CINQUEMILA MILIARDI per speculare - gz
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By: GZ on Martedì 01 Maggio 2007 04:34
L'articolo più letto del Wall Street Journal di oggi è quello che a mio avviso ha innervosito un attimo il mercato:
^As Funds Leverage Up,Fears of Reckoning Rise#http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117789801972686591.html?mod=hps_europe_at_glance_most_pop^
Fed and SEC Question Wall Street on Policies 'A Mockery' of Margin
By RANDALL SMITH and SUSAN PULLIAM
perchè riporta ad esempio che l'indebitamento di banche d'affari, brokers, hedge fund e pubblico per speculare è salito a CINQUEMILA MILIARDI.
Di questi solo 300 miliardi sono presi a prestito dal pubblico come noi, 1.500 miliardi sono presi a prestito dagli hedge funds, circa 500 miliardi dal private equity e il resto dalle varie Merril Lynch, Lehman, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, UBS, Deutsche. Ad esempio a Goldman per ogni milione di capitale ne investono 25 milioni
Questi 5.000 miliardi sono debiti per comprare azioni, future e altri derivati, solo per speculare.
A questi puoi aggiungere almeno 2.000 miliardi dei petrodollari di arabi e russi, qualche centinaio di miliardi gestiti direttamente dalle banche centrali asiatiche (in alcuni casi li investono non solo in bonds ma anche in azioni), i 650 miliardi che le aziende hanno ricomprato di azioni proprie solo l'anno scorso ed ecco che hai il boom mondiale delle materie prime, immobiliare, bonds e junk bond e tutte le borse del mondo dal vietnam al perù
Il fatto è che con 5.000 miliardi presi a prestito per investire e speculare i guadagni si sono amplificati, se metti 100 e compri per 300 un +10% diventa un +30%.
E se per caso hai un -15% per qualche motivo (terrorismo, crisi politica e valutaria...) significa anche che un -15% diventa un -45% di perdita e poi ti chiedono indietro magari il prestito
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Prior to the 1929 stock-market crash, brokers allowed customers to buy stocks with as much as 90% borrowed money -- called margin debt. When the market began sliding, investors had to dump shares to keep their debt levels below 90%, igniting market panic. Nowadays, the SEC limits margin borrowing by most investors to 50% of a stock's purchase price. (Read more about investing on margin.)
But those limits don't apply to all of the derivatives and other financial instruments that now pack the portfolios of hedge funds and other big investors. Estimates by analysts of leverage at major securities firms, borrowing by hedge funds and margin loans to individuals added up to $4.9 trillion in 2006, compared with $1.8 trillion in 2002. Hedge-fund borrowing and other financing tools were valued at $1.46 trillion last year, up from $177 billion in 2002, according to estimates by Bridgewater Associates Inc., a Westport, Conn., hedge-fund company.
Private-equity firms, investment funds that often buy entire companies, also are contributing to the leverage buildup. Loans to companies bought by private-equity firms rose to $317.3 billion in 2006 from $51.5 billion in 2002, according to Reuters Loan Pricing Corp. That's partly a function of more and bigger deals. But borrowing has also risen relative to cash generated by companies the funds buy.
Individual investors have been moving in the same direction. Their margin debt -- the amount they borrowed from brokerage firms to buy stocks -- totaled $293.2 billion in March, the third straight month it exceeded the record set during the high-tech bubble in 2000, according to the New York Stock Exchange. That's up from $134.58 billion in 2002.
"There's leverage everywhere -- whether at corporations or broker dealers or hedge funds or private-equity funds," says senior credit analyst Tanya Azarchs, who follows U.S. banks and brokers at Standard & Poor's Corp. "It sort of feels like something's got to give."
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