Saturday, July 14, 2007

How Liquid Is That?

This post is just to note another piece of evidence in support of my earlier post on the likelihood that the global liquidity glut may last a while longer yet. Usual caveat: nobody can predict cataclysmic change, and I have to confess that the huge and growing notional amount of the credit derivatives market has been troubling me a good deal of late. Check out this post on the Seeking Alpha page for a chilling report on that subject.

But I could not suppress a smile when I read this story on Bloomberg yesterday. It seems that the same week as the ratings companies are finally realizing the US sub-prime mortgage market disruption means related mortgage-backed paper should be down-graded, US HUD Secretary Jackson is in Beijing urging the Chinese Government to invest more heavily in US mortgage-backed securities.

I am sure I am wrong, but it sounds like somebody is asking the Chinese to provide liquidity to help revive a deflating market in the US. The story didn't say what the Chinese reaction was, although I imagine if Secretary Jackson had been laughed out of the room, Bloomberg would have mentioned it.

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