I just read these lyrics, to be sung to the tune of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody on QT3 and just had to post them here.
Is this the real price
Is this just fantasy
Financial landslide
No escape from realityOpen your eyes
And look at your buys and see.
I’m now a poor boy
High-yielding casualtyBecause I bought it high,
watched it blow
Rating high,
value lowAny way the Fed goes
Doesn’t really matter to me,
to me
Mama – just killed my fund
Quoted CDO’s instead
Pulled the trigger, now it’s dead
Mama – I had just begun
These CDO’s have blown it all awayMama – oooh
I still wanna buy
I sometimes wish I’d never left Goldman at all.[guitar solo]
I see a little silhouette of a Fed
Bernanke! Bernanke! Can you save the whole market?
Monolines and munis – very very frightening me!
Super senior, super senior
Super senior CDO – magnificoI’m long of subprime,
nobody loves me
He’s long of subprime
CDO fantasy
Spare the margin call you monstrous PB!Easy come easy go, will you let me go?
Peloton! No! We will not let you go – let him go!
Peloton! We will not let you go – let him go!
Peloton! We will not let you go – let me go!
Will not let you go – let me go!
Never let you go – let me go!
Never let me go – oooOh mama mia, mama mia,
mama mia let me go
S&P had the devil put aside for me
For me, for me![crescendo]
So you think you can fund me and spit in my eye?
And then margin call me and leave me to die?Oh PB!
Can’t do this to me PB
Just gotta get out
Just gotta get right outta here[denoument]
Ooh yeah, ooh yeah
No price really matters
No liquidity
Nothing really matters…
No price really matters
to meAny way the Fed goes…
Personally, I have a significant amount of money in the Malaysian markets via mutual funds so I’ve been watching developments fairly carefully. The recent jitters in the local market due to the recent elections sure didn’t do my heart any good, but over the longer term it’s clear that how this year turns out will depend largely on what happens in the United States.
This whole situation frustrates me because it’s clear to me that it’s a case of Americans borrowing too much for too long, yet if they’re punished for it too severely, then the whole world economy is sent into a tailspin. On the other hand, not punishing them encourages ever greater excesses and make a mockery of the efforts of the people who actually try to live within their means.
I’m not sure if this is a new high or a new low for humor… LOL
Well, as the saying goes… “there’s always opportunity behind challenges.” The US credit crunch is putting pressure on emerging market stock markets like Malaysia’s. This might be a buying opportunity as hedge funds go bankrupt in the US and pull out their money from emerging markets, real valuable companies with solid long term prospects may become bargains.
That’s the conventional theory of course, but the problem is that if things really do get really bad, it might take two or three years for things to pick up again, and if that’s the case, why shouldn’t I just park my money in safe fixed income securities instead? It’s the very unpredictability and volatility in the markets that’s so disconcerting.