The official theme at Swift's Sibos conference this month in Boston--Gaining Momentum--resonated with Kenneth Lewis, chairman and CEO of Bank of America, who, in a keynote address, said that he hopes such momentum extends to credit markets. Lewis, who pointed out that the credit crunch and subprime mortgage crisis do not signal "the end of mortgage finance, hedge funds, CDOs or derivatives," said that long-term recovery will depend upon restoring the confidence of investors, consumers and businesses. For that to happen, banks and hedge funds will need to share more information about the underlying assets on which securities are based, he said, adding, "In global markets, the only meaningful difference between a good decision and a poor one is the quality of the information it's based on." The speech is excerpted here.
One of the ironies of financial crises is that they almost always feel like a great surprise in the moment but they're almost never really surprising. At some point leading up to a market disruption, most of us know things are out of whack. We have a sense of where the imbalances are, and what the key indicators are. We know that something's got to give. We just don't know when, or exactly how. And then the floor seems to drop out.
|
