Comments on: Bond Market Open March 10 2009 http://acrossthecurve.com/?p=3747 A daily bond market chronicle Wed, 08 Sep 2010 04:43:57 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Greg http://acrossthecurve.com/?p=3747&cpage=1#comment-8084 Greg Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:10:39 +0000 http://acrossthecurve.com/?p=3747#comment-8084 The markets are supposed to be excited about Citi posting "operating earnings" for January/ February of this year... haven't we played this "earnings not counting expenses" game before? Isn't that how Wall Street lost the confidence of its customers in the first place? Lets see Citi report its real earnings instead of imaginary nonsense: If Citi plans to exit the mortgage lending business permanently -- than it needs to so state, it needs to lay off that entire staff, and it needs to ringfence that division. Since none of that happened, the charges from earlier mortgage mistakes are part of an on-going business and count against earnings If Citi wants to be treated like a real bank, it needs to generate a profit WITHOUT taxpayer subsidies... earnings which stem from the Fed/taxpayers lending money at below market rates are not true earnings, they are a government subsidy and need to be excluded If the markets going to come back, confidence needs to be restored. Reporting "earnings" that include well publicized lies is not a way to restore confidence If Pandit doesnt grasp this, he should be fired for cause. He might have inherited a mess from Weill/Prince -- but the decision to publish false earnings is 100% on him The markets are supposed to be excited about Citi posting “operating earnings” for January/ February of this year… haven’t we played this “earnings not counting expenses” game before? Isn’t that how Wall Street lost the confidence of its customers in the first place?

Lets see Citi report its real earnings instead of imaginary nonsense:

If Citi plans to exit the mortgage lending business permanently — than it needs to so state, it needs to lay off that entire staff, and it needs to ringfence that division. Since none of that happened, the charges from earlier mortgage mistakes are part of an on-going business and count against earnings

If Citi wants to be treated like a real bank, it needs to generate a profit WITHOUT taxpayer subsidies… earnings which stem from the Fed/taxpayers lending money at below market rates are not true earnings, they are a government subsidy and need to be excluded

If the markets going to come back, confidence needs to be restored. Reporting “earnings” that include well publicized lies is not a way to restore confidence

If Pandit doesnt grasp this, he should be fired for cause. He might have inherited a mess from Weill/Prince — but the decision to publish false earnings is 100% on him

]]> By: Alex http://acrossthecurve.com/?p=3747&cpage=1#comment-8081 Alex Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:32:57 +0000 http://acrossthecurve.com/?p=3747#comment-8081 <em>U.S. wholesale inventories fell for the fifth consecutive month in January and sales plummeted amid a slump in demand. Falling sales lifted the inventory-to-sales ratio, a measure of how long it would take to sell stocks at the current sales pace, to 1.30 months' worth - the highest since a matching reading in January 2002 -- from December's 1.27 months.</em> U.S. wholesale inventories fell for the fifth consecutive month in January and sales plummeted amid a slump in demand. Falling sales lifted the inventory-to-sales ratio, a measure of how long it would take to sell stocks at the current sales pace, to 1.30 months’ worth – the highest since a matching reading in January 2002 — from December’s 1.27 months.

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