Wednesday 4 January 2012

RD News 3Jan12


    • European banks should adhere to the EBA’s (EBA) recommendations and raise a 9% capital buffer, by restricting remuneration and dividends, in a way which avoids ‘a disorderly or excessive deleveraging process’.
    • There currently exists ‘a climate of extreme risk aversion’ which is impairing financial markets.
    • The swift and coordinated implementation of EU decisions is now of utmost importance.

  • India issues Basel III guidelines
    • RBI guidelines set Common Equity Tier 1 capital at 5.5% of RWAs, with Tier 1 capital of 7%, and overall capital of at least 9% of RWAs.
    • A capital buffer of 2.5% of RWAs, made up of Common Equity, will also be required.
    • The implementation is ahead of the Basel III timetable in some respects, to be complete by 31 March 2017.
    • The RBI said ‘banks would be expected to strive to operate’ a minimum Tier 1 leverage ratio of 5% - stricter than the Basel minimum of 3%, although the RBI points out that on average, Indian commercial banks already operate within this ratio.

  • Andrew Sheng: Risk and uncertainty will continue into the new year
    • Discusses Benoit Mandelbrot and Richard Hudson's 2008 book on The Misbehaviour of Markets: A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin and Reward:
      • Prices are not independent of each other. Their evolution goes through periods of quiet and then extreme volatility.
      • Power laws (curves with long tails) are more common in nature than "normal" statistical bell curves.
    • Intrinsic value is meaningless in a world of ever-changing prices. At the height of a bubble, the astronomical prices transacted bear no relationship to replacement cost.
    • Our value systems are determined by our culture and that is today more determined by Mother Nature, technology and forces that we do not understand.

  • Obama nominates 2 new Fed Board members
    • Jerome Powell – visiting scholar, Bipartisan Policy Center, Washington. Served in Treasury Dept under Bush, former partner, The Carlyle Group.
    • Jeremy Stein - Moise Y. Safra Professor of Economics at Harvard. Fomerly taught at MIT’s Sloan School and HBS. Served as a senior advisor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and on the staff of the Obama Administration’s National Economic Council.

  • WSJ: The 2012 Regulatory and Market Landscape
    • Which non-banks will be designated SIFIs by FSOC?
      • Analysts widely expect that GE Capital, and insurers Prudential Financial and MetLife will be labeled systemic; the latter are the two largest U.S. life insurers by assets.
      • AIG is also seen as a likely pick because it was the recipient of one of the biggest federal bailouts of the 2008 financial crisis after losses in a financial-products unit almost caused the company to collapse.
      • Some observers say asset managers like BlackRock Inc. also will be tagged.
    • MMF reform tussle:
      • SEC Ch Mary Shapiro arguing for additional overhauls after 2010 changes – possibly bank-like capital buffers.
      • But most of her fellow commissioners are not convinced, concerned the capital-buffer idea that Ms. Schapiro has outlined would hamper ‘small to midsize companies that rely on money funds to meet their payroll, without adding to investor protection.’

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