Polecam wszystkim ten tekst o
amerykańskim systemie bankowym ze sporą ilością przykładów (szczególnie o Wells
Fargo). Jest przydługi, ale warto. :)
Fragmenty:
Some four years after the 2008 financial
crisis, public trust in banks is as low as ever. Sophisticated investors
describe big banks as “black boxes” that may still be concealing enormous
risks—the sort that could again take down the economy. A close investigation of
a supposedly conservative bank’s financial records uncovers the reason for
these fears—and points the way toward urgent reforms.
Some bank analysts say these trading
numbers are small relative to the bank’s overall revenue ($81 billion in
2011) and profit (again, $16 billion in 2011). Other observers don’t even
bother to look at these details, because they assume Wells Fargo is protected
from trading losses by its capital reserves of $148 billion. That number,
assuming it is accurate, can make any particular loss appear minuscule. For
example, buried at the bottom of page 164 of Wells Fargo’s annual report
is the following statement: “In 2011, we incurred a $377 million loss on
trading derivatives related to certain CDOs,” or collateralized debt
obligations. Just a few years ago, a bank’s nine-figure loss on these sorts of
complex financial instruments would have generated major headlines. Yet this
one went unremarked‑upon in the media, even by top investors, analysts, and
financial pundits. Perhaps they didn’t read all the way to page 164. Or
perhaps they had become so numb from bigger bank losses that this one didn’t
seem to matter. Whatever the reason, Wells Fargo’s massive CDO-derivatives loss
was a multi-hundred-million-dollar tree falling silently in the financial
forest. To paraphrase the late Senator Everett Dirksen, $377 million here
and $377 million there, and pretty soon you’re talking about serious
money.
Like other banks, Wells Fargo uses a
three-level hierarchy to report the fair value of its securities. Level 1
includes securities traded in active, public markets; it isn’t too scary. At
Level 1, fair valuesimply means the reported price of a security. If Wells
Fargo owned a stock or bond traded on the New York Stock Exchange, fair value
would be the closing price each day.
Level 2 is more worrisome. It includes
some shadier characters, such as derivatives and mortgage-backed securities.
There are no active, public markets for these investments—they are bought and
sold privately, if at all, and are not listed on exchanges—so Wells Fargo uses
other methods to figure out fair value, including what it calls “model-based
valuation techniques, such as matrix pricing.” At Level 2, fair value is what
accountants would charitably describe as an “estimate,” based on statistical
computer models and what they call “observable” inputs, such as the prices of
similar assets or other market data. At Level 2, fair value is more like
an educated guess.
Level 3 is hair-raising. The bank’s
Level 3 estimates are “generated primarily from model-based techniques
that use significant assumptions not observable in the market.” In other words,
not only are there no data about the prices at which these types of assets have
recently traded, but there are no observable data to inform the assumptions one
might use to generate prices. Level 3 contains the most-esoteric financial
instruments—including the credit-default swaps and synthetic collateralized
debt obligations that became so popular and prevalent at the height of the
housing boom, filling the balance sheets of Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch,
Citigroup, and many other banks.
At Level 3, fair value is a guess based on
statistical models, but with inputs that are “not observable.” Instead of
basing estimates on market data, banks use their own assumptions and internal
information. At Level 3, fair value is an uneducated guess.
Yet only a small fraction of Wells Fargo’s
assets are on Level 1. Most of what the bank holds is on Level 2. And a
whopping $53 billion—equivalent to more than a third of the bank’s capital
reserves—is on Level 3. All three categories include risky assets that might
lose value in the future.
