Zone euro : le jeu sans risque des Cassandre

Les Echos

Il ne se passe pas une semaine sans qu’un économiste ou un analyste financier de renom -de préférence anglo-saxon -annonce un défaut grec et/ou la sortie de la Grèce de la zone euro et/ou l’éclatement de cette dernière. Cette semaine, c’était au tour de Willem Buiter, chef économiste à la Citigroup, la plus grosse banque américaine. Selon lui, « la Grèce a désormais 50 % de chances de quitter la zone euro au cours des dix-huit prochains mois ».

Roubini is bullish! Time to short everything ?

Brazilian bubble

We were caught up by surprise when we read a headline that said "Dr. Doom thinks rally has legs…". So, considering his awful stock market timing (he told everyone to stay "short" in 2009 and 2010, two of the largest rallies in history!), we thought perhaps it is time to consider our "Inverse-Roubini ETF" strategy.

Anyway, here is what we read on CNBC:

Roubini’s Next Crisis Is Scary Food for Thought: William Pesek

Bloomberg

Forget Egypt for a moment. Skip the water crisis in China. Look past angst on the streets of Bangladesh. If you want to see how extreme the effects of surging food prices are becoming, look to wealthy Japan. So big are the increases that economists are buzzing about them pushing deflationary Japan toward inflation. Yes, rising costs for commodities such as wheat, corn and coffee might do what trillions of dollars of central-bank liquidity couldn’t. Yet the economic consequences of food prices pale in comparison with the social ones. Nowhere could the fallout be greater than Asia, where a critical mass of those living on less than $2 dollars a day reside. It might have major implications for Asia’s debt outlook. It may have even bigger ones for leaders hoping to keep the peace and avoid mass protests.

Roubini Says Carry Trades Fueling ‘Huge’ Asset Bubble

Roubini Says Carry Trades Fueling ‘Huge’ Asset Bubble Bloomberg – 29/10/09 – Michael Patterson

Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) — Investors worldwide are borrowing dollars to buy assets including equities and commodities, fueling “huge” bubbles that may spark another financial crisis, said New York University professor Nouriel Roubini. “We have the mother of all carry trades,” Roubini, who predicted the banking crisis that spurred more than $1.6 trillion of asset writedowns and credit losses at financial companies worldwide since 2007, said via satellite to a conference in Cape Town, South Africa. “Everybody’s playing the same game and this game is becoming dangerous.”

N. Roubini: "It is time for a special insolvency regime for systemically important financial institutions"

March 25th, 2009

"Finally after a year of delays Geithner and Bernanke have come to agree about the need for a new insolvency regime for systemically important financial institutions (bank holding companies and non bank financial institutions). This new insolvency regime will allow to take over in orderly way – rather than a disorderly bankruptcy like in the case of Lehman – insolvent systemically important financial institutions.   Let me explain next why we need this special insolvency regime in order to orderly nationalize/takeover insolvent financial institutions and banks…