MBIA Fires Back at Ackman
As Congress holds hearings on bond insurers, it's worth reading MBIA's official response to Bill Ackman. There's nothing in there about "the unscrupulous and dangerous market manipulation of short-sellers," as Herb Greenberg feared. Rather, it's a pretty sober analysis, which seems to have convinced Alea, at least. Here's one juicy bit:
Mr. Ackman has been consistent in his suggestion that his estimates of loss are more accurate than the company's. He alleged, in his 2002 attack on the company, that our portfolio subject to FAS 133 would have $2 -- $3 billion of losses. That portfolio, which has largely amortized or been prepaid at this time, experienced no loss. We don't believe there's any basis for giving his current estimates any more credibility than those from 6 years ago.
I don't have a dog in this race, I'm actually quite happy to watch the grenades being lobbed back and forth. But for the time being at least MBIA retains its triple-A rating and is trading at more than $12 a share, up from a low of just $6.75 (but down from a 52-week high of $72.38). I think it would be premature to count out MBIA quite yet.
Loading...
Thank you for registering as a Portfolio.com Insider. Your comment has been added.
Create Your Public Profile- The Times' Rorshach Geithner Story
- Apr 27 2009 9:26AM EDT
- Sinking Animal Spirits
- Apr 27 2009 8:45AM EDT
- Counter-cyclical Urban Policy
- Apr 26 2009 10:00AM EDT
- Be Your Own Counterfeiter
- Apr 26 2009 9:36AM EDT
- Being Tim Geithner
- Apr 25 2009 12:37PM EDT
- Notes From a Press Conference Naif
- Apr 25 2009 9:41AM EDT
- What Good is the News?
- Apr 25 2009 8:32AM EDT
- Stressful Enough
- Apr 24 2009 2:29PM EDT
- Not Regretting the Pound
- Apr 24 2009 1:09PM EDT
- Introducing the New Ford Squeeze
- Apr 24 2009 9:47AM EDT
- Non-Economic Questions of the Day
- Apr 24 2009 9:12AM EDT
- The Stress Test Blind Alley
- Apr 24 2009 8:36AM EDT
- Happy Hour
- Apr 23 2009 9:40PM EDT
- Recovery Without Rebalancing
- Apr 23 2009 6:13PM EDT
- The Shape of Your Recession
- Apr 23 2009 5:11PM EDT
Categories
Links
- Email Ryan Avent
- Econospeak

- Financial Crookery

- The Epicurean Dealmaker

- Naked Capitalism

- Alphaville

- Marginal Revolution

- The Panelist

- FP Passport

- Overcoming Bias

- Andrew Leonard

- Barry Ritholtz

- Brad Setser

- Carbon Tax Center

- Calculated Risk

- Greg Mankiw

- Free Exchange

- Dean Baker

- Alexander Campbell

- Kash Mansori

- The Bayesian Heresy

- A Fistful of Euros

- John Quiggin

- Michael Mandel

- Lance Knobel

- Mark Thoma

- Dan Gross

- Curbed

- Streetsblog

- Chris Anderson

- Deal Journal

- MarketBeat

- DealBook

- DealBreaker

- Carl Bialik

- Michelle Leder

- Brad DeLong

- Ultimi Barbarorum







