Capital Markets news from FierceFinance
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Bond downgrades may hit record
According to Standard & Poor's potential bond downgrades hit a record 738 in May. That's more than 100 higher than a year ago. Meanwhile, S&P says potential upgrades are at their lowest level Read more...
Financed by UBS, BlackRock purchases UBS portfolio
Private equity firms and hedge funds are making some massive bets on distressed debts. The terms have been pretty good of late, though the leveraged loan market has rallied. The latest news, as noted Read more...
Where have all the shorts gone?
When Douglas Kass, in an interview with Barron's, calls short sellers "an endangered species, like the dodo bird," you have to draw a distinction. He's talking about short sellers who do nothing Read more...
NYSE's SPAC move: Misguided?
We've spoken a lot about the rise of special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs. They were all the rage over the past few years, as more top investment banks got involved with them. They were Read more...
Sad tale of a Merrill Lynch securitization
The New York Times offers an arresting story about an emblematic Merrill Lynch securitization in 2006. The securitized securities were so-called piggyback Read more...
Moody's makes a few changes, keeps letters
Moody's surveyed its customers recently, and they apparently were in favor of keeping the ratings agency's time-honored letter ratings, AAA and so forth. To many critics, these letter ratings mean Read more...
Double-edged sword: Rising commodities prices
We tend to think of big farm-type companies as hedgers, who take the other side of bets waged by hedge funds. But when you get down to this, there's a fine line Read more...
SPACs coming up short?
Is it a bad sign when an investment company has a former football coach get in front investment bankers and hedge fund managers for a Read more...
Money funds and the credit crunch--whew!
There were a few scenarios out there that were really, really nasty. It's one thing when accredited investors take their lumps on hedge funds. But what if Ma and Pa started taking losses on their Read more...
BlackRock's Fink stays in the news
We've become accustomed to reading about Larry Fink, the CEO of asset manager BlackRock, of late. When CEO jobs at Merrill Lynch and Citigroup opened up, he was thought to be a candidate. When the Read more...