tyb
chek't
Natixis Plunges After Its Ill-Named H20 Fund Sparks Panic Over Illiquid Holdings
Step aside Neil Woodford (and your disastrous investments in illiquid assets), and make room for French bank Natixis (and its own disastrous investments in illiquid assets), whose shares plunged 10% to the lowest in three years, after bond rating giant Morningstar suspended its rating on the woefully-named H2O Asset Management’s Allegro Fund yesterday, citing concerns over “the liquidity of certain bonds”.
"H20" fund… lack of liquidity… get it?
The questionable Natixis holdings are linked to debt issued by Lars Windhorst, "a flamboyant German entrepreneur with a history of legal troubles" according to the FT, which first flagged the Allegro fund's shady holdings.
ome history: the London-based H20, which oversees about €30bn of assets, has been a subsidiary of Natixis Investment Managers since it was bought in July 2010. Executives sent a message to clients on Wednesday to reassure them about the liquidity of its investments and that its positions had been “fully disclosed to our clients and auditors”.
"The suspension raises concern about the quality of oversight by Natixis management of its network of asset managers," KBW analyst Jean-Pierre Lambert told the FT, adding that in the vein of the Woodford fiasco, the €250MM performance fee H20 pays Natixis could be affected, and questions should be raised about the French bank’s flurry of recent asset management acquisitions and stated ambition for more.
In response, Natixis said on Thursday that suspension of the rating has "absolutely no impact on the liquidity and performance of H2O’s funds. H2O will communicate shortly in detail to address all the questions raised by the publication of these elements.” The statement added that “the risk of a potential conflict of interest” raised by Morningstar was "groundless."
Of course, a few weeks ago, UK "investment legend" Neil Woodford said the same thing when a "fund run" on his assets resulted in an unprecedented gating of investors when the market is trading at all time highs. Now, it's Natixis' turn to discover just why all those warnings written here and elsewhere about illiquid bond investments should have been taken seriously.
According to a previous report by FT Alphaville, H2O’s filings list investments in more than €1.4bn of illiquid bonds linked to Windhorst, across six funds that allow retail investors to withdraw their money on a daily basis.
H2O appears to be by far the biggest investor in many of these bonds. It often holds the majority of the outstanding amount across the firm, according to FT calculations based on each fund’s latest regulatory filings.
Windhorst, once seen as a teenage prodigy and poster boy for entrepreneurship in his native Germany, saw his reputation crater after he presides over several insolvencies, a personal bankruptcy and received a suspended jail sentence in 2009. He relaunched his investment firm last month in an attempt to draw a line under several tricky years, which saw him and his company Sapinda engaged in legal battles involving at least €220m with several investors — including Ukraine-born billionaire Sir Len Blavatnik.
The plot thickened after H2O’s CEO, Bruno Crastes joined a new advisory board of Windhorst’s rebranded Tennor Holding last month, along with fund management heavyweights Martin Gilbert and Avenue's Marc Lasry, who is also vice-chairman of UK asset manager Standard Life Aberdeen. In all, across these investors, they owns tens of billions in illiquid bonds and may well be engaging in marking-to-myth by occasionally "buying" each other's bonds at specifics prices just to give the impression of a liquid market across billions in illiquid bond holdings.
Potential collusion aside, Morningstar on Wednesday said that Crastes’s board seat posed “a possible conflict of interest”.
not a possible conflict but 100% certainty
Still, even if the "illiquid" H20 fund investments turn out to be a tempest in a teapot, Natixis has many other shady investment problems: the stock has plunged 36% in the past 12 months, even before today's 10% plunge.
In February the bank said its fourth-quarter earnings were cut in half after some Asian derivatives trades went bad, prompting questions about its risk appetite and management.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-20/natixis-plunges-after-its-ill-named-h20-fund-sparks-panic-over-illiquid-holdings
this guy, not as bad as dykstra because he actually did/does something, but lived "the life" on the backs on his clients.
a classic example of mark-to-model
this is when they produce internal reports that say a certain asset is worth 'X' and then carry it on the books that way-even though there are plenty of mark-to-market prices available.
Mark-to-market =real prices derived from an exchange or accepted pricing mechanism.
you try to impose your will on the bake when you should just STFU. Making corrections and generally being a pain in the ass when not in the kitchen, bitching about pastebin quality.
Literally STFU
US Market Report
Follow-on from yesterday and a great sign that money is continuing to be driven into equity's.
The Bond market is ded as far as generating any meaningful return. This is payback for the system dropping savings rates years ago.
They did this so you would not save and that has the affect of people being irresponsible with money.
Not everyone did this and many anons, I'm sure, used the Bank of Serta, I did. Fuck the banks. Going forward I recommend
having enough in them to pay your bills and not much else. The big six banks are virtually insolvent and have been for a very long time.
Much of this fly's in the face of normal accepted market patterns, especially if you are a former technician/fundamentalist like this pepe.
Sometimes you just have to go with it…so go with it
Some Headlines
Deutsche Bank braced for continued Fed restrictions on U.S. business
Deutsche Bank AG executives expect U.S. regulators to continue to impose restrictions on its Wall Street investment bank even if it passes an annual health test.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-deutsche-bank-regulation-exclusiv/exclusive-deutsche-bank-braced-for-continued-fed-restrictions-on-u-s-business-sources-idUSKCN1TL2K0?
the bullshit 'stress tests'-the biggest bunch shit ever produced by the FRB, how this works/worked was that the banks could just move assets into a place called 'hold to maturity' and that way the FRB could look the other way.
That entire process, 'bank stress tests' is/was a scam and it was done because many people saw that these places were not telling the truth-so the yproduced that steaming POS to placate people.
Slack stock surges at debut, values company at more than $25 billion
Shares of Slack Technologies Inc, the fast-growing workplace messaging and communication platform, soared nearly 60% in their public trading debut on Thursday, valuing the company at more than $25 billion.
The strong performance helped validate the unusual direct listing model the company used to go public. The stock soared to more than $41 at midday on Thursday from the New York Stock Exchange’s reference price of $26 apiece.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-slack-tech-listing/slack-stock-surges-at-debut-values-company-at-more-than-25-billion-idUSKCN1TL19M?
25 gorillion for what is, essentially, an app.-fuck me people are stupid, moar money than brians.
Markets rally on downed drone, Powell promises and POTUS tweets
edited headline-see no turmoil as the original headling suggests.
Stocks up to record highs (Fed and Energy stocks), Bonds (price) up (Fed and Iran safe-haven), Gold up (Fed and Iran safe-haven), VIX up (hedging melt-up gains or levered longs), Dollar down hard (Fed uber-easy and no safe-haven bid?), and Rate-Cut Expectations soared.
Chinese stocks exploded higher overnight in the morning session (as policymakers hinted at more potential easing) but were flat in the afternoon session.
German bund yields fell back to record lows (-32bps) and most of Europe is now in a negative yield.
And as yields tumbled, so did European bank stocks. US Equities surged overnight, opened at record highs (S&P), but were sold from the cash open, accelerating close to unchanged when Trump warned Iran "made a very bid mistake".
Then after he seemed to walk back the event, stocks recovered some of their gains. The newest pile of garbage, Slack slumped-speaks for itself really.
TSLA stalled at key downtrend despite market strength. Crowdstrike down as well. With 10Y Yields plunging below 2.00%-but recovered to print a 2-handle.
Gold soared up near $1400 overnight, fell back, then accelerated higher once again as US-Iran headlines hit. This was Gold's biggest day since Oct 2018, spiking to its highest since 2013
Oil prices exploded higher (biggest day since 2018) on the US-Iran headlines… (this is the biggest 3-day spike since Dec 2016)
Time to start an investigation here, they could at least curb trading in it as these events are so contrived and staged to juice oil upwards.
Finally, US (and Europe) markets' expectations for central bank rate-cuts have collapsed to cycle lows (52bps of cuts in 2019 and 86bps of cuts by the end of 2020).
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EDJI?p=^DJI
https://www.dailyfx.com/crude-oil
https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/bond/tmubmusd10y?countrycode=bx
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-20/oil-gold-spike-bonds-stocks-jump-dollar-dumps-most-16-months
https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/interest-rates/countdown-to-fomc.html/
you never own it even if you pay it off with dollars. Unless you use silver or gold. Look it up
damn this is entertaining