Back in the saddle today, although still trying to catch up from a backlog of work, hence the late posting.

Knocked on Their ARSes
The Chicago Tribune reports that Nuveen Investments Inc. thinks it may have figured out a work around work around for the frozen auction-rate securities market.

“Nuveen said Wednesday that it has arranged support that would allow it to issue up to $1.75 billion in a new variable-rate debt instrument that officials think could replace the troubled auction-based securities. “If we are successful in completing our efforts to develop VRDP, and market it to investors, we believe we can achieve our key goals of reducing costs of leverage over time for common shareholders of Nuveen municipal funds while providing liquidity at par for ARPS holders,” said Nuveen Investments Executive Vice President Bill Adams.

It’s a tough call trying to satisfy investors who expected both returns and liquidity.

We first wrote about the ARS problem back in February. In April we published an update (subscription required).

If You Break the Rules, Change Them
Something about this just seems like a bad idea:

The world’s leading banks have stepped up pressure to relax controversial accounting rules with a new plan aimed at breaking the “downward spiral” of huge writedowns, emergency fundraisings and fire-sales of assets, the Financial Times reported on Thursday. Under the plan, which has been obtained by the Financial Times, banks that decided to keep assets on their balance sheet would also be freed from the requirement to hold them to maturity and would be able to sell them after two years.

Oh, maybe this is it: “Other regulators have also criticised financial companies for proposing rule changes that would reduce the impact of a crisis triggered in large part by their aggressive lending and underwriting practices.”

Buffet Buffet?
Warren Buffet is auctioning off the chance to have lunch with him at the Smith & Wollensky steakhouse in New York. The auction, which will be held on eBay, starts June 22.

Smith & Wollensky? Maybe the King of Value would rather go to McDonald’s. . . .

None of His So-Called Friends Like Him, Either
Isn’t this just a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day?

“The American market is a bottomless pit right now,” said Peter Schiff, president of brokerage Euro Pacific Capital. “The Fed can’t cut rates any more. Oil is … rising. Any company that collects revenues from American consumers is going to have terrible earnings, and share prices are going to fall.”

So how do you really feel?

And The Hits Just Keep On Coming
More good news, from today’s Wall Street Journal:

“For several years, the IEA has predicted that supplies of crude and other liquid fuels will arc gently upward to keep pace with rising demand, topping 116 million barrels a day by 2030, up from around 87 million barrels a day currently. Now, the agency is worried that aging oil fields and diminished investment mean that companies could struggle to surpass 100 million barrels a day over the next two decades.”

Competition Junction, What’s Your Function?

I wonder if this came up at the competitiveness summit here in Chicago?

Psst, Buddy. Wanna Buy a House? Please?

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 7:02 pm and is filed under Thursday's Random Shots. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.