送交者: 霍林河 于 October 01, 2008 12:18:57:
Below are the main points in the WSJ article:
1. Lehman's total assets are more than $630 billion. Its bankruptcy immediately
wiped out huge investments for Lehman shareholders and bondholders. Among the
biggest was Norway's government pension fund, more than $800 million.
2. The average cost of CDS (credit-default-swap market) for five-year
insurance on $10 million in debt rose to $194,000 from $152,000 Friday, which
translates to the margin requirement for all of the $52 trillion CDS is more
than $220 billion. On Monday alone, sellers of insurance had to find some $140
billion to makesuch margin calls. As investors scrambled to get the cash, they
were forced to sell whatever they could -- a liquidation that hit financial
markets around the world. This is the killer for AIG, which own more than $400
billion CDS.
3. Lehman's commercial paper, was worth only 20 cents on the dollar. Some money market fund "broken the buck".
4. By Thursday, Messrs. Paulson and Bernanke decided to extend federal
insurance to some $3.4 trillion in money-market funds and proposed a $700
billion plan to take bad assets off the balance sheets of banks. Do they have
other choices?