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发表于 17-8-2007 00:57:00|来自:英国
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><font face="Times New Roman">Markets have been extremely volatile lately. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The primary cause of this correction is the indiscriminate lending, creating this sub-prime loan mess. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Banks have in turn bundled these problematic sub-prime loans into new exotic financial instrument known as CDOs (collateralized debt obligations) and CLOs (collateralized loan obligations). These CDOs and CLOs are then off-loaded, in various risk tranches, to financial institutions and their unsuspecting investors around the world. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, hedge funds often take the junkiest tranches.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The size of these bad debts is estimated to be around US$100 billion, according to the US Federal Reserve Department. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, more aggressive parties have estimated the size to be around US$200 – US$300 billion. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Regardless of the estimate, this amount is not huge enough to change the fundamentals of the real economy. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The US GDP is estimated below US$15 trillion, the world over US$50 trillion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, the damage to sentiment and financial markets is more severe. Sentiment has been greatly affected because many parties have bought into the CDO and CLO structures. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bottle of poison has been shared by many. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The good news is, because the poison was diluted to many, very few will be badly hit as the toxicity is also “diluted”. </font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><p><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><font face="Times New Roman">Now comes the next fear – credit crunch. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Financial institutions are a lot more careful on lending because they do not know who is exposed to the CLOs and CDOs and what the quality of their holdings is. The immediate result will be tighter lending practices and higher cost on borrowings in the short term until more clarity emerges on the actual exposure on sub-prime loans. Such uncertainty explains the fear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Central banks from developed economies have pumped in hundreds of billions of dollars of liquidity into the market recently, which helped to inject some stability into money market system. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Central banks in <place wst="on">Asia</place> ex-Japan are standing by, armed with their US$3 trillion in foreign reserves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><p><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><font face="Times New Roman">As if the situation is not negative enough, we are now facing the prospects of the unwinding of the Yen carry trade. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many investors and hedge funds have taken advantage of the cheap borrowings from <country-region wst="on"><place wst="on">Japan</place></country-region> (effectively shorting the Yen) over the years to invest in financial instruments to capture higher returns. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This “no-brainer” is fine as long as the Japanese Yen does not appreciate too much. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, when hedge funds and leveraged traders that are exposed to CLOs and CDOs face redemption and losses, they need to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">sell both their good and bad</b>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">holdings</b> to pay back investors who want to sell out. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this sort of fist fight, by-standers get pummeled, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When carry position unwinds, they will also pay back the yen borrowings (effectively buying the Yen). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the process, we are seeing some unwinding of the Yen carry trade. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This will cause the Yen currency to appreciate which would trigger more unwinding. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The end result is lower liquidity in the financial system which is negative for capital markets. </font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><p><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><font face="Times New Roman">This short term volatility will eventually clean up some excessive liquidity in the system and clear up and wipe off the exposure of the sub prime loan mess. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then market will resume its uptrend on a cleaner foundation. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus far, the impact on the real economy is minimal and we expect the strong fundamentals to sustain this uptrend in the market.</font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><font face="Times New Roman">On the technical front, the DJI is testing an important support level at the upper channel at 12,200. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If this level breaks, the selldown could become more severe as the major support is at the lower channel support at 11,000.</font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><p><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></p></span></p><div style="BORDER-RIGHT: windowtext 1pt solid; PADDING-RIGHT: 4pt; BORDER-TOP: windowtext 1pt solid; PADDING-LEFT: 4pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 1pt; BORDER-LEFT: windowtext 1pt solid; PADDING-TOP: 1pt; BORDER-BOTTOM: windowtext 1pt solid; mso-element: para-border-div; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="BORDER-RIGHT: medium none; PADDING-RIGHT: 0cm; BORDER-TOP: medium none; PADDING-LEFT: 0cm; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0cm; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; BORDER-LEFT: medium none; PADDING-TOP: 0cm; BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 1.0pt 4.0pt 1.0pt 4.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><font face="Times New Roman">The STI has broken through the upper channel support at 3,150.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The next test will be the psychological support level at 3,000. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The worst case scenario will be a test on the lower channel support at the 2,800 levels.</font></span></p></div> |
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