China has used depressed commodities prices to stock up on long-term supplies of raw materials such as oil, copper, and iron.  And it’s used structural weakness in the U.S. financial system as justification for replacing the dollar as the world’s main reserve currency.

Now, the Red Dragon is looking to make headway on the highway by winning global market share in the automotive market while U.S. heavyweights spin out.

“We aren’t afraid of the financial crisis,” Zhou Fuquan, vice president of Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. (PINK: GELYF), told Bloomberg News. “On the contrary, we hope it will penetrate even further as it has provided us with some opportunities.”

Geely is China’s biggest private automaker, but that isn’t exactly saying much. The company’s annual output is just 300,000 units, and its market share in China is a meager 3%. Still, Hangzhou- based Geely is determined to become a global player in the auto industry. It has ambitions to sell 2 million cars a year, including 1.3 million overseas – even though right now the company generates just 5% of its sales from abroad.

Of course, that’s why the financial crisis has been more of a financial opportunity for Geely. In March, Geely bought key assets from bankrupt Australian gearbox maker Drivetrain Systems International – the world’s second-largest maker of automatic transmissions.

“The economic downturn provides us with very good overseas acquisition opportunities,” Daniel Dai, vice president for international business at Geely, told China Daily. “We get the best technology with the best price.”

Geely has also set up a joint venture with Manganese Bronze Holdings PLC (MBH) to produce the TX4 London Taxi in Shanghai. MBH supplies taxis to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Spain as well, boosting Geely’s global presence.

For months, analysts have speculated that Geely will continue to its overseas expansion by launching a bid for Ford Motor Co.’s (NYSE: F) Volvo unit. Ford, which is the only “Big Three” auto company to not receive government aid, last December started looking to offload the Swedish car brand in an effort to pay off the debt it accrued when the company borrowed $23.5 billion in 2006.

Geely said on Sept. 9 that it might partner with a state-owned investment company to bid for Volvo. And earlier this week, the company announced that it would raise $334 million in funds from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) through a convertible bond offering to “fund the capital expenditures of the group, potential acquisitions by the group and for general corporate purposes of the group.”

However, some analysts have pointed out that the Goldman capital falls well short of the roughly $2 billion Ford is asking for Volvo. They believe Geely instead will use the money to increase capacity and market the models it already has to buyers outside of its home market.

“The management is planning to expand its distribution channel to foreign countries,” Richard Li, research director at Celestial Asia Securities Holdings, told Forbes magazine. “This deal can provide this company enough funds so that the cash flow will be upgraded long term.”

And if nothing else, Goldman’s investment could be enough to instill investor confidence in the small Chinese carmaker.

Almost a year ago to the day Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.A, BRK.B) subsidiary MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. agreed to pay roughly $230 million for a 9.89% stake in Chinese car and battery producer BYD Co. Ltd. Since then, BYD’s shares have jumped more than fivefold in that time.

“A big name investor certainly helps boost stock prices and brand recognition,” Li Lixi, a Northeast Securities Co. analyst in Shanghai, told Bloomberg. “Goldman’s investment in Geely may repeat the impact that [Warren] Buffett had on BYD.”

Geely’s Hong Kong shares yesterday (Wednesday) surged to their highest in more than nine years on the news of Goldman’s investment.

The Race to Build a Competitive Chinese Brand

Geely isn’t the only Chinese companies looking to use the financial crisis as an opportunity to broaden its global reach either. Other Chinese companies, including Beijing Automotive Industry Holdings Co. (BAIC), SAIC Motor Corp. Ltd., and Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co., are determined take the lead in what has become a race to be the first world-renowned Chinese automotive company.

“It takes decades to establish a recognized, renowned brand,” Jim Hossack, an industry analyst at researcher AutoPacific Inc., told Bloomberg. “China wants to do it much faster, perhaps within as little as five years.”

BAIC on Sept. 9 joined Koenigsegg Group in its bid for GM’s Saab division. Koenigsegg – backed by U.S. and Norwegian investors – in June agreed to buy Saab from GM, but struggled with financing the deal.

SAIC group, the parent of China’s largest automaker, had also considered coming to Koenigsegg’s aid in the Saab bid. But ultimately it was BAIC that came through with the $420 billion in financing needed to close the deal.

“This is a great opportunity for us to partner up with a brand like Saab that we believe has a great future with a new business plan and new ownership,” Wang Dazong, general manager of Beijing Auto, said in a statement posted on its Web site.

Koenigsegg and BAIC will form a joint venture to market Saab cars in China, where the brand has little-to-no presence. BAIC will also gain valuable technology from the Swedish car company.

“Chinese manufacturers are hoping to buy up technology that will help them catch up to world standards on both the product and the development side more quickly than they would on their own,” Christoph Stuermer, automotive analyst at IHS Global Insight Inc., told the Financial Times.

However, not every Chinese endeavor has been greeted with success. Shanghai-based SAIC in 2004 paid $500 million for 49% of Ssangyong Motor Co. just to watch the South Korean carmaker go into receivership in February. And Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery’s attempted takeover of GM’s Hummer brand is still being stalled by China’s central government.

“It’s not in coordination with our nation’s industrial policy,” Vice Minister of Commerce Chen Jian said after sending back Sichuan’s application to acquire the Hummer brand for $100 million.

Still, Chinese auto companies won’t be satisfied until they race ahead of their Western counterparts.

“I’m fighting for what’s in overseas automakers’ rice bowls,” Geely founder Li Shufu told Bloomberg. “I want to build Geely into a global first-tier automaker.”

Source: Financial Crisis Gives Chinese Car Companies a Chance to Get Up to Speed

Everyone also knows that some of the key culprits behind this financial mess were the credit-rating firms like Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service, which assigned top-tier “AAA” ratings to investments that were actually backed by subprime mortgages and other toxic debt.

Whether it was collusion or incompetence almost didn’t matter: The firms claimed that the credit ratings they issued were constitutionally protected free speech. With this First Amendment shield, S&P, Moody’s and others said they were protected from lawsuits or other liabilities.

But that’s about to change.

A federal court judge in New York last week stripped the ratings firms of that defense, a decision that could expose the companies to billions of dollars worth of liabilities from investors who were burned by the faulty ratings.

Let’s legal case involved three specific firms – two firms that rated collateralized debt securities, and an investment bank that sold the debt. Those three companies were:

• Standard & Poor’s, which is owned by The McGraw-Hill Cos. Inc. (NYSE: MHP).
• The Moody’s Investor’s Service unit of Moody’s Corp. (NYSE: MCO), which is 19% owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.A, BRK.B).
• And Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS).

This particular case had been brought against Moody’s and S&P by Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank PJSC and Washington State’s King County. The case involved losses suffered from an investment in a structured investment vehicle (SIV) called Cheyne Finance. Although the debt securities Cheyne issued were backed in part by subprime mortgages, they received ratings as high as “AAA.”

In return for the high rating, the companies received higher-than-normal fees.

The $5.86 billion Cheyne Finance SIV went bankrupt in August 2007. The plaintiffs claimed fraud. The suit is seeking class-action status on behalf of investors who were burned when Cheyne was forced to dump securities it had issued between October 2004 and October 2007.

Since lawyers for the plaintiffs say the ruling could be applied to any deal involving SIVs, it could have a substantive impact. Before the financial crisis caused the value of these asset pools to plummet, experts estimate there were $350 billion to $400 billion worth of SIVs in existence.

“There certainly will be other cases filed – that’s the future impact of this decision,” San Diego attorney Patrick Daniels told The Wall Street Journal.

Moody’s and S&P had sought a dismissal, citing their First Amendment protections. But U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled on Sept. 2 that securities ratings that were distributed to a small group of investors don’t warrant the same First Amendment protections that are afforded to the widely circulated ratings of corporate bonds.

Judge Scheindlin acknowledged that ratings constituting “matters of public concern” are typically protected from liability. That’s especially true when the ratings are distributed to the general public. But it wasn’t the case here.

“Where a ratings agency has disseminated their ratings to a select group of investors rather than to the public at large, the ratings agency is not afforded the same protection,” Judge Scheindlin ruled.

The ruling will likely be appealed. And it could end up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The case spotlights the biggest problem with the business of rating securities: The ratings firms are paid by the issuers to rate them.

When you get right down to it, ratings firms are in business not to rate but to make money for themselves by rating issuers and their securities. The surprise isn’t that the obvious lack of objectivity fostered abuses in the credit-rating process – it’s that the problem took so long to come to a head. The complexity of mortgage-backed securities (MBS), collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs) and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) only exacerbated the investor risk.

The decision received widespread media attention. But it’s only half the story.

And the media missed the other half.

In an ironic twist that transforms the credit-rating firms into legal sacrificial lambs, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has in recent weeks acknowledged its own failure to protect the public from the same ratings firms that the federal agency mandates that investors rely upon.

This admission – combined with the legal assault on the constitutional protections ratings firms are used to hiding behind – could threaten the ratings firms’ very existence. It not only will further fuel investor ire, it could also provide litigants with additional needed legal ammunition. The ratings involve tens of billions – if not hundreds of billions – of dollars of failed securities.

A series of internal reviews by the SEC – one reaching back to last year – has highlighted some of the abuses.

About a year ago – in July 2008, to be exact – the SEC concluded a 10-month examination of the ratings industry that uncovered “poor disclosure practices and procedures guiding the analysis of mortgage-related debt and insufficient attention paid to managing conflicts of interest.”

According to the report, there was an obvious degree of knowledge and complicity in playing the ratings game.

E-mail exchanges between analysts at “unnamed” ratings firms back this up. In one, an analyst said the firm’s ratings model didn’t capture “half” of the deal’s risk, but said that the security “could be structured by cows and we would rate it.” In a Dec. 15, 2006 missive, a manager wrote that the ratings industry was creating “[an] even bigger monster – the CDO market.”

Confided the manager: “Let’s hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters.”

In July of this year, in testimony to Congress, SEC Chairwoman Mary Shapiro said she supported proposals to impose liability standards that would make it easier for investors to sue credit ratings firms. That’s a bit ironic given that the SEC is charged with supervising the ratings firms.

According to the internal investigation conducted by the Office of Inspector General, the SEC failed to exercise its duties as the nation’s watchdog of the same credit ratings firms that many large investors are forced to trust.

By law, certain investors must rely on the ratings of a handful of companies, known as  “Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations,” or NRSROs. In many cases, the NRSROs determine what are “eligible” or “appropriate” investments. And it’s the SEC that determines who is, or who can be, an NRSRO.

For instance, most state insurance regulators say that insurance companies can only invest in assets that carry one of the top four credit ratings. And it’s the NRSROs that certify those ratings.

Similarly, money-market funds can only invest in the highest NRSRO-rated securities.

Countless institutions – public and private, domestic and international – rely on rules that determine what assets are acceptable investments. And that acceptability is determined by financial due diligence and the resulting credit ratings – as determined by SEC-certified rating agencies.

It’s not clear that any of this is really protecting investors, according to a Feb. 15, 2008 “Review & Outlook” piece in The Journal. Drexel University Finance Prof. Joseph Mason took a look at CDOs that were “Baa” (an investment grade rating) by Moody’s. His finding: They were 10 times more likely to default than equivalently rated corporate bonds.

In that same article, an S&P spokesperson was asked if they actually examined the mortgage debt that made up the investment pools that make up a CDO.

The spokesperson’s answer was not confidence-inspiring: “We are not auditors; we are not accounting firms.”

Source: The Credit Rating Firms Are Running Scared – It’s About Time

The world’s second-largest foodmaker went public with its bid for Cadbury earlier this week after being snubbed privately. Kraft’s offer – a 31% premium to the chocolate maker’s Friday closing price of $37.46 a share, but less than  – “fundamentally undervalues” Cadbury, it said. The offer is less than 15 times Cadbury’s 2008 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA).

“Any follow-up offer by Kraft would likely involve a higher price,” Moody’s Investor Service senior analyst Brian Weddington said in a note. “The increased leverage that would result under the proposed transaction would be considerable.”

Increased leverage could be a boon to Cadbury and its investors, as The Hershey Co. (NYSE: HSY) will likely throw its hat into the bidding ring, one person familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal.

“Hershey recognizes that Cadbury is the last major confectionery company potentially available and, as such, is likely to make some response,” the person told The Journal. Nestle Chief Executive Officer said his company is always “open to acquisition opportunities if they fit strategically.”

Some analysts have Hershey teaming up with rival Nestle SA to make a joint offer for Cadbury and splitting its business, Reuters reported.

If Kraft and Cadbury can reach an agreement, it would be “bad news” for Nestle, Icap PLC analyst Andy Smith told Bloomberg News. “[Nestle has] the firepower to counter if they want.”

Cadbury and Kraft’s combined sales in 2008 were $51 billion, roughly half of Nestle’s in the same period.

However, Hershey’s position is less flexible.

The Pennsylvania chocolate maker has $1.7 billion in net debt and a market capitalization of $8.9 billion. Cadbury is valued at $17.7 billion, so any takeover by Hershey would require serious financing, according to The Journal.

Hershey could pursue a joint effort with Nestle, but that would mean turning Cadbury’s lucrative gum business over to the Swiss candy company to take to avoid antitrust issues.

Cadbury has almost 29% of the global gum market. The other big player in the sector is privately held Mars Inc., which became the world’s largest confectioner last year when it teamed with Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.A, BRK.B) to buy chewing gum icon Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company for $23 billion. Berkshire owns about 9.4% of Kraft’s shares, according to Reuters.

In January 2007, Cadbury Chief Executive Officer Todd Stitzer agreed with Hershey’s then-Chief Executive Officer Richard Lenny to remove that obstacle and suggested they create a “global confectionary powerhouse.” But any potential merger was held back by Cadbury’s beverage business, which included Dr. Pepper and Snapple.

Cadbury spun off its beverage business in May 2008, which resulted in the birth of the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group Inc. (NYSE: DPS).

Chances for a reverse scenario of Cadbury acquiring Hershey are slim, as the Hershey Trust is set on protecting the Hershey name and keeping it an American company.

“Simply put: We will not sell the Hershey Co.,” Hershey Trust Chairman LeRoy Zimmerman said in an opinion piece published last year in the Patriot-News of Harrisburg, PA.

While a number of analysts expect Kraft to raise its bid for Cadbury, the foodmaker is in a tight position because it does not have that much room to maneuver without threatening its balance sheet or risking its investment grade credit rating. The company already has almost $19 billion of bonds outstanding, according to Bloomberg.

Other companies mentioned as possible suitors are Kellogg Co. (NYSE: K) and PepsiCo Inc. (NYSE: PEP).

The worst economic downturn since the Great Depression and rising commodity costs have sent consumers looking for less expensive products at the grocery store, limiting companies’ ability to grow. As with Mars’ acquisition of Wrigley last year, companies are looking to consolidation for growth.

“Consolidation in the food sector has long been anticipated,” an unnamed merger advisor told Reuters. “Given the drop in [bottled] water revenues, Nestle and Danone are thought to look at acquisitions to spur revenue growth.”

For Kraft, a successful acquisition of Cadbury would spur its growth by expanding its presence in emerging markets like China, Brazil, Russia, and especially India. Cadbury is deeply entrenched in British Commonwealth nations such as India, where it has been selling chocolate for more than 60 years.

A takeover of Cadbury India “would open up a $500 million chocolate market which is growing at 15% per year,” Angel Broking Ltd. analyst Anand Shah told The Journal.

“I believe that in the current global economy, the growth prospects are constrained,” said Kraft Chief Executive Officer Irene Rosenfeld.

Shares of Kraft closed at $26.85 yesterday (Wednesday), up 1.51% or 40 cents, while Cadbury closed at $51.80, down .15%, or eight cents.

Source: Kraft’s Bid for Cadbury Not Sweet Enough

In June, financial advisor and CNBC contributor Dennis Gartman even called Buffett “an idiot.”

But now that Berkshire has rallied more than 35% from its March lows, the only idiots to be found are those that ever doubted the world’s second-richest man’s business savvy. Indeed, many of the moves Buffett made during last year’s market melee are paying off in a big way.

Take, for instance, his $5 billion investment in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS). Berkshire last September agreed to buy $5 billion in perpetual preferred Goldman shares that pay 10% interest.  In addition, Berkshire received warrants giving it the right to buy $5 billion worth of Goldman’s common shares at any time over the next five years at a price of $115 per share.

Critics lampooned that deal when shares of Goldman Sachs fell to a 52-week low of $47.41 in November. Since then, however, Goldman’s stock has rocketed more than 240% to close yesterday (Tuesday) at $160.25.

If Berkshire cashed in it’s warrants today, it would make a 40% profit or about $2 billion. But Warren Buffett has always been a long-term investor, which makes that highly unlikely.

“We will hold the warrants,” Buffett said on Fox Business Network. “Every instinct in my body tells me that we will want to hold those warrants until they’re very close to their expiration date. The preferred pays us the dividend and the warrants are going to make us the money.”

While Berkshire waits, the $5 billion in preferred Goldman shares pay an annual interest of $800 million in dividends.

Berkshire’s total stake in Goldman is now worth more than $9 billion – $4 billion more than the company paid for it – according to University of Louisiana finance professor Linus Wilson.

Berkshire’s investment in BYD Co. Ltd., a Chinese producer of both cars and specialized batteries, has also paid off.  Berkshire’s MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. agreed last Sept. 26 – just three days after the Goldman deal was announced – pay roughly $230 million for a 9.89% stake in BYD. MidAmerican bought 225 million shares of BYD at a HK$8 a piece. Those shares have since risen 430% to close yesterday at HK$42.40, handing Buffett a paper profit of about $1 billion.

Berkshire reported second-quarter profit of $3.3 billion, up from $2.88 billion a year earlier. The boost was largely attributable to derivative gains, which soared to $2.36 billion from $689 million the year prior.

Berkshire’s book value rose 11.4% in the second quarter, to $73,806 a share, and Barron’s estimates that it already could have increased since to around $79,000 now.

What Buffett’s Buying

So if Buffett’s supposedly cold hand has suddenly turned hot, how can investors benefit? Simple: By following the leader.

A 2007 study by two university professors titled “Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery” showed that buying what Buffett has bought – even a month after his purchases – is a pathway to superior returns.

“The market … appears to under-react to the news of a Berkshire stock investment since a hypothetical portfolio that mimics Berkshire’s investments created the month after they are publicly disclosed earns positive abnormal returns of 14.26% per year,” the study said.

And according to a regulatory filing disclosed Aug. 14, Berkshire is reading the tealeaves on healthcare reform. As of June 30, the company had loaded up 1.2 million shares of Becton Dickinson & Co. (NYSE: BDX), a maker of such medical equipment as scalpels, catheters and syringes, while winding down its positions in healthcare insurers. Berkshire cut its holdings in WellPoint Inc. (NYSE: WLP) by 27% to 3.5 million shares and sold 3.4 million shares, or 24%, of its UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE: UNH) stock.

“If the government is going to open health care to more people, demand for health care supplies would increase,” Gerald Martin, a finance professor at American University’s Kogod School of Business told Bloomberg. “The plan that’s going through Congress could be a real negative to the health insurers, but the people who provide the supplies could really benefit.”

Berkshire also increased its holdings in Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), the world’s largest maker of health-care products, by 14% to 36.9 million shares. The purchase of J&J shares marks the second straight increase in the size of Berkshire’s stake, according to Bloomberg.

All of the biggest holdings listed in Berkshire’s filing gained in value in the second quarter. American Express Co. (NYSE: AXP) rose 71% in the period, Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) rose 70%, and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. (NYSE: BNI) jumped 22%. Berkshire’s single largest holding, The Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO), rose 9.2% in the three months ended June 30.

Source: Berkshire’s Back, So What’s Warren Buffett Buying Now?

Now trading at $90,560, Berkshire Hathaway class A shares (NYSE: BRK.A) have plunged 60% from their 2007 peak of $149,000. According to Barron’s:

In the past decade, the stock has traded for an average of 1.6 to 1.7 times book value, a measure of shareholder equity per share. The current price-to-book ratio is near the low reached in early 2000, when Berkshire’s stock bottomed at about $40,000.

The turmoil in the financial markets has seriously dented confidence in Berkshire. And some would say with good reason. In March, Berkshire made a loss of about $5 billion on long-term put options on equity indexes – just as share prices were beginning to take off again. And the company has also suffered losses on stakes in  ConocoPhillips and American Express.

But as we’ve been at pains to stress here at Notes, the markets are topsy-turvy right now. And the recent rally has favored what Mr Market has seen as “offensive” stocks (read junk stocks: low quality, debt laden and consumer sensitive) over so-called “defensive” stocks such as Berkshire – those with strong cash positions and low debt levels.

Berkshire class A shares could top $110,000 in the next year, according to Barron’s. This would put them at roughly 1.4 times Barron’s estimate of book value in 12 months time: $80,000 a share. Even better values are Berkshire’s class B shares (NYSE: BRK.B):

Berkshire’s class B shares (BRK-B), worth 1/30th of the A shares, fetch about $2,750 each. The B shares look like a better buy than the A shares, because they sell at a 3% discount to their theoretical value. But the discount has persisted for some time, and could continue, as the B shares can’t be converted into A shares.

Rahm Emanuel is right about one thing: this crisis is an opportunity. Buying Berkshire shares now could be one of the best value plays in a generation.

Orders for items meant to last a few years increased 1.8% from April to May, smashing Wall Street’s expected 0.4% growth. Never mind that orders in the first five months of 2009 are down 27% compared to 2008… May’s number is another green shoot! Hooray!

“I get figures on 70-odd businesses, a lot of them daily,” said Warren Buffett yesterday. “Everything that I see about the economy is that we’ve had no bounce. The financial system was really where the crisis was last September and October, and that’s been surmounted and that’s enormously important. But in terms of the economy coming back, it takes awhile. There were a lot of excesses to be wrung out and that process is still under way and it looks to me like it will be under way for quite a while. In the [Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A)] annual report, I said the economy would be in a shambles this year and probably well beyond. I’m afraid that’s true…

“I had a cataract operation on my left eye about a month ago and I thought maybe now I’ll be able to see green shoots. We’re not seeing them. Whether it’s retailing, manufacturing, wherever. We have a big utility operation. Industrial demand is down like we’ve never seen it for a simple thing like electricity. So it hasn’t happened yet. It will happen. I want to emphasize that. But it hasn’t happened yet.”

Speaking of Buffett, his annual charity lunch auction is proving to be an annual sign of the times. Last year, the oversized $2.1 million winning bid for a lunch with Buffett came from a Chinese fund manager — three times the previous year’s winning bid. This year, with only one day remaining, bids for the eBay auction are up to “just” $350,000.

Source: A Green Shoot in the Sahara

• Inflation fears were quelled at least temporarily as U.S. consumer prices were raised only slightly last month, and actually experienced their biggest drop in almost 60 years. Higher gas prices contributed to the 0.1% increase in the Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) versus the April’s CPI, which was flat. Financial markets had expected a 0.3% increase. The CPI fell 1.3% versus the same period last year, the largest drop since April 1950. “There is no sign that there has been widespread inflation because of the Fed’s quantitative easing regime. In fact, long-term inflation expectations haven’t budged and the Fed is still ahead of curve on inflation,” economic and investment strategist John Canally of LPL Financial told Reuters.

• Four of the nation’s largest banks repaid $54.7 billion to the U.S. Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), freeing themselves of government restrictions on lending and pay.JPMorgan & Chase Co. (NYSE: JPM) repaid $25 billion, andMorgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.(NYSE: GS) repaid $10 billion each, Bloomberg News reported. As Money Morning’s Martin Hutchinson reported yesterday (Wednesday), the other two banks, U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB) and BB&T Corporation (NYSE: BBT) repaid their debts of $6.6 billion and $3.1 billion respectively. The banks are among 10 other that agreed last week to repay $68 billion in TARP funds,Bloomberg News reported. “Our strong capital position allowed us to pay back TARP in a very short amount of time,” BB&T Chief Executive Officer Kelly King said in the bank’s statement.

• Beleaguered outdoor clothing retailer Eddie Bauer Holdings Inc.(Nasdaq: EBHI) yesterday (Wednesday) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and said it planned to sell itself to private equity firm CCMP Capital LLC for $202 million. The sale to CCMP, known as a 363 sale, means the sale needs the approval of a judge, and other bidders could emerge. CCMP is entitled to a $5 million breakup fee if it loses to a higher bidder. Court filings show that Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC), General Electric Company (NYSE: GE) and CIT Group Inc. (NYSE: CIT) will provide up to $100 million in financing during the bankruptcy case,The New York Times reported. Eddie Bauer said its 371 stores in the United States and Canada are operating as usual.

• Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.A, BRK.B) options will begin trading on the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), enabling investors to bet on the company using a technique Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Warren Buffet has rejected, Bloomberg News reported. “Usually, if you want to buy or sell a stock, you should buy or sell the stock,” Buffett said last year on the weekend of the company’s annual meeting. “Using options, four times out of five you will be right, the last one you’ll miss. I’ve virtually never used options as a way to enter or exit a position.” CBOE will offer contracts on Buffet’s conglomerate starting today (Thursday).

• FedEx Corp.’s (NYSE: FDX) losses more than tripled in its last quarter, and the company said things won’t be much better in the near future, The Associated Press reported. The nation’s second-largest package shipper reported a loss of $876 million, or $2.82 per share in the quarter ended May 30. That compares to a loss of $241 million, or 78 cents per share in the same period last year. “The operating environment for our first two quarters in fiscal 2010 is expected to be extremely difficult,” Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Alan B. Graf Jr. said. The company has not yet decided whether it will have to lay off more workers or make further cutbacks due to poor economic conditions, Graf said in a conference call with investors.

• Newly sold automaker Saab secured a key court ruling yesterday (Wednesday) to cut 75% of the more than $1.28 billion (10 billion in Swedish crowns) of debt after a vast majority of creditors approved the proposal, Reuters reported.  Sweden-based Saab was sold on Tuesday to fellow countrymen Koenigsegg Group ABby soon-to-be former parent General Motors Corp. (OTC:GMGMQ).

• The annual rise in gas prices entered its 50th straight dayyesterday (Wednesday) after crude prices bounced back after an initial slump in the beginning of this week, The Associated Pressreported. Pump prices are now at a national average of $2.67 per gallon. The rising crude prices and less production has added to the typical increase in demand in the late spring and summer months as more Americans take to the roads for vacation-related travel.

• After being dogged by reports of orderless days at the Paris Air Show, The Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) finally got a $153 million order for two single-aisle planes, The Associated Press reported. But this order pales when compared to the $6.2 billion in orders already attained by rival Airbus S.A.S. Both aircraft makers are feeling the economic crunch by the worldwide recession.

• China will use part of its $200 billion sovereign wealth fund to invest in hedge funds, according to Felix Chee, who will initially run the fund. “We will have a preference for managed accounts,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg News Wednesday at the GAIM International hedge fund conference at Monaco’s Grimaldi Forum. “The platform would like a core of single-manager funds and fund-of-funds.” Chee, is a special adviser to the chief investment officer of China Investment Corp.’s hedge fund and proprietary trading effort, “It’ll be across the spectrum of strategies,” he said. “We’re looking for the best managers and a handful of fund of funds, and when I say handful I mean five or less.”

• A prominent Wall Street analyst sees the benchmark S&P 500 Index (NYSE: .INX) breaking its all-time record by the end 2012. JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) Chief U.S. Equity Strategist Thomas Lee said on Wednesday the index should surge back above 1,500, its October 2007 high in less than three years, provided the U.S. economy sees a V-shaped recovery.  “The global economy is in the midst of a synchronized recovery,” Lee said at the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit.  Lee also reiterated his year-end 2009 target of 1,100 for the S&P 500, saying the United States will likely come out of its recession some time this summer, followed by the rest of the developed world.

• Prices on Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE) mortgage securities rose for the fifth day Wednesday, pushing yields down as they tracked a drop in rates on benchmark U.S. Treasuries, foreshadowing possible further declines in borrowing costs for new home-loans. Yields on Washington-based Fannie Mae’s 30- year fixed-rate mortgage bonds fell by 0.02% to 4.56% in New York trading, the lowest since June 3, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Treasuries and so-called agency mortgage bonds rallied after a government report showed the cost of living rose less than forecast in May. The mortgage-bond yields are down from 5.07% on June 10, the highest level since the Federal Reserve announced plans to buy home-loan bonds in November.

• Applications for mortgages fell for a fourth consecutive week, with overall demand plunging to its lowest level in nearly seven months, according to a report Wednesday from the Mortgage Bankers Association.  Rising interest rates have tempered demand for refinancings and new purchase applications, as the industry group’s seasonally-adjusted index fell 15.8% to 514.4 for the week ended June 12, the lowest since the week ended November 21, 2008.  Rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 5.50%, down 0.07% from the previous week, but significantly higher than the all-time low of 4.61% set in the week ended March 27,Reuters reported.

Source: Investment News Briefs Thursday June 18, 2009

…the cabs are black…and so is the mood.

Last week, the Bank of England and European Central Bank announced new initiatives aimed at putting some brighter colors in the economy. Both banks are going to take up forms of QE – quantitative easing.

Whoa…don’t touch that dial! (A reminder for younger readers: TVs and radios used to have dials, which you turned to change the channel. Announcers would begin with ‘Don’t touch that dial’ when they had something important to say.)

We’re not going to discuss QE – promise!

On Friday, for the benefit of new readers, we were trying to explain The World According to The Daily Reckoning. Today, we continue our explanation – partly to bring new Dear Readers into the picture…and partly to remind ourselves what the hell we’re talking about.

On Friday, the Dow rose 164 points. The rally is still going on. Markets make opinions, say the old timers on Wall Street. After nine weeks of rising prices, people are beginning to see the world differently. To simplify: it doesn’t seem nearly as bad a place as it was a few months ago.

Oil has risen to $58 a barrel. The dollar has fallen to $1.35 per euro. And gold is at $914.

Even house prices – while not actually rising – are not falling as fast as they were before. And while people are still losing their jobs, not as many of them are losing their jobs each month as did earlier in the year.

This has led many commentators to believe that government’s expensive bailout/stimulus efforts are finally working.

Toward the end of last year, the days were getting shorter and shorter. Darkness covered the land – especially in Iceland where, even in the best of times, late December offers barely enough daylight to smoke a cigarette.

And then, the authorities got up to their usual antics. They bailed out some companies…lowered interest rates to zero…and shored up the financial sector – which just happened to have very good representation in the government and its central bank – and saved the bondholders from getting what they had coming. Meanwhile, the feds made sacrifices to the market gods too. Unable to find any virgins in the financial sector, they threw the taxpayers down the well. And then they went after the savers (admittedly, there weren’t many of them) and the next generation too.

At first, it seemed as if the feds had failed. Then, gradually, the light increased…the days grew longer.

And now, the mob screams: “The worst is over!” “We’ve seen the bottom.” “Hoorah for the feds!”

But it is not likely to be so…

Here we give you the first of four Daily Reckoning dicta:

People do not get what they want or what they expect from the markets; they get what they deserve.

Of course, people would like the downturn to be over. Many are counting on it. But Mr. Market doesn’t give a hoot. He’s got a “Capitalism at Work” t-shirt on and a sledgehammer in his hand.

What’s he up to? He’s demolishing a quarter century’s worth of mistakes. There are always mistakes made. Investments go bad. Businesses go under. People go broke. When many mistakes are corrected at once, it’s called a ‘recession.’ And when an entire economic model goes bad, it’s called a ‘depression.’

The economic model of the last quarter century caused more mistakes than usual. It encouraged people to spend, borrow, and speculate. And each time Mr. Market tried to make some corrections, the authorities came along with more money and easier credit. Businesses that should have gone under years ago kept digging themselves in deeper. Homeowners kept running up more debt. Speculators kept taking bigger and bigger gambles. Altogether, total debt – a measure of the bubble in the credit markets and all things associated with it – rose from only about 150% of GDP when the Pontiac GTO came out, to 370% during the Hummer and Prius years.

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, and bubbles gotta blow. The bubble in the financial sector – including subprime debt, housing prices, bonuses on Wall Street and derivatives – hit the fan in 2007. And what a mess!

And why shouldn’t it be? Which brings us to the second of our dicta:

The force of a correction is equal and opposite to the deception that preceded it.

The delusions and absurdities of the Bubble Epoque were monstrous. Naturally, the correction must be huge too. World stock markets were nearly cut in half. Property prices too have been knocked down almost everywhere. The total loss of nominal wealth has been estimated as high as $50 trillion.

In today’s paper, we find that Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A/BRK.B), made its first loss since 2001. Thirty-three banks have been shut down this year. America’s leading banks say they need another $75 billion to keep their doors open. And Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM) said it lost $23 billion; it will need $19 billion more to continue jiving the housing market.

Could these losses have been prevented?

Ah…certainly many of them could. If the U.S. Congress had never created Fannie Mae, for example, it never would have distorted the mortgage market as much as it did. And if the feds hadn’t created the Federal Reserve Bank, it couldn’t have provided so much ready money for so many speculators and borrowers. And if the Fed under Alan Greenspan had done what it was supposed to do – that is, to “take away the punch bowl” before the party got out of control – the bubble in the financial sector probably would have been much more modest.

Of course, people drew all the wrong conclusions. They thought “capitalism failed.” They saw the car drive off the cliff…but didn’t notice how government had twisted the road signs. Instead of warning investors of the dangerous curve ahead, the Fed’s low lending rates said: ‘Step on the gas!’

We all know the story from there…

Dictum number 3: Capitalism doesn’t always take an economy where it wants to go; but it always takes an economy where it ought to be.

Whoever was responsible for the mistakes, capitalism went about correcting them with its customary élan. It hit imprudent investors with trillions in losses. It knocked down mismanaged corporations. It whacked homeowners…and pounded housing-based derivatives to dust.

Capitalism operates by a process that the great economist Joseph Schumpeter called “creative destruction.” It destroys mistakes to make room for new innovations and new businesses. Unfortunately, this puts it at odds with government…and what most people want. When people make mistakes, they maintain that they are blameless (“who could have seen this crisis coming?”) and that someone else should pay for the loss.

So today, the feds, who mismanaged their regulatory responsibilities during the Bubble Epoque, are bailing out mismanaged corporations in order to protect lenders who mismanaged their money. They are determined to prevent capitalism from making major changes – in the worst possible way. What’s the worst possible way? Simple. Leave the mismanagers in place. Keep the brain-dead companies alive – along with the zombie banks. Let the government take ownership of major sectors of the economy. And stick a debt-ridden society with even more debt! The feds are expected to borrow $2 trillion this year alone. From whom? And who will repay it?

And the fourth dicta: The severity of a depression is inversely correlated with government’s efforts to stop it.

The more the feds try to delay and distract the process of creative destruction, the longer it takes to get the job done. And the higher the eventual bill.

There are only two fairly clear examples in modern history. After the crash of ’29, the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations tried desperately to stop the correction. They could not make bad debts disappear, nor turn bad decisions into good ones. All they could do was to retard the necessary corrections – and cause new mistakes! It wasn’t until after WWII, 15 years later, when the New Deal was largely forgotten, that the United States got back to work. Similarly, when Japan was confronted with a major correction in 1990, its politicians followed the Hoover/Roosevelt model. Over the years, an amount equivalent to almost an entire year’s output was applied to recovery efforts. But all they did was to prevent and forestall the needed changes. Now, 19 years later, the Japanese economy is still in corrective mode.

Tomorrow…beware the suckers’ rally…

Uh oh…we might be next. The U.K. government has published a list of people it won’t allow in the country. The list includes some terrorists…but also conservative U.S. talk show host Michael Savage.

The idea, as near as we can make it out, is that Britain feels it can exclude people who nurture hatred.

So, let us make it perfectly clear: Here at The Daily Reckoning we do not hate bankers, politicians, lawyers, bureaucrats, tax collectors, gypsies, slow drivers, rich people, snitches, women, dwarfs, English twits or anyone else.

Nor do we advocate the use of violence in any form – unless it is necessary…and unless it is against small, defenseless little nations that can’t fight back.

Until tomorrow,

Bill Bonner

Source: Capitalism at Work

• The index that measures pending sales of previously owned homes rose 3.2% in March on the renewed confidence of first-time buyers. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Commerce reported that U.S. construction inched 0.3% in March, the first increase in six months, Reuters reported.

• Famed investor and chairman of Templeton Asset Management Ltd. Mark Mobius said emerging-market stocks may “break out” into a bull market at the end of the year. “We are at the base building period for the next bull market,” Mobius, who helps oversee $20 billion in emerging market assets at San Mateo, California-based Templeton, said yesterday (Monday) in an interview with Bloomberg. “What I see happening is perhaps this continuing till the end of the year, and then a break out.”

• Cost cutting measures helped Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) post an unexpected quarterly profit excluding items, but the company also lost its highest amount of customers. “There are no clear signs that the business has made its turn,” Piper Jaffray analyst Christopher Larsen told Reuters.

• The Bovespa, Brazil’s benchmark index, hit a seven-month high yesterday (Monday), pushed by analysts’ expectations that Brazil’s economy will contract less than forecast. Analysts also expect commodities to continue jumping on global growth prospects, causing the country’s top commodities producers to see stock gains, Bloomberg reported.

• Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.A, BRK.B) Chairman Warren Buffett blasted bankers, insurers and regulators and said their shortcomings caused the worst recession in half a century.  As he hosted a record 35,000 people at the company’s annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska on Saturday, Buffett said Wall Street sold subprime mortgage “sewage,” blamed the media and regulators for missing the danger, and lambasted bankers for being blind to the possibility that housing prices could fall, Bloomberg reported.

• Liberty Media Corp (NASDAQ: LCAPA), controlled by cable pioneer John Malone, said on Monday it plans to split off the DirecTV Group Inc (NASDAQ: DTV) satellite TV operator into a separate company combined with other media assets.  Liberty plans to combine the top U.S. satellite TV provider with assets that include Game Show Network, FUN Technologies and three regional sports networks, Reuters reported. Liberty owns a 54% economic stake in DirecTV.

• U.S. airlines face a potential liquidity crisis if revenue keeps falling while credit markets remain tight, Reuters reported.  If revenue does not increase this year, carriers may breach the minimum liquidity covenants enforced by their creditors, who then may accelerate the loan and force a default. “If revenue doesn’t stabilize and capital markets remain constrained, then I think it’s certainly possible that we’ll see increased risk of a covenant breach for a couple of carriers moving into 2010,” said Fitch Ratings analyst Bill Warlick.

• Health Minister Jose Cordova said most of Mexico’s businesses will reopen in two days as the pace of new swine flu infections slows, putting an end to a five-day shutdown of most businesses enacted to stop the spread of the illness, Bloomberg reported.  Mexicans will return to work on May 6 except in areas of the country where new infections continue to rise. Authorities haven’t yet decided whether schools will reopen May 6, he said.

Source: Investment News Briefs Tuesday May 5, 2009

Editors Note: With their investment news briefs, Money Morning provides investors with a quick overview of the most important investing news stories from all around the world.

And now, it’s broke. And even politicians think they know how to run an auto company. Just read the papers. “Obama insists on changes,” says one headline.

Normally, the politicos should hold their tongues…and let an industry’s owners run their businesses. Alas, as of a few days ago, the politicians ARE the owners.

Here’s a question:

When the government takes a majority stake in the auto business you know you are:

A) In a bad dream
B) In a bad way
C) In a bad country
D) In France

Correct answer: well, we we’re not in France. But as for the rest, it could be any of them…or all of the above.

Here’s an easier question. Who will the U.S. government put on the board of directors of General Motors?

A) A political hack
B) An industry hack
C) A far-sighted maverick who will shake up the business and put it on the road to growth and prosperity

If you answered “C” – you are from another planet. There is a reason neither governments, nor workers should own businesses. In the following, roundabout way, we explain why…

But first, a bit of news. As far as we can tell, the bear market rally is still on. The Dow rose 44 points on Friday. Oil closed at $53. The dollar is still sinking. And gold lost $3 to end the day’s trading at $888.

Thirty-two banks have shut down so far this year in the United States. Little, mismanaged banks go broke. But big, mismanaged banks get federal money. With these subsidies and bailouts, the big banks get larger…and live to foul-up another day.

Poor Warren Buffett seemed a little discouraged at his annual shareholders’ fest in Omaha. He must be nearing the end of his career. And consumers just aren’t buying as much furniture, cola, and candy as they used to, he told the faithful. (NYSE:BRK.A/BRK.B) Berkshire Hathaway’s profits were 10% below those of last year.

Swine flu seems to be disappearing from the front pages. Has it gone the way of Y2K and terrorism? Has another great disaster been averted? Might be too early to tell…

Oh you doomers and gloomers, cheer up! There’s always some other disaster waiting for a headline. How about this? The Seattle Times looks at Las Vegas and sees what it calls “the next global crisis.” After 10 years of drought, Las Vegas is running out of water.

The city fathers are thinking of all sorts of solutions – except, of course, for the obvious and effective one. They’re planning on huge pipelines…hundreds of miles long…and sucking water out of aquifers millions of years old. But, according to the paper, Las Vegas charges only about a tenth as much for its water as Atlanta does. The simple solution is to let free enterprise provide water…so that it could be priced correctly.

Colleague Chris Mayer has been following the water crisis story since the introduction of his newsletter, Mayer’s Special Situations, in 2006.

“Water is not just a problem in Las Vegas. The lack of sources for fresh water is a problem facing much of the American West, though the problem is particularly acute there and in the state of Nevada generally. Nevada is the most arid state in the union,” says Chris.

“The tight water supply has implications all over the West. In Arizona, you can’t build a residential development unless you find a ‘designated assured water supply’ that can sustain that development for 100 years. I could go on and on about this kind of thing. Suffice it to say, the American West faces a water crisis.”

Maybe the increase in water prices would discourage people from planting Georgia-style grass lawns in the Nevada desert. Or maybe it would discourage people from moving to Las Vegas in the first place. But that’s the thing with capitalism; it doesn’t take people where they want to go…it takes them where they ought to be. That’s also why people hate free enterprise so much. Where they ought to be is, often, where they least want to go. In the present example, people think they have a right to water – practically for free. They think there’s a ‘water clause’ in the Constitution that says government is supposed to provide them as much water as they want at a price they can afford.

Most things work better when they are run by private enterprises. Too bad. Free enterprise is out of style. The days of privatizing are over. Now, everyone wants the government to take charge.

What a turnaround from a few years ago – when people thought they could solve practically every problem by privatizing it. And then, the voters would buy shares in the newly privatized companies…and we’d all get rich!

“For water, the really bad stuff hasn’t happened – yet,” says Chris. “As investors, it’s a good place to be for a long time.”

Now, over to Addison for a look at this year’s federal deficit:

“Panic over the financial system is no longer crowding out discussion of the federal deficit here in I.O.U.S.A.,” writes Addison in today’s issue of The 5 Min. Forecast.

“Even the New York Times is noticing the deficit as a percentage of GDP will likely shoot above 10% this year – a post-WWII high.

“Bond investors caught onto this even sooner than the Times. They’ve driven yields on the 10-year Treasury note to their highest since last November – above 3%.

“Ben Bernanke and Co. can keep short-term rates as low as they like, but the bond market clearly sees signs of trouble on the longer end of the yield curve.”

“‘The reality remains that the United States is struggling through the most severe post-World War II recession with a rather compromised credit system,” writes The Richebächer Letter’s Rob Parenteau, “and the only sure area of rising final demand over the next year will be coming from fiscal deficit spending.’”

And back to Bill, with more thoughts:

The proletariat began buying stocks in the ’80s. The ‘shareholder nation’ was a dream of Maggie Thatcher and Ronald Reagan: Everyman a Capitalist.

Of course, these new capitalists were not real capitalists. Instead, the little guys were mostly pigeons for Wall Street. Instead of really understanding and CONTROLLING the companies they owed, they bought shares in mutual funds…or owned their shares through insurance or pension funds. These collective investments left the little guys dependent on Wall Street managers – who paid themselves enormous fees and bonuses.

Of course, as long as stocks went up, the new capitalists didn’t mind or notice that the financial industry took advantage of them. They completely misunderstood what they had gotten into. In their minds, capitalists made people rich…and Wall Street helped them get in on the deal.

When Francois Mitterand, socialist president of France during the ’80s, realized how it worked, he was outraged; ‘they make money in their sleep,’ he remarked of capitalists. But that was just what most people wanted to do. So, they began to imitate the capitalists. “Buy stocks,” thundered Wall Street.

And so…the little guys piled in….and stocks soared.

“Buy and Hold,” the pros told them. “Stocks for the Long Run,” wrote professors of finance.

Of course, some people wanted to make money faster. So ‘day trading’ became popular in the late ’90s. The newspapers were full of stories of people who quit their jobs in order to trade stocks.

In the ’80s and ’90s, too, people began to believe that you could motivate workers by giving them “a piece of the upside.” And the workers, too, believed they might get rich if they had a stake in their employer’s company. Especially in the financial sector, ‘results-based compensation’ caught on. Soon, almost everyone had a piece of the upside.

The trouble was, especially in the financial sector, the upside was remarkably short-sighted. In the near-term, business managers had a huge incentive to push the upside up farther than it ought to go. Take risks? Why not! If they could increase the quarterly results they would get a bigger bonus. If, over the long term, the business were weakened…well, that would be the owners problem, wouldn’t it? Managers sometimes had such a big piece of the upside there was scarcely anything left for the owners.

Everybody wanted a piece of the upside. Owners – including the new capitalists – wanted the business to prosper so their stocks would go up in price. Managers wanted high quarterly profits – so they could exercise their stock options and pay themselves big bonuses. They were all ‘capitalists’ – but ersatz capitalists. None had much of an interest in the long-term health of the capitalist institution itself.

A real capitalist is eager to cut his labor costs. If hourly wages rose too high…he’d want to move to a lower-cost production center. And if the managers asked for too much – he’d fire them and get new ones.

But neither the working stiffs nor the suits shared the owners’ interest in cutting labor costs and preparing for the future. While European automakers shifted much of their production to lower-cost countries…GM continued to make cars in the United States of America. Its unionized, stock-owning, voting employees wouldn’t allow it to move. And when it needed to invest in new tools and equipment in order to make autos for the 21st century – suppressing earnings in the short term in order to make the company stronger later on – its bonus-seeking, option-driven managers wouldn’t permit it.

Lesson: Let the managers manage. Let the workers work. Let the capitalists grub for money. And let the politicians lie and steal. Each to his own métier.

If you’re wondering what that means in today’s world, you’re not alone. We’re wondering too.

Until tomorrow,

Bill Bonner

Source: How Unions and Governments Destroy Businesses