From the category archives:

CMBX

Big CMBS Loans Near Default; CMBX Soars, REITs Tank

November 18, 2008

The BBB-5 CMBX is above 3250, do you know where your money is? These are record levels for the index, and they are seemingly indicative of even greater trouble in the CMBS market. If one were to use the stock price of many Mortgage REITs however, it would seem that the soaring Markit index is [...]

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The Markit Group Says "Bienvenido!"

August 4, 2008

“When Citi is cheaper than Colombia, which is on the verge of a war, it wakes you up,” Andrew Phillips, managing director and co-head of U.S. fixed income at BlackRock (BLK), in the March 2008 edition of Pensions & Investments, referring to the historically wide spreads on Citi’s (C) corporate debt.
Or to put it another [...]

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Concerns Grow on CMBS Price Manipulation

June 23, 2008

AS EVIDENCE GROWS THAT THE SELLOFF WAS OVERDONE, OPPORTUNITIES TO INVEST WILL FADE. BE GREEDY NOW WHILE OTHERS ARE FEARFUL.
In early April, I reported that the Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities Association had written to the Markit Group Ltd., the London-based administrator of the CMBX Index, a synthetic credit default swap derivatives index introduced [...]

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CMBS Prices Reflect Irrational Fears

June 9, 2008

“MARKET FEARS AND THE LIQUIDITY CRUNCH HAVE DRAMATICALLY DISTORTED THE VALUE OF CMBS, CREATING ONE OF THE BEST ENVIRONMENTS IN HISTORY FOR INVESTING IN CMBS.”

The Commercial Mortgage Securities Association (CMSA) yesterday presented new data on the pricing of commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) compared to their fair value and returns relative to risk profile. The [...]

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Dividends Under The Bridge? Markit Responds to CMSA

April 14, 2008

In responding to the Commercial Mortgage Securities Association’s (“CMSA”) letter regarding increased transparency on CMBX trading, the Markit Group (the administrator of the CMBX indices) has apparently responded with a modern-day version of “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
Evidently, Markit is contending that since the CMBX trades on the OTC derivatives market, Markit [...]

More on this topic (What's this?)
How Dangerous Are OTC Markets? (naked capitalism, 6/18/08)
New ADRs in OTC for 2008: (Top Foreign Stocks, 5/9/08)
Second Stage of a Jumper (Contrarian Profits, 5/9/08)
Read more on Over the Counter (OTC) at Wikinvest
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CMBX Shorts Start to Unwind, Yields Dropping

April 5, 2008

Gobs of Fed Grease Moving To Mortgages, Offering Lubricious Relief
Hedge funds that had been aggressively shorting the CMBX market on the basis of the superficial similarities with the ABX (subprime housing related index) unwound some of their short positions last week. Spreads on all the CMBX indices continued to come in, and analysts at Citi [...]

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High Yield Mortgage REITs Still Look Safe, But Stick to “Seasoned” Veterans

April 4, 2008

This may be no country for old men, but it’s definitely no market for little boys.
The headlines on February’s mortgage delinquency numbers were either negligible or somewhat alarming, depending on who reported them and the comparisons they were using. The biggest surprise in all the data was the increase in multifamily delinquencies, which is traditionally [...]

More on this topic (What's this?)
The ten year dividend growth requirement (Dividend Growth Investor, 3/3/10)
Dividend Investing: Two Common Questions? (Dividend Tree, 1/28/10)
Mortgage REITs Manage Onwards (Mortgage REIT Journal, 3/9/08)
Read more on Office REITs, Dividend Investing, Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) at Wikinvest
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Lack of CMBX Transparency Draws Industry Scrutiny

April 2, 2008

International Trade Association Requests Release of Daily Trade Volume; Calls for Greater Transparency in Trading Data.
Last week, in move that may be at least partially responsible for the nearly 150 basis point drop in the AAA CMBX Index, the Commercial Mortgage Securities Association (CMSA), requested that trading data on the CMBX Index, including total volume [...]

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Is Commercial Real Estate Really Dead?

April 1, 2008

In September 2007, hedge fund manager Andrew Lahde of eponymous Lahde Capital, which had previously earned huge returns by heavily shorting the ABX, launched a new institutional fund to short commercial real estate via the CMBX. (Click here if you are a retail investor and want to know how to short commercial real estate).
At the [...]

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