-->Hi marsch,
>
der etwas längere Überblick:
von vorgestern, bei usatoday erschienen:
Risky buying on margin surges again
By Matt Krantz, USA TODAY
Some investors are so confident that stocks will continue to rally, they are literally betting their portfolios and
buying stocks on margin.
Margin is using borrowed money to buy stocks and using other stock as collateral on the loan. Currently,
investors are on a margin binge that is making some analysts worry we're seeing a return of late '90s-like
speculation. Margin buying is:
•At record levels. Investors at firms regulated by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), the
watchdog of the Nasdaq stock market and 5,300 brokers, borrowed $26 billion against their stock holdings in
July, the latest available data. That tops the old record in March 2000.
•Growing rapidly. Margin borrowing at NASD-regulated firms is up 412% this year and 32% in July.
•Widespread. Total margin borrowing, which includes numbers reported by the New York Stock Exchange, hit
$174.4 billion in July, a 25% increase from the end of 2002. That total is the highest in two years.
This is a big warning to some that greed is back."Those people from 1999 to 2001 are creeping back into the
sunlight again," says Michelle Clayman, managing partner of New Amsterdam Partners."There are people
thinking: 'Gee, maybe I can make back what I lost.'"
Even the NASD has put out a warning to investors to be careful of margin borrowing.
There's so much concern because historically, when margin balances soar, it's bad news for the market. The last
time margin balances at NASD brokers topped $20 billion was March 2000 — just as the market was about to
head into a brutal three-year slide.
Even so, some investors say the spike in NASD-reported margin lending doesn't necessarily spell trouble for the
stock market, because total margin lending is still below record levels. Margin-lending reported by brokers from
both the NYSE and NASD brokers is still 42% below its last peak on March 2000. Just looking at the spike in
NASD margin is misleading, since it includes only about 15% of total margin debt, says Richard Cripps, strategist
at Legg Mason.
Cripps also says total margin borrowing is still less than 1.4% of the market's value. That's up only 0.2 percentage
points from the beginning of the year and down 0.9 percentage points from March 2000."As an alarm, it's
premature," he says.
Ken Tower, chief market strategist at Charles Schwab's Cybertrader unit, says total margin debt remains in line
with historical norms. He says he'd be more worried if margin debt wasn't increasing as stocks rallied; that would
show a lack of conviction.
Still, investors should remember the lessons of the past and avoid taking on heavy margin just to jump into the
rally."People shouldn't engage in this game-playing," says A.C. Moore, strategist for Dunvegan Associates.
"Margin is not the way to go about
this."
Gruss
Cosa
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-->>falls immer noch aktuell, beim Surfen neulich entdeckt die Charta der BoE
Und hier eine kleine und feine Geschichte aus der Gründungszeit der BoE auf die mich @Liated aufmerksam gemacht hat und weil sie u.a. Kerbstöcke zum Gegenstand hat, mein besonderes Interesse fand:
Zur Gründungszeit der BoE zirkulierten (Staatspapiere) in Form von Noten und Tallies in enormer Höhe. Angesichts der Höhe der öffentlichen Verschuldung zirkulierten diese Instrumente teilweise mit einem Abschlag von 40 - 50 Prozent.
Hier nun die schöne Geschichte von Clapham wie man sie (teilweise) wieder los wurde:
Auszug:
Sir John Clapham, The Bank of England. A History, Cambridge University Press, 1944, 2 volumes. Volume I 1694-1797, Volume II 1797-1914, Vol. I, S. 46ff
As the year 1696 drew to a close and the Bank was applying its policy of a call on"the 40 per Cent", the Treasury still had to find a way out of the financial bog. Sanguine Tories had hoped that the Land Bank might provide one; but that hope had been dashed. The Bank of England's £200,000 cash, voted in August and all paid by 30 October, helped the Army in Flanders, but solved no major difficulty of a national income overspent and national promises to pay—tallies and orders—standing at a heavy discount, because many were so remote in date and all were drawn against an income inadequate and, for the long future, uncertain. In connection with the House of Commons inquiry into the affairs of the Bank, late in 1696, it was suggested that the Bank might increase its capital by absorbing this floating debt of tallies and orders which it had been hoped that the Land Bank would deal with. [Angeblich zirkulierten allein in Form von tallies 17.000.000 Pfund] On 28 November the Directors voted that" the subscribing of tallies into the capital stock of the Bank will not promote the Credit thereof".1 But a month later the Select Committee of the Commons was interviewing and pressing them. A General Court was therefore called for 2 January 1697 to say whether it would be prepared to raise £2,564,000"if the House should think fit to settle the Duties on Salt"2 on the Bank; and whether it would accept tallies as capital. The Court thought the sum too great. On accepting tallies it was divided. No vote was taken on the policy, but some proprietors were"inclinable to it". Perhaps they held tallies.
The end of the whole matter, in spite of the resolution of
28 November, was the"ingrafting" of tallies into the capital
Seite 47
capital stock of the Bank of England and for raising the Public Credit. There was hard and close bargaining between the Directors and the Committee of the House in the early months of 1697. All major questions went to the General Court, which met ten times in the three months January-March 1697, once having its maximum recorded attendance, of 209" and some others".* It was a vote of the General Court that laid down the famous condition on which the Bank was ready to make some of the suggested concessions—"That no other Bank or Constitution in the nature of a Bank be erected or established, permitted or allowed by Act of Parliament...during the Continuance of the Bank of England".2 The General Court wanted no more Land Banks.
The critical Act that sanctioned this principle, though in other words, was of the omnibus,"ways and means", character of the original Act of 1694. Clause 20 authorized the increase of the Bank stock, while clause 71, and last, decided that"tobacco pipes found unfit for Sale, may on Notice be reburnt, and then the Duty to be paid". That was because a duty on tobacco pipes was among the financial securities for the new arrangements accepted by the Bank.s
The tallies and orders on future revenue which the government wanted someone to take off the market, with a view to improving its credit, were selling at all sorts of discounts, varying with their date but said to average in 1696-7 something like 40 per cent.4 (There were tallies and orders afloat in 1696 that the Bank treated as"too remote"5 to be discounted at all.) The Bank's notes were also at a discount of 16 to 17 per cent, and the October-November call on capital had not been answered by all proprietors at once.6
1 G.C.B. I, 4 Jan. 1697. * G.C.B. I, i Feb. 1697.
3 The Act is 8 & 9 William III, c. 20. And see/.H.C. xi, 717, 740-1.
4 History of the Early Years of the Funded Debt (Accounts and Papers, 1898, LII, 269), p. 67. Compiled by G. F. Stutchbury, Chief Accountant of the Bank of England. And see Scott, m, 210. 5 c.B. B, f. 107.
6 Stocks and shares had two quotations, cash and"bank and money". Scott, n, 233.
Seite 48
The government could not pay off its tallies but believed that it could go on paying the interest on them, and this proved correct. The Bank's credit, though none of the best, was thought to be— and again proved to be—good enough to let it take over a great block of tallies, although at the opening of the negotiation the Directors had thought differently.
The arrangement adopted was this. The Bank was to open an unlimited subscription for new capital. Subscribers might pay four-fifths in tallies and one-fifth in bank bills or notes. Both these classes of depreciated instruments were to be taken at par, to the great advantage of subscribers; for about £65 worth of tallies and notes a subscriber was credited with £100 stock.1 The result was a subscription of £1,001,171. IQJ. od., which would have raised the nominal capital to £2,201,171. los. od., if it had been formally added to capital, which in fact it was not. To correct the unfair situation that would have arisen if the subscribers on these easy terms had been given a claim to share in profits belonging to the old proprietors, the original stock—now in name at least 80 per cent paid up—was first to be credited, from profits in hand, with the 20 per cent necessary to make it also fully paid,2 and was then to receive a distribution from the remaining balance of profit if any.
During the negotiation the Bank had been doubtful whether sufficient provision was being made by new taxes for"the Deficiences" referred to in the Act, and so stood out for a stiff rate of interest on the newly accepted tallies until they should be redeemed. The Act itself admitted that although"great Part of the monies lent" on existing duties"had been repaid with Interest...it was feared there would be a Deficiency to repay the Whole". The method of borrowing on tallies was, as we have seen, to pledge particular sources of income for the interest and
Seite 49
the ultimate repayment of principal. It was this that made a long-dated tally so very speculative. In fact, since the Bank had been established, the Tunnage duties from which it got its first nickname, and some other duties which were security for blocks of tallies, had been repealed.1 Hence its determination to make sure of its income from interest, a determination which proved very profitable to it, as its financial record in the next few years shows.
Before any tallies were paid in as part of the new subscription, the Bank had a large supply of discounted tallies on hand. It secured permission to make a schedule of a block of these equal in nominal value to its own notes and bills received from the new subscribers. On these, as well as on the subscribed tallies, it was to receive 8 per cent, although the rate originally borne by a tally might have been less. But both government and Bank recognized that this high-interest-bearing mass of"Ingrafted Tallies", as they were called, was abnormal and ought not to become a permanency. No addition was therefore made to the Bank's nominal capital of £1,200,000 or to the £100,000 payable annually under the Act of 1694: the 8 per cent tallies were not to be reissued—as tallies often were, with a view to renewing the debt and extending its currency—but were to be paid off as soon as the government was in a position to do this, 8 per cent being allowed meanwhile on the outstanding balance.*
This arrangement, and the course of the year's trading, were so favourable to the Bank that, although its notes were still at a discount of 13-14 per cent in June 1697, by 24 July the"old members" had been credited with their 20 per cent out of profits and had received a distribution of 3$ per cent. Another 4 per cent on all capital was paid before the year was out.
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