?dag=12&maand=1&jaar=2011&tijd=06:16&lengte=5&titel=Radio-archief

Reggie Middleton with Max Keiser on the Keiser Report and RTT Television

Go to 12:20 in the video to see the portion with Reggie Middleton

[youtube jQwlElVfdHY]

The topics in this interview stem from the post Four Facts That BANG JP Morgan That You Just Won’t Hear From The Sell Side!!!

On the difference between accounting earnings and economic earnings...

... accountants have not been – and currently are not, trained in the economic realities of corporate valuation. They are trained to tabulate business operations data. There is a marked and distinct difference. That difference is as stark as night and day for investors, yet despite this stark difference, Wall Street still reports corporate performance metrics strictly in accounting terms, and the media (both mainstream and the more specialized financial media) simply follow suit. Hence we hear much about easily manipulable and manageable accounting earnings, revenues, operating margins, earnings per share, etc. These measures are highly flawed in a variety of ways, with the primary flaw being that they do not account for the efforts both required and undertaken to achieve them. Basically, they measure JUST HALF (and coincidentally, the positive half may I add) of the risk/reward equation that should be at the root of every investors move. Long story short, they do not account for, nor do they EVEN RESPECT, the cost of capital. This concept ties in closely with Chairman Bernanke’s current course of action as well as the ZIRP discussion later on this missive demonstrates (capital offered at zero cost causes reckless abandonment of risk management principles which eventually causes crashes – yes, more crashes). Acknowledgment of the cost of capital enforces a certain discipline on both corporate management and investors/traders. Without respect for such, it is much too easy to create and portray a scenario that is all too rosy, since we are only looking at rewards but never bother to glance at the risks taken to achieve said rewards. I reviewed this concept in detail as it relates to bonuses and compensation on Wall Street in The Solution to the Goldman (and by Extension, the Securities Industry) Compensation Dilemma.

For those who haven't seen it yet, here is my interview on CNBC with Herb Greenberg - who I must say is a very good investigative reporter. Kudos, my friend!

Interested parties can check me out on Bloomberg TV tomorrow: "Street Smart" with Matt Miller & Carol Massar at 3:30 pm.

Crains NY ran a happy, go lucky article today:

The stubbornly dismal economy means at least one thing: an extended stay in the spotlight for a handful of star analysts whose defining characteristic is their extraordinary bearishness. And, of course, their accuracy.

There's Albert Edwards, a London-based analyst from France's Société Générale, who believes the Standard & Poor's 500 will sink to 450, a sickening 57% drop from its current level. There's David Rosenberg, chief economist at Toronto money manager Gluskin Sheff, who warns that deflation is going to pull down the U.S. economy for years.

And then there's the New York star of this gloomy show: Reggie Middleton, a Brooklyn entrepreneur who turned to analyzing global markets after a stint buying and renovating apartments in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill. (See “Prophet of doom,” April 19.)

Bad as things may be for the economy, Mr. Middleton warns that they're poised to get much worse. Prices of real estate, stocks and bonds are all headed for serious falls... Wages will decrease, unemployment will increase. Fun, eh?

...

The culprit, Mr. Middleton says, is Washington. The bank bailouts, nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and other interventions during two presidencies prevented the market from bottoming out in 2009 like it should have, he says. Now that the economy is weakening again and the heavily indebted U.S. government has fewer rescue options, the reckoning is coming. Markets of all kinds in the United States and Europe will get hit—hard.

“In my opinion, the amount of risk in the system is even higher than in 2008,” he says, adding this rare dash of hope: “2013 might be a good time to start taking a look at buying assets again.”

Mr. Middleton has been startlingly accurate in the past. He forecast the collapse of the housing market in 2007, and in early 2008 warned of the demise of Bear Stearns weeks before it happened. Earlier this year, he said that Ireland's finances were in terrible shape long before Standard & Poor's got around to downgrading that nation's credit rating.

For those of you who don't follow my blog, Mr. Elstein (the article's author) was referring to:

We believe Reggie Middleton and his team at the BoomBust bests ALL of Wall Street's sell side research: Did Reggie Middleton, a Blogger at BoomBustBlog, Best Wall Streets Best of the Best?

There are several ways through which you can interact directly with Reggie:

Mr. Middleton Receives Positive Press Coverage, Worldwide!

“His work is so detailed, so accurate, it’s among the best in the world,” says Eric Sprott, CEO of Sprott Asset Management, a Toronto firm that manages about $5 billion and subscribes to Mr. Middleton’s research.

Reggie Middleton Featured in Property EU, one of Europes leading real estate publicatios

Those who wish to download the full article in PDF format can do so here: Reggie Middleton on Stagflation, Sovereign Debt and the Potential for bank Failure at the ING ACADEMY-v2.

• Las Vegas Business Press
• NY Daily News - Giants claim defunct firm Lehman Brothers owes team $300M

• MarketWatch (Herb Greenberg Blog)
• Las Vegas Review Journal (Allegiant Air)

• Las Vegas Review Journal (WYNN)

• CNN.com (Blogger Bunch) May 7, 2009- Will Banks Fail?
• CNN.com (Money & Mainstream) May 14, 2009 (see above)
• BBC World News Today (multiple appearances, see above)

Older Press Coverage and Media Appearances (samples no longer available)

• CNNfn
• Fortune
• PC Magazine
• PC World
• BET
• Real Estate Finance Today
• Interactive Week
• eWeek
• Computer Shopper

Awards

Hedge Funds Post: Best Blogs 2008

A very interesting article was published in Crain's New York this morning, both in print and online, titled Prophet of doom. The article was about blogs, and the potential for them to raise capital and compete with the mainstream media. There's also a picture of a devilishly handsome, charismatic, and outright cute blogger there as well :mrgreen:

Here are a few excerpts, combined with my usual commentary...

•  Mr. Middleton's Boom Bust Blog forecast with stunning accuracy the demise of such real estate bubble blowups as Bear Stearns and mall operator General Growth Properties... Now he's embarking on his next project: Turning his blogging hobby into a full-fledged investment research business, a firm where he says investors will get “realistic” insights as opposed to Wall Street puffery. Mr. Middleton plans to start petitioning venture capital firms, private equity players and established media companies in the coming weeks.
  • Yes, it's official. I'm going to start building the blog out into something much bigger, more in depth, and more accessible.
    

• “His work is so detailed, so accurate, it's among the best in the world,” says Eric Sprott, CEO of Sprott Asset Management, a Toronto firm that manages about $5 billion and subscribes to Mr. Middleton's research. Well, thank you Mr. Sprott! I owe you a good bottle of wine for that one! For those that don't follow Eric Sprott's commentary (or his investment record), this accomplished man tells it like it is. He was just on CNBC and rang the closing bell last week.

   

• Finding investors won't be easy, though. A few bloggers have landed backers recently, including Footnoted.org, acquired by investment research firm Morningstar, and Gothamist.com, by Cablevision. But most media concerns and venture capitalists have steered clear. Many blogs' revenues are scant, with few opportunities to grow and churn out the $10 million to $15 million in revenues that venture capitalists want. “The climate for blogs is almost always lousy,” says Roger Ehrenberg, founder of IA Capital Partners, which has invested in BlogTalkRadio and BusinessInsider.com.

From Banks, Brokers, & Bullsh1+ part 1:

A thorough forensic analysis of Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and Lehman Brothers has uncovered...

Let’s get something straight right off the bat. We all know there is a certain level of fraud sleight of hand in the financial industry. I have called many banks insolvent in the past. Some have pooh-poohed these proclamations, while others have looked in wonder, saying “How the hell did he know that?”

• Is this the Breaking of the Bear? It wasn’t hard to see Bear Stearns collapsing 3 month before bankruptcy. Why didn’t our regulators see what I saw?
• As I see it, 32 commercial banks and thrifts may see the feces hit the fan blades It wasn’t hard to see that nearly all of these 32 banks would be facing the threat of insolvency. Why didn’t our regulators see what I saw?
• The Commercial Real Estate Crash Cometh, and I know who is leading the way! It wasn’t hard to see that commercial real estate was ready to implode and that GGP was about to collapse under its own weight. Why didn’t our regulators see what I saw?
• Yeah, Countrywide is pretty bad, but it ain’t the only one at the subprime party… Comparing Countrywide Countrywide and Washington Mutual’s collapse were visible AT LEAST a year in advance!
• The Next Shoe to Drop: Credit Default Swaps (CDS) and Counterparty Risk – Beware what lies beneath! ‘Nuff said…
• … and even Lehman Brothers: Is Lehman a Lying Lemming?

The list above is a small, relevant sampling of at least dozens of similar calls. Trust me, dear reader, what some may see as divine premonition is nothing of the sort. It is definitely not a sign of superior ability, insider info, or heavenly intellect. I would love to consider myself a hyper-intellectual, but alas, it just ain’t so and I’m not going to lie to you. The truth of the matter is I sniffed these incongruencies out because  2+2 never did equal 46, and it probably never will either. An objective look at each and every one of these situations shows that none of them added up. In each case, there was someone (or a lot of people) trying to get you to believe that 2=2=46.xxx. They justified it with theses that they alleged were too complicated for the average man to understand (and in business, if that is true, then it is probably just too complicated to work in the long run as well). They pronounced bold new eras, stating “This time is different”, “There is a new math” (as if there was something wrong with the old math), etc. and so on and associated bullshit.

So, the question remains, why is it that a lowly blogger and small time
individual investor with a skeleton staff of analysts can uncover
systemic risks, frauds and insolvencies at a level that it appears the
SEC hasn’t even gleaned as of yet? Two words, “Regulatory Capture”. You
see, and as I reluctantly admitted, it is not that I am so smart, it is
that the regulator’s goals are not the same as mine. My efforts are
designed to ferret out the truth for enlightenment, profit and gain.
Regulators’ goals are to serve a myriad constituency that does not
necessarily have the individual tax payer at the top of the heirachal
pyramid. Before we go on, let me excerpt from a piece that I wrote on
the topic at hand so we are all on the same page: How
Regulatory Capture Turns Doo Doo Deadly

First off, some definitions:

• The Doo Doo, as in the Doo
  Doo 32: A  list of 32 banks that I created on May 22, 2008 which set the stage for my investment
  thesis of shorting the regional banks. At that time, I was one of the
  very few, if not one of the only, to warn that the regional banks would
  hit the fan.
• Regulatory capture (adopted from Wikipedia): A
  term used to refer to situations in which a government regulatory
  agency created to act in the public interest instead acts in favor of
  the commercial or special interests that dominate in the industry or
  sector it is charged with regulating. Regulatory capture is an
  explicit manifestation of government failure in that it not only
  encourages, but actively promotes the activities of large firms that
  produce negative externalities. For public
  choice theorists, regulatory capture occurs because groups or
  individuals with a high-stakes interest in the outcome of policy or
  regulatory decisions can be expected to focus their resources and
  energies in attempting to gain the policy outcomes they prefer, while
  members of the public, each with only a tiny individual stake in the
  outcome, will ignore it altogether. Regulatory capture is when this
  imbalance of focused resources devoted to a particular policy outcome
  is successful at “capturing” influence with the staff or commission
  members of the regulatory agency, so that the preferred policy
  outcomes of the special interest are implemented. The risk of
  regulatory capture suggests that regulatory agencies should be
  protected from outside influence as much as possible, or else not
  created at all. A captured regulatory agency that serves the interests
  of its invested patrons with the power of the government behind it is
  often worse than no regulation whatsoever.

About a year and a half ago, after sounding the alarm on the
regionals, I placed strategic bearish positions in the sector which
paid off extremely well. The only problem is, it really shouldn’t have.
Why? Because the problems of these banks were visible a mile away. I
started warning friends and family as far back as 2004, I announced it
on my blog in 2007, and I even offered a free report in early 2008.

Well, here comes another warning. One of the Doo Doo 32 looks to be
ready to collapse some time soon. Most investors and pundits won’t
realize it because a) they don’t read BoomBustblog, and b) due to
regulatory capture, the bank has been given the OK by its regulators to
hide the fact that it is getting its insides gutted out by CDOs and
losses on loans and loan derivative products. Alas, I am getting ahead
of myself. Let’s take a quick glance at regulatory capture, graphically
encapsulated, then move on to look at the recipients of the Doo Doo
Award as they stand now…

A picture is worth a thousand words…

fasb_mark_to_market_chart.png

So, how does this play into today’s big headlines in the alternative,
grass roots media? Well, on the front page of the Huffington
Post and ZeroHedge, we have a damning expose of Lehman
Brothers (we told you this in the first quarter of 2008, though),
detailing their use of REPO 105 financing to basically lie about their
liquidity positions and solvency. The most damning and most interesting
tidbit lies within a more obscure ZeroHedge article that details
findings from the recently released Lehman papers, though:

On September 11, JPMorgan executives met to discuss significant
valuation problems with securities that Lehman had posted as collateral
over the summer. JPMorgan concluded that the collateral was not worth
nearly what Lehman had claimed it was worth, and decided to request an
additional $5 billion in cash collateral from Lehman that day. The
request was communicated in an executive?level phone call, and Lehman
posted $5 billion in cash to JPMorgan by the afternoon of Friday,
September 12. Around the same time, JPMorgan learned that a security
known as Fenway,which
Lehman had posted to JPMorgan at a stated value of $3 billion, was actually asset?backed
commercial paper credit?enhanced by Lehman (that is, it was Lehman,
rather than a third party, that effectively guaranteed principal and
interest payments). JPMorgan concluded that Fenway was worth
practically nothing as collateral.

Hold up! Lehman was pledging as collateral allegedly “investment grade”,
“credit enhanced” securities that were enhanced by Lehman, who was
insolvent and in need of liquidity, itself. For anybody who is not
following me, how much is life insurance on yourself worth if it is
backed up by YOU paying out the proceeds after you die bankrupt? Lehman
was allowed to get away with such nonsense because it was allowed to
value its OWN securities. Think about this for a second. You are in big
financial trouble, you have only a $10 bill to your name, but your
favorite congressman (whom you have given $10 bills to in the past) has
given you the okay to erase that number 10 on the $bills and put
whatever number on it you feel is “reasonable”. So, when your creditors
come a callin’ , looking for $20 in collateral, what number would you
deem reasonable to put on that $10 bill.

Ladies and gentlemen, in the short paragraph above, we have just
encapsulated the majority of the mark to market argument. Let’s delve
farther into the ZH article:

 

By early August 2008, JPMorgan had learned that Lehman had pledged
self-priced CDOs as collateral over the course of the summer. By August
9, to meet JPMorgan’s margin requirements, Lehman had pledged $9.7
billion of collateral, $5.8 billion of which were CDOs priced
by Lehman, mostly at face value. JPMorgan expressed
concern as to the quality of the assets that Lehman had pledged and,
consequently, Lehman offered to review its valuations. Although JPMorgan
remained concerned that the CDOs were not acceptable collateral, Lehman informed JPMorgan that
it had no other collateral to pledge. The
fact that Lehman did not have other assets to pledge raised some
concerns at JPMorgan about Lehman’s liquidity

 

Hmmm!!! Three day old fish has a fresher scent, does it not? So where
was the SEC, the NY Fed, or anybody the hell else who’s supposed to
safeguard us against this malfeasance? Even bloggers picked up on this
months before it collapsed. The answer, dear readers: REGULATORY
CAPTURE!

Again, from ZH:

 

The SEC was not aware of any significant issues with Lehman’s liquidity
pool until September 12, 2008, when officials learned that a large
portion of Lehman’s liquidity pool had been allocated to its clearing
banks to induce them to continue providing essential clearing services.
In a September 12, 2008 e?mail, one SEC analyst
wrote: Key point: Lehman’s
liquidity pool is almost totally locked up with clearing banks to cover
intraday credit ($15bnjpm, $10bn with others like citi and bofa). withThis is a really big
problem.

 

BoomBustBlog featured several warnings starting January of 2008!

One would think that after all of this, the problem would have been
rectified. To the contrary, it has been made worse. Congress has
pressured FASB to institutionalize and make acceptable the lies that
Lehman told its investors, counterparties and regulators. That’s right,
not only will no one get in trouble for this blatant lying, the practice
is now actually endorsed by the government – that is until somebody
blows up again. At that point there will be a bunch of finger pointing
and allegations and claims such as “But who could have seen this
coming”.

Do you not believe me, dear reader. Reference

About the Politically Malleable FASB, Paid for Politicians,
and Mark to Myth Accounting Rules: the nonsense is unfolding and
collapsing right now, even as I type this sentence.

The next place to look??? Who knows? Maybe someone should take an An
Independent Look into JP Morgan .. or maybe even an unbiased
gander at Wells Fargo (see

The Wells Fargo 4th Quarter Review is Available, and Its a
Doozy!). After all, If
a Bubble Bubble Bursts Off Balance Sheet, Will Anyone Be There to Hear
It?

More on Lehman Brothers Dies While Getting Away with Murder: Introducing Regulatory Capture: