Business

While the latest Fed stress test found that all US commercial banks have enough capital to survive even an "adverse" stress scenario, a severe recession in which the VIX hypothetically soars to 70, the two US mortgage giants would not be quite so lucky: according to the results from the annual stress test of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac released today by their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the "GSEs" which were nationalized a decade ago in the early days of the crisis, would need as much as $100 billion in bailout funding in the form of a potential incremental Treasu

The US Treasury Bill market remains notably inverted around the uncertain timing of the US debt limit debacle.

As Bloomberg reports, while Treasury bills maturing in October continue underperforming against November and December securities, the market has a murky view on the drop-dead date for the U.S. debt ceiling.

At the start of last week, concerns shifted to early October after the Treasury said in its 3Q refunding statement that it expects to be able to fund the govt through the end of September.

 

While the growing woes facing the auto sector are well-known by now (see "Carmageddon: Ford & GM Sales Tank Despite Record July Incentive Spending") and boil down to excess capacity, insufficient demand and just a tiny - if one listens to the experts - subprime lending bubble, one key culprit has emerged as the biggest catalyst behind the chronic weakness among US carmakers: a moribund fleet, or rental, industry which has been devastated in recent years from Uber's juggernaut of disruption.

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

John Hussman’s report this week, Estimating Market Losses at a Speculative Extreme, has an interesting chart on Median price-to revenue ratios over time. Let’s dive in.

I added the dashed blue line for ease in comparison to the dot-com bubble peak. Here are some snips from Hussman.

Financial Presstitutes Cover Up for the Big Banks

Paul Craig Roberts

The big New York banks no longer perform the banking function of lending to consumers and businesses. Thanks to government policies that foster increased financial concentration, banking incentives have changed fundamentally. The big banks today are focused on higher risk-return speculation and on trading and fee-based income.