f4f
翠鸟科
AHAHAHHA
YouTube - Hitler viene a conoscenza delle "novità" di Sanremo 2010.
geniale !!!
Derivati USA: CME-CBOT-NYMEX-ICE BUND, TBOND and the middle of the guado (VM 69)
- Creatore Discussione masgui
- Data di Inizio
geniale !!!
gipa69
collegio dei patafisici
Mentre in Italia ci facciamo le pippe mentali sul possibile swap del 1996 per ridurre il deficit citando l'articolo del WSJ leggendo la fonte si capisce che il discorso è complessivo e riguarda anche Germania e Francia.... 
Debt deals haunt Europe febbraio 22, 2010 02:12PM View as multiple pages
EUROPEAN economies may have used complex financial transactions -- sometimes in secret -- to hide the true size of their debts.
Investors long turned a blind eye to European governments' aggressive bookkeeping, aimed at meeting the eurozone's budget ceilings. In reports to the Eurostat statistics authority, Portugal classified its subsidies to the Lisbon subway as equity. Greece insisted that large portions of its military spending were "confidential" and thus excluded from deficit calculations.
Now, suggestions that Greece's budget could be further constrained in the coming years by interest payments on years-old bank transactions has refocused attention on long-forgotten financial deals undertaken by Athens and other eurozone capitals to bring down budget deficits. Many of these deals involved currency swaps. In such transactions, countries might borrow in a currency not their own, for example, and use a derivative to offset the risk of currency fluctuations. But these instruments can also be used to artificially massage cash flows and liabilities, to meet debt and deficit thresholds.
Goldman Sachs Group did as many as 12 swaps for Greece from 1998 to 2001, according to people familiar with the matter. Credit Suisse was also involved with Athens, crafting a currency swap for Greece in the same time frame, according to people familiar with the matter.
Deutsche Bank executed currency swaps on behalf of Portugal between 1998 and 2003, according to spokesman Roland Weichert. Mr Weichert said Deutsche Bank's business with Portugal included "completely normal currency swaps" and other business activity, which he declined to discuss in detail. The currency swaps on behalf of Portugal were within the "framework of sovereign-debt management," Mr Weichert said. The trades weren't intended to hide Portugal's national debt position, he said.
The Portuguese finance ministry declined to comment on whether Portugal has used currency swaps such as those used by Greece, but said Portugal only uses financial instruments that comply with European Union rules.
Countries "look for things because it helps their arsenal of techniques used to reduce their budget deficits," says James D. Savage, a University of Virginia professor who is an authority on EU budgeting. "The problem for Eurostat is the flourishing of new financial instruments and techniques. Member states are going to try to take advantage of them. There is always a catch-up game."
Contagion issues have deeply concerned both policymakers and investors as the Greek debt crunch has unfolded over the past weeks. The cost to insure against a Greek default remains near record highs. Moreover, bond offerings from Spain, Ireland and Portugal in the past two weeks have succeeded primarily because they paid higher-than-usual yields.
Last week, such worries exacerbated market jitters over Europe's debt woes and could complicate Greece's plan this week to sell more debt, bankers and investors say.
Are there other hidden derivative deals out there? Eurozone governments are under no obligation to disclose the precise nature of the agreements they enter into, making it nearly impossible for investors to discern the potential risks associated with them. Eurostat permitted the use of such transactions to adjust debt figures until 2008.
Countries in the euro single currency have a rich history of exotic manoeuvres to make their debt and deficit numbers look rosy. Eurozone rules require governments to keep their debt to levels equivalent to 60 per cent of their gross domestic products and their annual budget deficits to no more than 3 per cent of GDP.
To try to meet these targets, governments have sold state assets, bundled expected future payments into securities to hawk and even, in the case of Germany, tried to reappraise gold reserves for a fast fix. Such moves were criticised at the time, but European leaders deemed them acceptable as they sought to begin the long-planned currency union.
France arranged a deal with the soon-to-be privatised France Telecom in 1997 under which France Telecom paid the government a lump sum of more than €5 billion ($7.6bn). In return, France agreed to assume pension liabilities for France Telecom workers. The quick cash injection helped bring down France's deficit and permit it to join the euro.
A 1996 Italian currency swap, arranged by JP Morgan, allowed Italy to receive large payments upfront. That helped keep its deficit in line. The downside was greater payments later.
Greece for years simply omitted large portions of its military-equipment spending from its deficit calculations. European regulators eventually prevailed on Greece to count everything. The result, in 2004, was a massive revision of Greek deficit figures from 2000 to 2003. Greece, which had reported its 2000 budget deficit as 2.0 per cent of GDP, added another 1.9 percentage points of GDP for military spending, pushing the country beyond the 3 per cent deficit limit. But by 2004, Greece had already gained entrance to the euro.
Investors paid little attention to the often-opaque derivative deals until concern about a Greek default recently began to rattle markets. The closer scrutiny comes against a backdrop of exploding deficits and fears about the stability of the euro. Governments across Europe pumped hundreds of billions of euros into their economies to combat the financial crisis, sending national debt levels soaring.
European officials said last week that EU regulators didn't know about a particularly controversial "off-market" currency swap structured in 2001 by Goldman Sachs for Greece. Officials say they believe the problem isn't widespread but a number of prominent European politicians, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have called on authorities to have a closer look at the transactions and whether banks helped governments distort their books.
A 2008 Eurostat report, however, says questions about how to account for off-market swaps like the one used in Greece were raised as early as 2007. The report said it provided detailed guidance about how to handle some forms of them. Eurostat didn't respond to a request for comment.
Eurostat tried for years to change the rules on use of swaps. European finance ministries in 2000 overruled Eurostat, arguing that they needed as much flexibility as possible to manage debt loads.
It wasn't until 2008 -- a decade after the deals became popular -- that Eurostat was able to revise its rules to push countries to include swaps in their debt and deficit calculations. Still, critics say that too little is known about countries' continued exposure to the deals that are already out there.
Governments have found eager collaborators to help them massage their books both on Wall Street and in the City of London.
Between 1998 and 2000, Goldman structured 12 currency-swap agreements with Greece, allowing the country to lock in an exchange rate. The swaps had another advantage: The fixed rates meant under European accounting rules that Greece could record its foreign-currency debt at the rates in the swap contract -- no matter how rates fluctuated later. That could protect it from seeing its recorded debt levels spike in the future.
But even though the swaps prettied up the accounting, they didn't affect the underlying economics: A drop in the euro would leave Greece with a losing swap position. In 2000 and 2001, that happened, according to people familiar with the situation.
In 2001, Goldman and Greece came up with a now-controversial solution: A new "off-market" swap. It agreed in the future to convert yen and US dollars into euros at an artificially favourable rate. Greece could use that rate when it recorded its debt in the European accounts -- pushing down the country's reported debt load by more than €2bn euros, according to people familiar with the matter.
In exchange for the good deal on rates, Greece had to pay Goldman. The amount wasn't revealed. A payment would count against Greece's deficit, so Goldman and Greece came up with another twist. Goldman effectively loaned Greece the money for the payment, and Greece repaid that loan over time. But the two sides structured the loan as another kind of swap. Treated as a swap, the deal didn't add to Greece's debt under EU rules. All told, the marginal benefits were small. Greece's total debt as a percentage of GDP fell from 105.3 per cent to 103.7 per cent, and its 2001 deficit was reduced by a tenth of a percentage point in GDP terms, according to people close to Goldman.
Gikas Hardevoulis, a former advisor to the then-prime minister of Greece, said the trade should not have been done. "It was done to dress up the debt figures by some smart idiot in the finance ministry" he said.
Greece's remaining exposure to the complicated arrangement remains unclear.
- David Crawford, Robin Sidel, Jonathan House and Deborah Ball contributed to this article.
Debt deals haunt Europe febbraio 22, 2010 02:12PM View as multiple pages
EUROPEAN economies may have used complex financial transactions -- sometimes in secret -- to hide the true size of their debts.
Investors long turned a blind eye to European governments' aggressive bookkeeping, aimed at meeting the eurozone's budget ceilings. In reports to the Eurostat statistics authority, Portugal classified its subsidies to the Lisbon subway as equity. Greece insisted that large portions of its military spending were "confidential" and thus excluded from deficit calculations.
Now, suggestions that Greece's budget could be further constrained in the coming years by interest payments on years-old bank transactions has refocused attention on long-forgotten financial deals undertaken by Athens and other eurozone capitals to bring down budget deficits. Many of these deals involved currency swaps. In such transactions, countries might borrow in a currency not their own, for example, and use a derivative to offset the risk of currency fluctuations. But these instruments can also be used to artificially massage cash flows and liabilities, to meet debt and deficit thresholds.
Goldman Sachs Group did as many as 12 swaps for Greece from 1998 to 2001, according to people familiar with the matter. Credit Suisse was also involved with Athens, crafting a currency swap for Greece in the same time frame, according to people familiar with the matter.
Deutsche Bank executed currency swaps on behalf of Portugal between 1998 and 2003, according to spokesman Roland Weichert. Mr Weichert said Deutsche Bank's business with Portugal included "completely normal currency swaps" and other business activity, which he declined to discuss in detail. The currency swaps on behalf of Portugal were within the "framework of sovereign-debt management," Mr Weichert said. The trades weren't intended to hide Portugal's national debt position, he said.
The Portuguese finance ministry declined to comment on whether Portugal has used currency swaps such as those used by Greece, but said Portugal only uses financial instruments that comply with European Union rules.
Countries "look for things because it helps their arsenal of techniques used to reduce their budget deficits," says James D. Savage, a University of Virginia professor who is an authority on EU budgeting. "The problem for Eurostat is the flourishing of new financial instruments and techniques. Member states are going to try to take advantage of them. There is always a catch-up game."
Contagion issues have deeply concerned both policymakers and investors as the Greek debt crunch has unfolded over the past weeks. The cost to insure against a Greek default remains near record highs. Moreover, bond offerings from Spain, Ireland and Portugal in the past two weeks have succeeded primarily because they paid higher-than-usual yields.
Last week, such worries exacerbated market jitters over Europe's debt woes and could complicate Greece's plan this week to sell more debt, bankers and investors say.
Are there other hidden derivative deals out there? Eurozone governments are under no obligation to disclose the precise nature of the agreements they enter into, making it nearly impossible for investors to discern the potential risks associated with them. Eurostat permitted the use of such transactions to adjust debt figures until 2008.
Countries in the euro single currency have a rich history of exotic manoeuvres to make their debt and deficit numbers look rosy. Eurozone rules require governments to keep their debt to levels equivalent to 60 per cent of their gross domestic products and their annual budget deficits to no more than 3 per cent of GDP.
To try to meet these targets, governments have sold state assets, bundled expected future payments into securities to hawk and even, in the case of Germany, tried to reappraise gold reserves for a fast fix. Such moves were criticised at the time, but European leaders deemed them acceptable as they sought to begin the long-planned currency union.
France arranged a deal with the soon-to-be privatised France Telecom in 1997 under which France Telecom paid the government a lump sum of more than €5 billion ($7.6bn). In return, France agreed to assume pension liabilities for France Telecom workers. The quick cash injection helped bring down France's deficit and permit it to join the euro.
A 1996 Italian currency swap, arranged by JP Morgan, allowed Italy to receive large payments upfront. That helped keep its deficit in line. The downside was greater payments later.
Greece for years simply omitted large portions of its military-equipment spending from its deficit calculations. European regulators eventually prevailed on Greece to count everything. The result, in 2004, was a massive revision of Greek deficit figures from 2000 to 2003. Greece, which had reported its 2000 budget deficit as 2.0 per cent of GDP, added another 1.9 percentage points of GDP for military spending, pushing the country beyond the 3 per cent deficit limit. But by 2004, Greece had already gained entrance to the euro.
Investors paid little attention to the often-opaque derivative deals until concern about a Greek default recently began to rattle markets. The closer scrutiny comes against a backdrop of exploding deficits and fears about the stability of the euro. Governments across Europe pumped hundreds of billions of euros into their economies to combat the financial crisis, sending national debt levels soaring.
European officials said last week that EU regulators didn't know about a particularly controversial "off-market" currency swap structured in 2001 by Goldman Sachs for Greece. Officials say they believe the problem isn't widespread but a number of prominent European politicians, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have called on authorities to have a closer look at the transactions and whether banks helped governments distort their books.
A 2008 Eurostat report, however, says questions about how to account for off-market swaps like the one used in Greece were raised as early as 2007. The report said it provided detailed guidance about how to handle some forms of them. Eurostat didn't respond to a request for comment.
Eurostat tried for years to change the rules on use of swaps. European finance ministries in 2000 overruled Eurostat, arguing that they needed as much flexibility as possible to manage debt loads.
It wasn't until 2008 -- a decade after the deals became popular -- that Eurostat was able to revise its rules to push countries to include swaps in their debt and deficit calculations. Still, critics say that too little is known about countries' continued exposure to the deals that are already out there.
Governments have found eager collaborators to help them massage their books both on Wall Street and in the City of London.
Between 1998 and 2000, Goldman structured 12 currency-swap agreements with Greece, allowing the country to lock in an exchange rate. The swaps had another advantage: The fixed rates meant under European accounting rules that Greece could record its foreign-currency debt at the rates in the swap contract -- no matter how rates fluctuated later. That could protect it from seeing its recorded debt levels spike in the future.
But even though the swaps prettied up the accounting, they didn't affect the underlying economics: A drop in the euro would leave Greece with a losing swap position. In 2000 and 2001, that happened, according to people familiar with the situation.
In 2001, Goldman and Greece came up with a now-controversial solution: A new "off-market" swap. It agreed in the future to convert yen and US dollars into euros at an artificially favourable rate. Greece could use that rate when it recorded its debt in the European accounts -- pushing down the country's reported debt load by more than €2bn euros, according to people familiar with the matter.
In exchange for the good deal on rates, Greece had to pay Goldman. The amount wasn't revealed. A payment would count against Greece's deficit, so Goldman and Greece came up with another twist. Goldman effectively loaned Greece the money for the payment, and Greece repaid that loan over time. But the two sides structured the loan as another kind of swap. Treated as a swap, the deal didn't add to Greece's debt under EU rules. All told, the marginal benefits were small. Greece's total debt as a percentage of GDP fell from 105.3 per cent to 103.7 per cent, and its 2001 deficit was reduced by a tenth of a percentage point in GDP terms, according to people close to Goldman.
Gikas Hardevoulis, a former advisor to the then-prime minister of Greece, said the trade should not have been done. "It was done to dress up the debt figures by some smart idiot in the finance ministry" he said.
Greece's remaining exposure to the complicated arrangement remains unclear.
- David Crawford, Robin Sidel, Jonathan House and Deborah Ball contributed to this article.
gipa69
collegio dei patafisici
AHAHAHHA
YouTube - Hitler viene a conoscenza delle "novità" di Sanremo 2010.
gipa69
collegio dei patafisici
To try to meet these targets, governments have sold state assets, bundled expected future payments into securities to hawk and even, in the case of Germany, tried to reappraise gold reserves for a fast fix. Such moves were criticised at the time, but European leaders deemed them acceptable as they sought to begin the long-planned currency union.
France arranged a deal with the soon-to-be privatised France Telecom in 1997 under which France Telecom paid the government a lump sum of more than €5 billion ($7.6bn). In return, France agreed to assume pension liabilities for France Telecom workers. The quick cash injection helped bring down France's deficit and permit it to join the euro.
France arranged a deal with the soon-to-be privatised France Telecom in 1997 under which France Telecom paid the government a lump sum of more than €5 billion ($7.6bn). In return, France agreed to assume pension liabilities for France Telecom workers. The quick cash injection helped bring down France's deficit and permit it to join the euro.
Fernando'S
Forumer storico
, specialist al lavoro 
gipa69
collegio dei patafisici
f4f
翠鸟科
Mentre in Italia ci facciamo le pippe mentali sul possibile swap del 1996 per ridurre il deficit citando l'articolo del WSJ leggendo la fonte si capisce che il discorso è complessivo e riguarda anche Germania e Francia....
Debt deals haunt Europe febbraio 22, 2010 02:12PM View as multiple pages
EUROPEAN economies may have used complex financial transactions -- sometimes in secret -- to hide the true size of their debts.
Investors long turned a blind eye to European governments' aggressive bookkeeping, aimed at meeting the eurozone's budget ceilings. In reports to the Eurostat statistics authority, Portugal classified its subsidies to the Lisbon subway as equity. Greece insisted that large portions of its military spending were "confidential" and thus excluded from deficit calculations.
Now, suggestions that Greece's budget could be further constrained in the coming years by interest payments on years-old bank transactions has refocused attention on long-forgotten financial deals undertaken by Athens and other eurozone capitals to bring down budget deficits. Many of these deals involved currency swaps. In such transactions, countries might borrow in a currency not their own, for example, and use a derivative to offset the risk of currency fluctuations. But these instruments can also be used to artificially massage cash flows and liabilities, to meet debt and deficit thresholds.
Goldman Sachs Group did as many as 12 swaps for Greece from 1998 to 2001, according to people familiar with the matter. Credit Suisse was also involved with Athens, crafting a currency swap for Greece in the same time frame, according to people familiar with the matter.
Deutsche Bank executed currency swaps on behalf of Portugal between 1998 and 2003, according to spokesman Roland Weichert. Mr Weichert said Deutsche Bank's business with Portugal included "completely normal currency swaps" and other business activity, which he declined to discuss in detail. The currency swaps on behalf of Portugal were within the "framework of sovereign-debt management," Mr Weichert said. The trades weren't intended to hide Portugal's national debt position, he said.
The Portuguese finance ministry declined to comment on whether Portugal has used currency swaps such as those used by Greece, but said Portugal only uses financial instruments that comply with European Union rules.
Countries "look for things because it helps their arsenal of techniques used to reduce their budget deficits," says James D. Savage, a University of Virginia professor who is an authority on EU budgeting. "The problem for Eurostat is the flourishing of new financial instruments and techniques. Member states are going to try to take advantage of them. There is always a catch-up game."
Contagion issues have deeply concerned both policymakers and investors as the Greek debt crunch has unfolded over the past weeks. The cost to insure against a Greek default remains near record highs. Moreover, bond offerings from Spain, Ireland and Portugal in the past two weeks have succeeded primarily because they paid higher-than-usual yields.
Last week, such worries exacerbated market jitters over Europe's debt woes and could complicate Greece's plan this week to sell more debt, bankers and investors say.
Are there other hidden derivative deals out there? Eurozone governments are under no obligation to disclose the precise nature of the agreements they enter into, making it nearly impossible for investors to discern the potential risks associated with them. Eurostat permitted the use of such transactions to adjust debt figures until 2008.
Countries in the euro single currency have a rich history of exotic manoeuvres to make their debt and deficit numbers look rosy. Eurozone rules require governments to keep their debt to levels equivalent to 60 per cent of their gross domestic products and their annual budget deficits to no more than 3 per cent of GDP.
To try to meet these targets, governments have sold state assets, bundled expected future payments into securities to hawk and even, in the case of Germany, tried to reappraise gold reserves for a fast fix. Such moves were criticised at the time, but European leaders deemed them acceptable as they sought to begin the long-planned currency union.
France arranged a deal with the soon-to-be privatised France Telecom in 1997 under which France Telecom paid the government a lump sum of more than €5 billion ($7.6bn). In return, France agreed to assume pension liabilities for France Telecom workers. The quick cash injection helped bring down France's deficit and permit it to join the euro.
A 1996 Italian currency swap, arranged by JP Morgan, allowed Italy to receive large payments upfront. That helped keep its deficit in line. The downside was greater payments later.
Greece for years simply omitted large portions of its military-equipment spending from its deficit calculations. European regulators eventually prevailed on Greece to count everything. The result, in 2004, was a massive revision of Greek deficit figures from 2000 to 2003. Greece, which had reported its 2000 budget deficit as 2.0 per cent of GDP, added another 1.9 percentage points of GDP for military spending, pushing the country beyond the 3 per cent deficit limit. But by 2004, Greece had already gained entrance to the euro.
Investors paid little attention to the often-opaque derivative deals until concern about a Greek default recently began to rattle markets. The closer scrutiny comes against a backdrop of exploding deficits and fears about the stability of the euro. Governments across Europe pumped hundreds of billions of euros into their economies to combat the financial crisis, sending national debt levels soaring.
European officials said last week that EU regulators didn't know about a particularly controversial "off-market" currency swap structured in 2001 by Goldman Sachs for Greece. Officials say they believe the problem isn't widespread but a number of prominent European politicians, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have called on authorities to have a closer look at the transactions and whether banks helped governments distort their books.
A 2008 Eurostat report, however, says questions about how to account for off-market swaps like the one used in Greece were raised as early as 2007. The report said it provided detailed guidance about how to handle some forms of them. Eurostat didn't respond to a request for comment.
Eurostat tried for years to change the rules on use of swaps. European finance ministries in 2000 overruled Eurostat, arguing that they needed as much flexibility as possible to manage debt loads.
It wasn't until 2008 -- a decade after the deals became popular -- that Eurostat was able to revise its rules to push countries to include swaps in their debt and deficit calculations. Still, critics say that too little is known about countries' continued exposure to the deals that are already out there.
Governments have found eager collaborators to help them massage their books both on Wall Street and in the City of London.
Between 1998 and 2000, Goldman structured 12 currency-swap agreements with Greece, allowing the country to lock in an exchange rate. The swaps had another advantage: The fixed rates meant under European accounting rules that Greece could record its foreign-currency debt at the rates in the swap contract -- no matter how rates fluctuated later. That could protect it from seeing its recorded debt levels spike in the future.
But even though the swaps prettied up the accounting, they didn't affect the underlying economics: A drop in the euro would leave Greece with a losing swap position. In 2000 and 2001, that happened, according to people familiar with the situation.
In 2001, Goldman and Greece came up with a now-controversial solution: A new "off-market" swap. It agreed in the future to convert yen and US dollars into euros at an artificially favourable rate. Greece could use that rate when it recorded its debt in the European accounts -- pushing down the country's reported debt load by more than €2bn euros, according to people familiar with the matter.
In exchange for the good deal on rates, Greece had to pay Goldman. The amount wasn't revealed. A payment would count against Greece's deficit, so Goldman and Greece came up with another twist. Goldman effectively loaned Greece the money for the payment, and Greece repaid that loan over time. But the two sides structured the loan as another kind of swap. Treated as a swap, the deal didn't add to Greece's debt under EU rules. All told, the marginal benefits were small. Greece's total debt as a percentage of GDP fell from 105.3 per cent to 103.7 per cent, and its 2001 deficit was reduced by a tenth of a percentage point in GDP terms, according to people close to Goldman.
Gikas Hardevoulis, a former advisor to the then-prime minister of Greece, said the trade should not have been done. "It was done to dress up the debt figures by some smart idiot in the finance ministry" he said.
Greece's remaining exposure to the complicated arrangement remains unclear.
- David Crawford, Robin Sidel, Jonathan House and Deborah Ball contributed to this article.
gooood morning bbbbanda
GS c'è dentro fino al collo
l'hai scritto bene tu Gipa...
fa lo swap, lo ristruttura, specula contro l'euro
staa Trichet denunciare la GS e chiedere i danni per 10000.0000.0000 miliardi di euro ( no dollari, chè se GS perde,fa alzare il $
)maggari la causa manco si dibatterà in tribunale, ma solo averla aperta darebbe un colpo enorme alla speculazione
IMHO, va da sè
Ultima modifica:
f4f
翠鸟科
Lo spoore è vera poesia...
ebbeh ebbeh sto sfogliando il libro
'il pentagramma di borsa'
alle volte il caso eh !
f4f
翠鸟科
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