More trouble ahead Thursday, December 20, 2007
Posted by ei-forum in Miscellaneous.trackback
Markets remain very volatile, especially in light of looming downgrades for bond insurers and what people believe is a weakening economy headed for recession. Bond insurer ACA Financial Guaranty Corp. saw its “A” credit rating cut down Wednesday to non-investment grade “CCC” by Standard & Poor’s! Furthermore, reports confirmed that the level of foreclosures was up 68 percent in November compared with the same period last year.
Bear Sterns is expected to post first even quarter loss and Merrill is expected to announce another 7 million dollar write-down after having posted an 8,4 million one last month…
Today will definitely be another very interesting day. We continue to stay on the sidelines, nibbling on some small opportunities but mainly observing what is happening before re-entering the market.
Stumble It!
Explore Investors Blog Network
I’m watching to see what happens with MBIA, Ambak, and PMI. These bond insurers all have AAA ratings, which allows them to dominate the industry. A downgrade to any of them would really shake things up, but would be a boon to any survivors.
However, they’re all good companies (Ambak is my favorite) and have all been beat down pretty hard, so there is a lot of opportunity here.
I’m keeping my eyes open for any downgrades.
Hi John, we agree. Investors need to be patient and wait for the right opportunity and not try and move too quickly… but very interesting times ahead!