Happy New Year everyone

For anyone whose interested the Independent published a story on Hanover Finance towards the end of last year regarding the rollover of loans. The Independent has a history of financial investigation excellence and I recommend the publication to anyone who is interested in the health of the finance sector in New Zealand.

Meanwhile to what is happening in the States.

There are three main bond insurers in the States and one of them Ambach has just had its credit rating with Fitch down graded after failing to raise further capital. Ambach insure approximately 2 trillion dollars worth of mortgage backed bonds. Its possible that the other rating companies will downgrade them as well making it difficult for them to raise money to cover their exposure to the mortgages they have insured. This in turn might downgrade the market value of the bonds that they have insured causing the banks to possibly writedown the value of those mortgages on their books.

For anyone interested in whats happening in the States the blog of Nouriel Roubini is a great source of information and views.