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Greece in shock as banks shut after snap referendum call

21 minutes ago

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greeks struggled to adjust to shuttered banks, closed cash machines and a climate of rumors and conspiracy theories on Monday as a breakdown in talks between Athens and its creditors plunged the country deep into crisis.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who blindsided creditors by calling a referendum on the austerity cuts in the aid package proposed by the creditors, appeared on television on Sunday night to announce capital controls to prevent banks from collapsing.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/greece-imposes-capital-controls-crisis-011908384.html

Quoted from Madam X

Oh look! A Confederate flag! Rainbow lights on the White House! See the pretty colors!

Quoted from joebxr

Thread about Greek financial failure and someone posts about gay marriage decision!  DUH!!!  

Quoted from joebxr

You are delusional if you think I am DVOR.
As for your post...definitely left field whacko...and I will continue to feel
free to comment as I like...including cartoons to allow you a better chance of comprehension!
DVOR behind every tree and bush....WATCH OUT!!!

Quoted from Libertarian4life

A topic about Financial disaster in Greece and as always you turn it into a bash the poster thread.

Really DVOR, you are a one trick pony.

Lol.

Quoted from Madam X

Oh look! A Confederate flag! Rainbow lights on the White House! See the pretty colors!

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Major Money Manager Braces for Bond-Market Collapse
by Lisa Abramowicz

June 22, 2015 — 11:53 AM EDT




TCW Group Inc. is taking the possibility of a bond-market selloff seriously.

So seriously that the Los Angeles-based money manager, which oversees almost $140 billion of U.S. debt, has been accumulating more and more cash in its credit funds, with the proportion rising to the highest since the 2008 crisis.

“We never realize what the tipping point is until after it happens,” said Jerry Cudzil, TCW Group’s head of U.S. credit trading. “We’re as defensive as we’ve been since pre-crisis.”


TCW isn’t alone: Bond funds are holding about 8 percent of their assets as cash-like securities, the highest proportion since at least 1999, according to FTN Financial, citing Investment Company Institute data.

Cudzil’s reasoning is that the Federal Reserve is moving toward its first interest-rate increase since 2006, and the end of record monetary stimulus will rattle the herds of investors who poured cash into risky debt to try and get some yield.

The shift in policy comes amid a global backdrop that’s not exactly rosy. The Chinese economy is slowing, the outlook for developing nations has grown cloudy, and the tone of Greece’s bailout talks changes daily.


Distorted Markets

Of course, U.S. central bankers are aiming to gently wean markets and companies off zero interest-rate policies. In their ideal scenario, borrowing costs would rise slowly and steadily, debt investors would calmly absorb losses and corporate America would easily adjust to debt that’s a little less cheap amid an improving economy.

That outcome seems less and less likely to Cudzil, as volatility in the bond market climbs.

“If you distort markets for long periods of time and then you remove those distortions, you’re subject to unanticipated volatility,” said Cudzil, who traded high-yield bonds at Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank AG before joining TCW in 2012. He declined to specify the exact amount of cash he’s holding in the funds he runs.

Price swings will also likely be magnified by investors’ inability to quickly trade bonds, he said. New regulations have made it less profitable for banks to grease the wheels of markets that are traded over the counter and, as a result, they’re devoting fewer traders and money to the operations.

To boot, record-low yields have prompted investors to pile into the same types of risky investors -- so it may be even more painful to get out with few potential buyers able to absorb mass selling.

“We think the market’s telling you to upgrade your portfolio,” Cudzil said. “Whether it happens tomorrow or in six months, do you want look silly before the market sells off or after?”

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Bond Manager Warns of System Wide Collapse: “It’s Time to Hide Cash Under the Mattress”


No one knows how well prepared the system is to handle potential bank runs and massive demands for cash withdrawals if the system tanks.


And no one knows how much longer the system can hold.

The erratic and unnatural market forces from the Federal Reserves’ zero interest rate is driving things towards an unstable tipping point, and no one knows what will happen if it does.

Millions may be left without a way to access their funds – perhaps for days or weeks – and banks may lose funds that governments are unwilling or unable to repay.

So a top bond fund manager is warning to diversify holdings into things like gold, silver and savings accounts, and to keep some cash on hand in cash everything else comes to grinding halt. The London Telegraph warned:


The manager of one of Britain’s biggest bond funds has urged investors to keep cash under the mattress.

Ian Spreadbury, who invests more than £4bn of investors’ money across a handful of bond funds for Fidelity, including the flagship Moneybuilder Income fund, is concerned that a “systemic event” could rock markets, possibly similar in magnitude to the financial crisis of 2008, which began in Britain with a run on Northern Rock.

“Systemic risk is in the system and as an investor you have to be aware of that,” he told Telegraph Money.

The best strategy to deal with this, he said, was for investors to spread their money widely into different assets, including gold and silver, as well as cash in savings accounts. But he went further, suggesting it was wise to hold some “physical cash”, an unusual suggestion from a mainstream fund manager.

“The problem is that people are struggling to work out how to diversify if QE programmes stop,” he said.

That nightmare could happen according to Ian Spreadbury, particularly with markets locked into a damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenario under razor thin interest rates and swelling debt.


The bond expert signaled that the risk is significant and could set off events in the short term, within the next few years:


He declined to predict the exact trigger but said it was more likely to happen in the next five years rather than 10. The current woes of Greece, which may crash out of the euro, already has many market watchers concerned.

Putting that together with other financial warnings, it seems clear that the system knows something big is coming.

The elite players are unwilling to play it safe with the money of others, and the market rewards only short term risk.

Global finance is being deliberately pushed to the edge waiting for a tipping point. It is not just the most extreme scenarios that could crash the system, it is a gravity that is pushing everything towards the brink.

Ordinary people are losing out on their savings, their pensions, on fees and handling surcharges, all while the insiders are trying to phase out cash and lock down finance inside a digital grid they alone control.

No one is looking out for the average person at the bottom, and only prepared individuals with cash money and physical assets set aside stand a chance at riding out whatever wave may come.

Prepare for the worst, and hope for an end to this madness before it happens.

Quoted from bumblethru

Greece's problems are closer to home than anyone can imagine!!!