EEN AMERIKAANSE BANKIER…

10 maart, 2010 | door MHAAGEN |

…zag de Kredietcrisis aankomen en reageerde prompt : Andy Beal van Beal Bank.  Deze insider zet zijn toekomstperspectief voor ons op een rijtje en…het ziet er niet fraai uit; DEFLATIE VOOR DE KOMENDE EEN TOT TWEE JAAR AL ZEKER…  Precies zoals ik in mijn boek voorspel ! U kunt het aanschaffen op www.haageninvest.com.  Eigenlijk onmisbaar leesvoer voor elke serieuze belegger…  Maar nu eerst bankier Andy Beal aan het woord bij Forbes :

Andy Beal Conjectures Harsh Market Ahead

Lots of people claim to have seen the financial crisis coming, but few actually banked on it. Andy Beal did. He virtually shut down his Beal Bank between 2004 and 2007. When the financial crisis hit, he started buying, and the early results of his work are now in.

So what is Beal’s current outlook? Beal says his ideas are hardly novel, but given his track record, I thought readers would be interested. From my notes of our recent conversation, here are some of Beal’s thoughts:

1. We are back in a credit bubble due to the Fed and easy money. Other than failed banks, Beal has again nearly stopped buying assets.

2. We are in for some tough sledding. The U.S. economy is being supported by zero interest rates and deficit spending. None of this is sustainable, and when it goes away, things will get worse. The consumer can’t come to the rescue.

3. Unemployment will remain at current levels for several years. This, Beal reasons, is partly because the states have not even started laying people off. “I see all the governments having to tighten their belts, which is going to feed this snowball effect. I don’t think we have felt the impact yet of governmental staff reductions,” says Beal.

4. California? “I can’t imagine the feds bail them out. They can’t afford to. If they bail out California they have to bail out every state, and then there is no discipline in the states,” says Beal.

5. A deflationary period.  Beal thinks short-term deflation is very likely for the next year or two.

6. Commercial real estate is headed for trouble. Beal thinks the government has delayed equilibrium in a number of areas, especially commercial real estate. “We just keep putting it off, nothing is trading, there are no buyers and sellers meeting . . . nobody wants to sell at what they could get at today’s market.”

7. The unfairness of the Fed. “I think using the currency in the way it is being used is unfair to people who have saved all their lives and depend on the currency,” says Beal. “To drive interest rates to zero may stimulate the economy, but it is just stealing from savers, and I think it’s unfair for the government to do that.”

8. Stock investors should be very careful. Stocks are currently being supported by zero interest rates and easy money. “They will be gone,” says Beal. “When they are, I don’t see how stock values don’t drop.”

9. Community banking is back. Beal doesn’t see securitization returning so insured deposits might become a major source of lending again like they were 20 years ago.

Beal is a self-described libertarian kind of guy. But I have found him first and foremost to be an independent thinker. While he can be very critical of the government’s intervention in the economy, he doesn’t speak in absolutes.

For example: Beal thinks the federal bailout of money-market funds was necessary. But that makes his observations all the more sincere. “The goal of currencies used to be to provide a store of value,” says Beal. “Once the government took that over it had an obligation to fulfill that role, and the fact that they can use that role to steal from Peter to pay Paul doesn’t make it right.”