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Saturday, February 21, 2009

Citigroup, Bank of America: Prisoner's Dilemma, Electronic Bank Runs and Nationalization

Citigroup (C) declined 61% from a peak of $4.10 to an intraday low of $1.61 over just 10 trading days. Bluntly put: Citigroup is dead.

Bank of America (BAC) declined 64% from a peak of $7.05 to an intraday low of $2.53 over just 10 trading days. Bluntly put: Bank of America is dead.

Dead actually means dead. It is unlikely they can survive the weekend... and if they do, they most definitely cannot survive the week.

It used to be that bank runs were very public affairs. Crowds would rush the PHYSICAL offices of a stricken bank and demand PHYSICAL withdrawal. The large, panicked and angry mobs would make instant newspaper headlines. More importantly, bank runs could not be covered up and kept secret. Unruly mobs demanding their money don't tend to go quietly into the night.

Today, things are much different. Bank runs occur with a phone call... nah... a click of the mouse. There is absolutely no need to show up at office and demand paper money. Now the bank run is electronic. Without the mob, without the noise and the rage a bank can be entirely drained of reserves almost INSTANTLY.

With Citigroup and Bank of America reeling from massive losses from failed credit and investment policies, their common stock, bonds and credit default swaps are all now signaling their imminent failure.

The single largest investor in Citigroup is Saudi Prince al-Waleed bin Talal. in November 2008 the Saudi prince increased his stake from 4% to 5%, investing an additional $350 million. In January of 2007, Citigroup had a market capitalization of more than $250 billion. As of Friday's close, the ENTIRE bank is worth about $10 billion. The Saudi prince is down 96% on his 4% stake. Put another way, his original stake was worth about $10 billion in January 2007. Today, he could buy the whole damn mess for the same amount. The prince must be absolutely livid over these developments.

The prince is very exposed to Citigroup. Not only is he an investor, he also does extensive business with the bank. The assets and debts of his financial empire flow through Citigroup in the course of normal business operations. Although his financial dealings are very secretive and opaque, it stands to reason that his advisors would insist he manage this risk. Being long the bank via his ownership stake AND conducting business with the bank is now just too risky. It is the equivalent of doubling up or more in terms of risk on the very same trade. If the bank fails, everything fails. His investment and his business exposures both get severely impaired SIMULTANEOUSLY.

Therefore, the only rational action the prince can take is to shift his business AWAY from Citigroup and towards more stable banks. First the most liquid assets, such as cash deposits would be electronically routed to safer banks. Less liquid assets held in trust from stocks to bonds would be next... all the way down to the least liquid or least transferable assets. Second the credit provided by Citigroup would be swapped out. The prince can't be certain that Citigroup will have the ability to honor the requirements as they come due. This would in fact be an electronic run on the bank.

The prince is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. The very action of reducing his exposure to Citigroup actually accelerates the death of the bank. If he does not act, he then runs the risk of being the final bagholder should the bank die anyways. Consequently, he can't act until he has determined beyond a reasonable doubt that the cause is lost. Then and only then will his hand be forced into action.

Unfortunately there will be no angry mob lining up at the bank. Like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, the run will be overnight, instant, electronic and leave no trace.

When the tipping point is hit, the world at large won't know until AFTERWARDS.

Big money investors can't run the risk of waiting and hoping that everything will work out just fine. They find themselves in a Prisoner's Dilemma. Since they can't play nice as a team, they have to be first to act... and act they will. The first to panic wins.

Therefore, big money investors must now be pulling their deposits at both Citigroup and Bank of America and they must be doing it quietly and quickly with the click of a mouse. No mobs demanding paper money... just a 'click' and a string of ones and zeros blitzes from one end of the world to another over the internet.

In the immortal words of Charles O. Prince III, the disgraced former Chief Executive Officer of Citigroup;

"When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated. But as long as the music is playing, you've got to get up and dance. We're still dancing."

The music has stopped. Clearly. The dance is over. Time to panic... because the market has signaled quite ominously that Citigroup and Bank of America won't get to a chair in time...

Personally, I'm almost certain there simply aren't enough chairs. There never were.

Consequently, nationalization is guaranteed.

51 comments:

Anonymous said...

The downward spiral is accelerating.

Daniel Newby said...

You mean the no nationalization speech two hours before options expiration was a tawdry ruse? Inconceivable!

Anonymous said...

What about the option to have us, the tax payers, as final and imbecile bagholders?

Why is that off the table?
The prince, plus Geithner's buddies will be pressuring the president and government to have US take the fall?

Why not?

Anonymous said...

There won't be a run on the bank. Citi will go under receivership by the end of the month. Citi is a member of FDIC, right?

Anonymous said...

Marvellous description of a modern bank run.

Is it really any different from previous bank runs?

Those who have the ability and knowledge to “run” the bank will do it.

In the “Great Depression” most people didn’t have bank accounts they worked for cash. They didn’t own the houses they lived in.

The “people” who made the run on the banks were the people who had money in the banks. Call them the upper class if you will.

What is different now? Nothing really, except the “people” dont work for cash they work for credits in bank.

That’s why bank failure is unacceptable to political leaders.

Take away the cash machines ~ take away your political authority.

Anonymous said...

Marvellous description of a modern bank run.

Is it really any different from previous bank runs?

Those who have the ability and knowledge to “run” the bank will do it.

In the “Great Depression” most people didn’t have bank accounts they worked for cash. They didn’t own the houses they lived in.

The “people” who made the run on the banks were the people who had money in the banks. Call them the upper class if you will.

What is different now? Nothing really, except the “people” dont work for cash they work for credits in bank.

That’s why bank failure is unacceptable to political leaders.

Take away the cash machines ~ take away your political authority.

Anonymous said...

the fourth post reminds me of what a classmate of mine once told me. He works in risk management. The deniel is great.

the darkcloud said...

Nice one, Ninja.

You should have called it:

"Two Bigs to Fail".

Thanks and best regards.

Anonymous said...

FDIC?
Do they even insure foreign accounts?
And even domestic, they only insure peanuts...as far as wealthy investors are concerned.
As these are "international" banks, I think some (or maybe most? or most of the uninsured by FDIC?) accounts are held by non-US citizens, no?
This changes the "politics" of it too, no?

Anonymous said...

In the great depression, they did not come from overseas to participate in your local bank run. No chance for them then - always he last in line at the run.
Things have changed, maybe they are at the front of the queue now, eh?

Anonymous said...

What about business accounts for payroll and corporate expenditures? Wouldn't they be gone by now?

Remoran said...

The perfect storm is here.

The Dude said...

Looks Like "C" and "BAC" did not do their free online credit report...or they should have at least done all three...LOL

I wonder what there scores are noW>>>>>>>>>>>>heheheheheh

Anonymous said...

This is an interesting post.

Anonymous said...

Good post! Are you sure that C's share price isn't a reflection of the market's anticipation of this electronic run on the bank already?

This will be a really interesting week!

Anonymous said...


The single largest investor in Citigroup is Saudi Prince al-Waleed bin Talal.


No problem - Saint Obama will just print up a load of USD and make him hole! No way the US will allow a Saudi citizen to suffer - even if it involves invading a neighboring country ;-)

Anonymous said...

you must remember remember about Saudi Arabia.that investing ten billion dollars into banks,was in preferred bond share,with guaranteed divivded return.also Saudi Arabia being Allie needs to loan out past billions dollars,to other countries to make a reasonable return.

Anonymous said...

Now is not the time to panic.

(The time to panic was three years ago.)

Anonymous said...

You don't want to be left holding the bag? Withdraw all your cash, buy physical gold, silver, platinum, etc at almost any price, and watch the world burn down from the front row.

Oh, and pass the popcorn.

Russell said...

The behavior of prisoners in prisoner's dilemmas depends on the conditions set by the jailers - they can knock some heads together or offer rewards to enforce cooperation, rather than setting conditions that ensure cut-throat behavior.

Stimulus, regulation, everything the Republicans are decrying, that is to say.

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