Posted by agtrader in the Energy Futures forum:
this is the deal with Alaron, they ar eing forced into BK, they owe money big time, and Sentinel is comming..:D
Posted by S2007S in the Wall St. News forum:
Big Texas bank on verge of failure
Guaranty Bank, which counts Carl Icahn as one if its backers, is teetering on the edge of insolvency. But it may not be easy for regulators to find a buyer.
By Colin Barr, senior writer
Last Updated: July 31, 2009: 1:53 PM ET
More from Fortune
Big Texas bank on verge of failure
NEW YORK (Fortune) — Guaranty Bank is hardly a household name. But the Austin, Texas-based thrift’s looming failure is shaping up as a big headache for bank supervisors — not to mention a black eye for Carl Icahn and others in the smart money set.
Guaranty (GFG) could be soon seized by the government in what would be the biggest bank failure in a year that has already had 64 of them. Last week, the bank warned investors to expect a federal takeover after regulators forced a writedown of its risky mortgage investments and a bid to raise new capital failed.
Guaranty has $13.4 billion in assets and operates 160 branches in Texas and California — two of the three best banking markets in the nation, thanks to their size and population growth.
But the bank’s capital problems and its smallish, scattered network of branches could detract from Guaranty’s appeal, making it tough for regulators to find a buyer quickly — or without substantial federal subsidies.
“This may not be closed as quickly as you think, since it will require bids and rebids,” said Miami banking consultant Ken Thomas.
That means resolving Guaranty’s failure is likely to be costly to the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund, whose balance is at its lowest point in almost two decades.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. isn’t the only one taking its lumps. So have some big investors.
Shares of the bank’s parent, Guaranty Financial, have dropped 97% since a group led by billionaire Texas hotel mogul Robert Rowling and Icahn, the renowned New York corporate raider, poured $600 million into the company in June 2008.
Other big Guaranty holders whose stakes stand to be wiped out include hedge fund managers David Einhorn, who was among the most persistent skeptics of Lehman Brothers before its collapse, and Dan Loeb.
“Relatively low franchise value and the fact that two big money investors already got burned on this bank may suggest less interest than with BankUnited,” said Thomas, referring to the Florida thrift that failed in May and was bought by a group of private equity investors.
BankUnited had half as many branches and operated in only one state, but had a strong competitive position in the most lucrative counties — something Guaranty lacks.
Despite BankUnited’s relative attractiveness, its sale to investors led by vulture investor Wilbur Ross was hardly a walkover for the FDIC. The deal cost the FDIC insurance fund $4.9 billion.
A big tab on Guaranty would be costly to the deposit fund, whose balance was $13 billion at the end of the first quarter. The FDIC has estimated failure costs on cases since then at $11.2 billion.
A spokesman for the FDIC stresses that it has already set aside an additional $22 billion for failure-related costs in 2009, and adds that congressional action this spring gave the agency access to $500 billion in Treasury credit.
Though Guaranty has been around since 1988, it came public less than two years ago. Guaranty was part of the Temple-Inland (TIN) cardboard-box conglomerate until Icahn pressured the company to split up at the end of 2007. Guaranty shares were then distributed to Temple-Inland holders.
Guaranty’s chief executive at the time, Ken Dubuque, assured investors that despite the gale force winds sweeping the financial world, the bank would be safe.
“We’re keenly aware of the importance of good credit, disciplines and effective risk management, in good times and in difficult times,” he said on the bank’s first earnings conference call in February 2008.
But Guaranty’s risk management soon was found wanting. The bank aimed to expand beyond lending to the builders of office buildings, shopping centers and houses to new areas such as small business and corporate energy lending.
Because its thrift charter obliges Guaranty to keep 70% of its assets in housing-related investments, the bank matched growth in other areas with expanded investments in housing. That, Dubuque said, is how the bank ended up taking on a giant portfolio of mortgage-backed securities, backed largely by option adjustable-rate mortgages in California and Texas.
0:00 /1:58FDIC wants cushion
“We needed to increase the size of the balance sheet, so that was a relatively risk-free way of doing it,” Dubuque told investors in 2008. “We also have liked the returns in that business as well.”
But securities backed by option ARMs are anything but risk-free, as investors have learned. Among institutions that dealt most heavily in those were Washington Mutual, the Seattle thrift that collapsed in September with $307 billion in assets, and Wachovia, which was sold to Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500) later in 2008. Other big option ARM users included failed California savings banks Downey Financial and PFF.
Losses built at Guaranty over the past year, and Dubuque quit without explanation in November. In April regulators told Guaranty to raise more capital. When that effort failed, they told Guaranty to write down the value of the mortgage-backed securities by more than $1 billion. That move, announced this month, left the bank with negative capital of $748 million, according to filings.
Despite its many problems, Guaranty is — for now — operating as usual.
“We are open for business. We continue to work with our regulators,” Guaranty said Friday in an emailed statement. “We are focused on providing the best customer service possible and believe we can avoid any disruptions to our customers.”
Posted by ByLoSellHi in the Trading forum:
Initiate highly leveraged short positions for serious $$$$$
Making money doesn’t get any easier!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2524147#post2524147
Posted by LCFXTRADER in the ETFs forum:
Does anyone here spread trade the qqqq & spy on an intraday basis? If so, what is your entry trigger?
Posted by pengw in the Index Futures forum:
Over the next few weeks I will show how to use Options Lab ( at http://www.TheOptionsLab.com to analyze futures options.
The things with futures options are that they don’t always have ticker available like stock options do.
To analyze futures options with Options Lab, you need use the Offline tab to enter the underlying spot price, strike, days to expiration and premium for the give strike by hand. Once you do that, rest is easy, all you need do is click on different areas to see
how the fields/values and charts changes.
Posted by S2007S in the Wall St. News forum:
The demand for this is incredible and of course will make sale of autos jump through the roof for maybe a month or 2, it will actually feel like 2007 all over again when sales were around 16 million cars a year, of course the dumb bulls will take this is a positive, but all they should know is that its going to be temporary.
Remember when that bankrupt company called gm started their 0% financing up to 60 months back in 2001-2002 and then years later started offering the the so-called factory-to-dealer incentives, it did boost sales in the short term, but long term hurt them due to the fact that it sent millions of people to showrooms to take those deals and purchase new cars in one big buying spree, well when you offer these kind of incentives to bring consumers in like bankrupt gm did is that this kind of sales strategy erodes profits and takes the brand image and cheapens it.
What im saying is that offering these type of incentives will hurt the auto industry going forward in that the consumer will always feel this need of a handout by the government. These type of incentives to jump start consumer spending fu$k up consumer psychology in the long term.
ap
Popularity, Web snafus nearly broke ‘clunkers’
Overwhelming popularity, Web site meltdown were among ‘cash for clunkers’ glitches
* By Dan Strumpf, AP Auto Writer
* On Friday July 31, 2009, 6:29 pm EDT
NEW YORK (AP) — This was one government stimulus plan that yielded quick results. Maybe too quick.
Far more drivers signed up for the “cash for clunkers” program than anyone thought, overwhelming showrooms, blowing through the initial $1 billion set aside by Congress and leaving dealers panicked over when or if the government would make good on the hefty rebates.
Confusion reigned, even as dollars flowed into dealerships starved for business for months.
The government Web site set up to process rebates of up to $4,500 per new car could not keep up with demand. Washington scrambled to come up with more cash and sent mixed signals about how the program would unfold.
“A borderline train wreck,” said Charlie Swenson, general manager at Walser Toyota in Bloomington, Minn. In Glen Burnie, Md., Bob Bell, who owns Ford, Kia and Hyundai dealerships, said his employees were overwhelmed filing for reimbursement from the government’s clunky system.
He compared the program to a military operation: “It is a disaster,” Bell said. “We met our objective, but the losses were terrible.”
The House voted Friday to replenish the program with $2 billion, setting up likely Senate action next week. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said the administration assured lawmakers that “deals will be honored until otherwise noted by the White House.” But he suggested that “people ought to get in and buy their cars.”
The White House told consumers the program continues uninterrupted “this weekend,” leaving unclear what happens after that, until more money is approved for it.
The Car Allowance Rebate System offers owners of old cars and trucks $3,500 or $4,500 toward a new, more fuel-efficient vehicle, in exchange for scrapping their old vehicle. Congress last month approved the plan to boost auto sales and remove some inefficient cars and trucks from the roads.
It was unclear how many cars had been sold under the program on Friday, but the number was far higher than anyone had expected. About 40,000 vehicle sales were done through the program but dealers estimated they were trying to complete transactions on an additional 200,000 vehicles, said Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.
“I think the general public right now is looking for a bargain in any way to spend their money,” said Kitty Van Bortel, who owns Ford and Subaru dealerships in Victor, N.Y., “and this was perceived as an incredible bargain and people took advantage of it.”
The backlog had been building for weeks. Auto dealers could begin offering the rebate at the beginning of the month, and many began doing so over the July 4 weekend. But it was not until a week ago that dealers could begin filing for reimbursement, leaving them on the hook for as much as $4,500 per car until they get the federal money.
That’s when they ran into difficulties with a federal Web site ill equipped to handle the volume of claims and the multiple documents each submission requires. Some dealers said the process took upward of an hour for each transaction, caused repeated rejections and consumed many hours submitting and resubmitting data.
At Walser Toyota in Bloomington, customers began lining up on Monday before doors opened at 7:30 a.m.. Swenson said. By that afternoon, his dealership had done 150 trade-ins under the program. His salesmen worked overnight to scan and submit forms.
But of the 150, he said, only 30 received responses and all of those were rejections.
Dennis and Marcia Strom hurried into that dealership Friday, fearing the rebates might not last, and filled out paperwork for a new car.
“I might have waited until the truck died,” Dennis Strom said of his 14-year-old Dodge Dakota. “It’s a good vehicle that suits our needs. But it’s not worth $3,500.”
About 100 people were looking to sign deals there but were holding off because of uncertainty over the rebates.
It took three hours Thursday for employees at one of Sam Pack’s Dallas-area Ford dealerships to submit just eight documents. Pack said he feared that many deals made under the program wouldn’t be properly reimbursed.
“The details of processing this is beyond what anybody would think is reasonable,” he said.
Federal officials said they have increased the capacity of the submission system and added staff to work hot lines and process voucher applications.
In Victor, Van Bortel considered pulling the plug on rebates at the Ford and Subaru dealerships she owns, even though her ads promoting the rebates were locked in for the weekend.
“Honestly, in all my years in the car business, I have never seen such a mess,” she said.
Still, it was a mess created by too much action, instead of not enough.
Officials hoped that when the dust cleared from the confusion, the program would be a tonic for the beleaguered auto industry and a benefit for the environment, with many inefficient cars taken off the road.
President Barack Obama said the program has “succeeded well beyond our expectations” and praised the House for moving quickly to establish new financing.
“This is a test drive,” Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., said of the program, “and people bought it big time.”
Bell, in Glen Burnie, said the rebates have “pulled forward a tremendous market.”
“It’s wonderful to sell them,” he said. “But if you have to pay off a vehicle immediately, you’re going to have a severe cash flow deficit.”
Dealers are used to working with similar incentive programs offered by auto manufacturers, said John McEleney, chairman of the National Automobile Dealers Association. But the rules are much less stringent under those programs, and automakers generally don’t require nearly as much documentation, he said.
His group surveyed dealer franchises using the program and realized the money for it might be getting short. One survey finding: Consumers were opting to use the higher $4,500 rebate over the $3,500 amount by a margin of 2-to-1, eating through the money faster.
“It has been very problematic,” McEleney said. “I don’t believe that anyone anticipated the volume would be this great.”
Posted by snackly in the Retail Firms forum:
Anyone know? Spread contracts at nadex.com appear to be capped futures, does that mean they’re eligible to be treated like futuers? What about binary options?
Posted by damoqui in the Trading Software forum:
Anyone know of any good trading signals services?
I’ve been trading the following for about 2 years:
* Forex and Forex Options
* Futures and Futures Options
* Stocks and Stock Options
I don’t place trades across these markets everyday because there’s not a trade setup (for me) everyday.
I am looking for a signal service to help me find the setups I may be missing.
Thanks for your help.
Mutual Bank of Harvey, Ill., is closed and becomes the 69th bank failure of the year. The FDIC estimates the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund at $696M. 
1 comment!
