Pensioenen in gevaar door GS & Co.

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Het is begrijpelijk dat iedereen zich druk maakt om wat GS en Co. met
o.a. Griekenland uitgehaald hebben, maar dit overschaduwt iets véél ergers.

De werkelijke pijn zit hem bij High Frequency trading op de beurs.

Vorig jaar maakte Goldman Sachs daar grove miljardenwinsten mee.

Ze liepen op totaal 263 dagen handelen met gemiddeld $218M investering
(VaR tussen $285M en $155M) risico en maakten op 131 dagen NETTO winsten
van MEER DAN $100M PER DAG (toch maar even 50% PER DAG), op 113 dagen
gemiddeld NETTO $53M winst (altijd nog 25% PER DAG) en dan ook nog
19 dagen gemiddeld NETTO $35M verlies.

Dit gaat dus ten koste van de pensioenen WERELDWIJD.

Vorig jaar dus meer dan NETTO $13 miljard (dit is dan $26,5 miljard vóór
toerekening kosten en belasting)!!

Doordat GS met de netto opbrengsten rekent, moeten de bovenstaande
bedragen x 1,62 genomen worden (immers bovenstaande bedragen zijn NA
voorzieningen voor alle kosten).

Het overzicht van gemaakte winst wordt dan:
           USD million
days    minimum maximum adjustment  Total
131      100            1,62        21222
  31       75     100    1,62         2712,5
  29       50      75    1,62         1812,5
  35       25      50    1,62         1312,5
  18        0      25    1,62          225
   9      -25       0    1,62         -112,5
   5      -50     -25    1,62         -187,5
   3      -75     -50    1,62         -187,5
   2     -100     -75    1,62         -175
Totaal pre-tax                      26622
Pre-tax earnings volgens aangifte   26474 miljoen USD


Groet / Cees

Derivatives debate splits US and Europe regulators
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2010/03/10/general-business-and-professional-services-us-derivatives-under-fire_7425612.html
By STEVENSON JACOBS , 03.10.10, 06:16 PM EST

NEW YORK --

To European officials, financial derivatives are dangerous weapons that
worsened Greece's debt crisis and should be curbed.

To Wall Street, they're tools that reduce risk and generate profits and
should be left alone.

Now, regulators on both sides of the Atlantic are trying to figure out
who's right and what to do about it. At stake are billions in profits
that banks say would be threatened by too much regulation. Yet
supporters of tougher rules say the global financial system is at risk
as long as derivatives remain largely unregulated.

Derivatives are instruments whose value depends on an underlying asset,
such as mortgages or stocks. They can help hedge risks. But derivatives
can also produce steep losses, or huge profits, if the value of their
underlying asset sinks.

European officials say some derivatives are too harmful to be left
alone. They warn they may ban some credit default swaps, a type of
derivative that insures debt. In a visit to Washington this week,
Greece's prime minister argued that speculators were using the swaps to
bet against his country's debt. He said this has escalated Greece's
borrowing costs, making it harder to dig out of its debt crisis.

The European Commission on Tuesday threatened to ban speculative trading
of credit default swaps by investors who don't actually own a country's
underlying debt. These are called "naked" trades. German Chancellor
Angela Merkel called on the U.S. to curb such trades.

But U.S. regulators have resisted such calls. They favor only regulating
the products, not curtailing them.

Coordination of any derivatives regulation is vital. Unless rules in the
United States and Europe are synchronized, global traders inevitably
would shift to wherever the most lenient rules exist.

The regulatory conflict comes days before the expected unveiling of a
bill to overhaul the U.S. financial system. Sen. Christopher Dodd,
D-Conn., the Banking Committee chairman overseeing the legislation,
wants more transparency in derivatives markets.

His bill is expected to require most derivatives trades to pass through
clearinghouses so transactions would be done more openly. Such
transactions are now largely traded among financial institutions with
little transparency or regulatory oversight. Critics say this can lead
to abusive and dangerous behavior.

Speaking in New York this week, Gary Gensler, head of the U.S. Commodity
Futures Trading Commission, renewed his call for regulating the $600
trillion global financial derivatives market. But he stopped short of
endorsing Europe's call for trading curbs.

Whatever rules Congress proposes, Gensler said "there should be no such
exemption for" credit default swaps. The swaps account for an estimated
$60 trillion of the derivatives trade.

The banking industry says it supports making derivatives less secretive
but has lobbied against strict bans.

In a September speech in Germany, CEO Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs,
one of Wall Street's biggest derivatives players, embraced the idea of
clearinghouses. He said they would "reduce bilateral credit risk,
increase liquidity and enhance the level of transparency through
enforced margin requirements and verified and recorded trades."

But he warned against overregulating credit default swaps. He said the
swaps "worked as they were intended to" during the financial crisis.

"If we simply ban customized derivatives to satisfy the perception that
everything associated with these markets is bad, we run the risk of
limiting ... business investment and, ultimately, economic growth,"
Blankfein said.

The main lobbying group for derivatives has also rejected calls for
banning certain credit default swaps. It says the amount invested in the
swaps cannot destabilize Greece because it represents only a small
fraction of the country's outstanding debt.

Investors hold $406 billion worth of outstanding Greek bonds, according
to Citigroup. But they hold only $9 billion in insurance against that
debt through credit default swaps.

Given the relatively small amount of swap bets, "it is difficult to
conclude (they're) dictating price levels," the International Swaps &
Derivatives Association said in a statement.

After the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers, then the largest
clearinghouse for swaps, EU regulators demanded banks set up
clearinghouses for trades in Europe. So far, three EU-based
clearinghouses are operational: ICE Clear, Eurex Clearing and LCH.
Clearnet SA.

Speaking this week, Gensler said U.S. authorities are "working well"
with overseas regulators.

"I'm optimistic we'll end up at roughly the same spot," he said.

Yet already there are signs that not even regulators within Europe agree
on how dangerous derivatives really are. Germany's Merkel is calling for
a ban on speculative credit default swaps. Yet her country's market
regulator, BaFin, said this week it's found no evidence of an upswing in
such trades on Greek government bonds.

A major cause of the rise in credit default swap rates has been growing
demand for hedging against Greek risk, according to BaFin. It said data
released by the U.S. Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. "do not point to
massive speculative activities."

The Federal Reserve is investigating how Goldman Sachs and other banks
are using the swaps and other derivatives. The Securities and Exchange
Commission is examining the issue, too.

The securities industry says that blaming the products for Greece's
problems is akin to shooting the messenger. The price of the swaps
reflects merely the perceived risk of buying Greece's debt, it says.

A year ago, credit-default swap investors had to pay $250,000 to insure
$10 million of Greek debt, according to CMA Datavision. By last month,
the cost surged to a record $420,000.

As of Wednesday, the rate had fallen to less than $300,000 after Greece
announced a $6.5 billion austerity package. Still, that's about 10 times
the cost of insuring $10 million of U.S. debt.

Some financial experts have criticized Greece for attacking credit
default swaps instead of owning up to its profligate spending and
efforts to mask its debt. In a recent report, Citigroup likened Greece's
stance to "blaming the mirror for your ugly face."

"Credit default swaps didn't cause Greece's problems," said Darrell
Duffie, a finance professor at Stanford University. "Greece caused
Greece's problems."

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