Chronicles of the Terminator

He is soooo cute... the shadow banking run has begun...he is 5 days old and he closes $15B money market funds all by himself.


BOSTON (AP) -- Putnam Investments on Thursday suddenly closed a $15 billion money-market fund and announced plans to return investors' money after institutional clients pulled out cash despite the fund's lack of exposure to troubled financial firms such as Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

The move, believed to be unprecedented in the $3.5 trillion money-market fund industry, came a day after asset managers sought to reassure investors in the wake of a massive pullout from large retail fund Reserve Primary Fund. The run on that fund caused its assets to plunge in value by nearly two-thirds and fall below $1 for each dollar invested.


The securities that backed that money market were dumped then. The redemption was below par... for a money market. The ARS money market shut down earlier this year, it was a $250B gorilla. As M4 goes down in earnest, these multi billion dollar funds and markets break like twigs. What is the FED to do offer discount window access to any fund that is out there? Yeah right... Guarantee deposits? It can't. The Depression era institutions were meant to address the Depression of that era, not the modern version.

A REAL RUN.

You know what to do in a RUN? stay nimble! stay in OverNight(ON) money markets! sleep light. Like what's her name in Terminator as she stays at cheap motels while she escapes the Terminator, get ready to pull out at the first sign of a crunch...

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