How AIG Fell ?

When you hear that the collapse of AIG or Lehman Bros. or Bear Stearns might lead to a systemic collapse of the global financial system, the feared culprit is, largely, that once-obscure (OK, still obscure) instrument known as a credit default swap. So, what is a CDS, and why is it so dangerous? At first glance, a credit default swap seems like a perfectly sensible financial tool. It is, basically, insurance on bonds. Imagine a large bank buys some bonds issued by General Electric. The bank expects to receive a steady stream of payments from GE over the years. That's how bonds work: The issuer pays the bondholder some money every six months. But the bank figures there's a chance that GE might go bankrupt. It's a small chance, but not zero, and if it happens, the bank doesn't get any more of those payments. The bank might decide to buy a CDS, a sort of insurance policy. If GE never goes bankrupt, the bank is out whatever premium it paid for the CDS. If GE goes bankrupt and stops paying its bondholders, the bank gets money from whoever sold the CDS. Who sells these CDSs? Banks, hedge funds, and AIG. It's easy to see the attraction. Historically, bond issuers almost never go bankrupt. So, many banks and hedge funds figured they could make a fortune by selling CDSs, keeping the premium, and almost never having to pay out anything. In fact, beginning in the late '90s, CDSs became a great way to make a lot more money than was possible through traditional investment methods. Let's say you think GE is rock solid, that it will never default on a bond, since it hasn't in recent memory. You could buy a GE bond and make, say, a meager 6 percent interest. Or you could just sell GE credit default swaps. You get money from other banks, and all you have to give is the promise to pay if something bad happens. That's zero money down and a profit limited only by how many you can sell. Over the past few years, CDSs helped transform bond trading into a highly leveraged, high-velocity business. Banks and hedge funds found that it was much easier and quicker to just buy and sell CDS contracts rather than buy and sell actual bonds. As of the end of 2007, they had grown to roughly $60 trillion in global business So, what went wrong? Many CDSs were sold as insurance to cover those exotic financial instruments that created and spread the subprime housing crisis, details of which are covered here 1. As those mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations became nearly worthless, suddenly that seemingly low-risk event-an actual bond default-was happening daily. The banks and hedge funds selling CDSs were no longer taking in free cash; they were having to pay out big money. Most banks, though, were not all that bad off, because they were simultaneously on both sides of the CDS trade. Most banks and hedge funds would buy CDS protection on the one hand and then sell CDS protection to someone else at the same time. When a bond defaulted, the banks might have to pay some money out, but they'd also be getting money back in. They netted out. Everyone, that is, except for AIG. AIG was on one side of these trades only: They sold CDS. They never bought. Once bonds started defaulting, they had to pay out and nobody was paying them. AIG seems to have thought CDS were just an extension of the insurance business. But they're not. When you insure homes or cars or lives, you can expect steady, actuarially predictable trends. If you sell enough and price things right, you know that you'll always have more premiums coming in than payments going out. That's because there is low correlation between insurance triggering events. My death doesn't, generally, hasten your death. My house burning down doesn't increase the likelihood of your house burning down. Not so with bonds. Once some bonds start defaulting, other bonds are more likely to default. The risk increases exponentially. Credit default swaps written by AIG cover more than $440 billion in bonds 2. We learned this week that AIG has nowhere near enough money to cover all of those. Their customers-those banks and hedge funds buying CDSs-started getting nervous. So did government regulators. They started to wonder if AIG has enough money to pay out all the CDS claims it will likely owe. This week, Moody's Investors Service, the credit-rating agency, announced that it was less confident in AIG's ability to pay all its debts and would lower its credit rating. That has formal implications: It means AIG has to put up more collateral to guarantee its ability to pay. Just when AIG is in trouble for being on the hook for all those CDS debts, along comes this credit-rating problem that will force it to pay even more money. AIG didn't have more money. The company started selling things it owned-like its aircraft-leasing division 3. All of this has pushed AIG's stock price down dramatically. That makes it even harder for AIG to convince companies to give it money to pitch in. So, it's asking the government to help out. AIG might be in trouble. But what do I care? Because the global economy could, possibly, come to a halt. Banks all over the world bought CDS protection from AIG. If AIG is not able to make good on that promise of payment, then every one of those banks has lost that protection. Overnight, the banks have to buy replacement coverage at much higher rates, because the risks now are much worse than they were when AIG sold most of these CDS contracts. In short, banks all over the world are instantly worth less money. The numbers seem to be quite huge-possibly in the hundreds of billions. To cover that instantaneous loss, banks will lend out less money. That means other banks can't borrow to pay this new cost, and weaker banks might not have enough; they'll collapse. That will further shrink the global pool of money. This will likely spur a whole new round of CDS payouts-all those collapsed banks issue bonds that someone, somewhere sold CDS protection for. That new round of CDS payouts could cause another round of bank failures. Generally, with enough time, financial markets can adjust to just about anything. This, though, would be an instantaneous transformation of the global financial system. Surely, the worst part will be the confusion. CDS are largely over-the-counter instruments. That means they're not traded on an exchange. One bank just agrees with another bank to do a CDS deal. There's no reliable central repository of information. There's no way to know how exposed a bank is. Banks would have no way of knowing how badly other banks have been affected. Without any clarity, banks will likely simply stop lending to each other. Since we're only just now getting a handle on how widespread and intertwined they have become, it seems possible that AIG, alone, could bring the global economy to something of a standstill. It's also possible that it wouldn't.

The Essentials Of Cash Flow

If a company reports earnings of $1 billion, does this mean it has this amount of cash in the bank? Not necessarily. Financial statements are based on accrual accounting, which takes into account non-cash items. It does this in an effort to best reflect the financial health of a company. However, accrual accounting may create accounting noise, which sometimes needs to be tuned out so that it's clear how much actual cash a company is generating. The statement of cash flow provides this information, and here we look at what cash flow is and how to read the cash flow statement.

What Is Cash Flow?
Business is all about trade, the exchange of value between two or more parties, and cash is the asset needed for participation in the economic system (see What Is Money?). For this reason - while some industries are more cash intensive than others - no business can survive in the long run without generating positive cash flow per share for its shareholders. To have a positive cash flow, the company's long-term cash inflows need to exceed its long-term cash outflows.

An outflow of cash occurs when a company transfers funds to another party (either physically or electronically). Such a transfer could be made to pay for employees, suppliers and creditors, or to purchase long-term assets and investments, or even pay for legal expenses and lawsuit settlements. It is important to note that legal transfers of value through debt - a purchase made on credit - is not recorded as a cash outflow until the money actually leaves the company's hands.

A cash inflow is of course the exact opposite; it is any transfer of money that comes into the company's possession. Typically, the majority of a company's cash inflows are from customers, lenders (such as banks or bondholders) and investors who purchase company equity from the company. Occasionally cash flows come from sources like legal settlements or the sale of company real estate or equipment.

Cash Flow vs Income
It is important to note the distinction between being profitable and having positive cash flow transactions: just because a company is bringing in cash does not mean it is making a profit (and vice versa).

For example, say a manufacturing company is experiencing low product demand and therefore decides to sell off half its factory equipment at liquidation prices. It will receive cash from the buyer for the used equipment, but the manufacturing company is definitely losing money on the sale: it would prefer to use the equipment to manufacture products and earn an operating profit. But since it cannot, the next best option is to sell off the equipment at prices much lower than the company paid for it. In the year that it sold the equipment, the company would end up with a strong positive cash flow, but its current and future earnings potential would be fairly bleak. Because cash flow can be positive while profitability is negative, investors should analyze income statements as well as cash flow statements, not just one or the other.

What Is the Cash Flow Statement?
There are three important parts of a company's financial statements: the balance sheet, the income statement and the cash flow statement. The balance sheet gives a one-time snapshot of a company's assets and liabilities (see Reading the Balance Sheet). And the income statement indicates the business's profitability during a certain period (see Understanding The Income Statement).

The cash flow statement differs from these other financial statements because it acts as a kind of corporate checkbook that reconciles the other two statements. Simply put, the cash flow statement records the company's cash transactions (the inflows and outflows) during the given period. It shows whether all those lovely revenues booked on the income statement have actually been collected. At the same time, however, remember that the cash flow does not necessarily show all the company's expenses: not all expenses the company accrues have to be paid right away. So even though the company may have incurred liabilities it must eventually pay, expenses are not recorded as a cash outflow until they are paid (see the section "What Cash Flow Doesn't Tell Us" below).

The following is a list of the various areas of the cash flow statement and what they mean:

• Cash flow from operating activities - This section measures the cash used or provided by a company's normal operations. It shows the company's ability to generate consistently positive cash flow from operations. Think of "normal operations" as the core business of the company. For example, Microsoft's normal operating activity is selling software. 
• Cash flows from investing activities - This area lists all the cash used or provided by the purchase and sale of income-producing assets. If Microsoft, again our example, bought or sold companies for a profit or loss, the resulting figures would be included in this section of the cash flow statement. 
• Cash flows from financing activities - This section measures the flow of cash between a firm and its owners and creditors. Negative numbers can mean the company is servicing debt but can also mean the company is making dividend payments and stock repurchases, which investors might be glad to see. 

When you look at a cash flow statement, the first thing you should look at is the bottom line item that says something like "net increase/decrease in cash and cash equivalents", since this line reports the overall change in the company's cash and its equivalents (the assets that can be immediately converted into cash) over the last period. If you check under current assets on the balance sheet, you will find cash and cash equivalents (CCE or CC&E). If you take the difference between the current CCE and last year's or last quarter's, you'll get this same number found at the bottom of the statement of cash flows.

In the sample Microsoft annual cash flow statement (from June 2004) shown below, we can see that the company ended up with about $9.5 billion more cash at the end of its 2003/04 fiscal year than it had at the beginning of that fiscal year (see "Net Change in Cash and Equivalents"). Digging a little deeper, we see that the company had a negative cash outflow of $2.7 billion from investment activities during the year (see "Net Cash from Investing Activities"); this is likely from the purchase of long-term investments, which have the potential to generate a profit in the future.Generally, a negative cash flow from investing activities are difficult to judge as either good or bad - these cash outflows are investments in future operations of the company (or another company); the outcome plays out over the long term.

The "Net Cash from Operating Activities" reveals that Microsoft generated $14.6 billion in positive cash flow from its usual business operations - a good sign. Notice the company has had similar levels of positive operating cash flow for several years. If this number were to increase or decrease significantly in the upcoming year, it would be a signal of some underlying change in the company's ability to generate cash.

Digging Deeper into Cash Flow
All companies provide cash flow statements as part of their financial statements, but cash flow (net change in cash and equivalents) can also be calculated as net income plus depreciation and other non-cash items.

Generally, a company's principal industry of operation determine what is considered proper cash flow levels; comparing a company's cash flow against its industry peers is a good way to gauge the health of its cash flow situation. A company not generating the same amount of cash as competitors is bound to lose out when times get rough.

Even a company that is shown to be profitable according to accounting standards can go under if there isn't enough cash on hand to pay bills. Comparing amount of cash generated to outstanding debt, known as the operating cash flow ratio, illustrates the company's ability to service its loans and interest payments. If a slight drop in a company's quarterly cash flow would jeopardize its loan payments, that company carries more risk than a company with stronger cash flow levels.

Unlike reported earnings, cash flow allows little room for manipulation. Every company filing reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is required to include a cash flow statement with its quarterly and annual reports. Unless tainted by outright fraud, this statement tells the whole story of cash flow: either the company has cash or it doesn't.

What Cash Flow Doesn't Tell Us
Cash is one of the major lubricants of business activity, but there are certain things that cash flow doesn't shed light on. For example, as we explained above, it doesn't tell us the profit earned or lost during a particular period: profitability is composed also of things that are not cash based. This is true even for numbers on the cash flow statement like "cash increase from sales minus expenses", which may sound like they are indication of profit but are not.

As it doesn't tell the whole profitability story, cash flow doesn't do a very good job of indicating the overall financial well-being of the company. Sure, the statement of cash flow indicates what the company is doing with its cash and where cash is being generated, but these do not reflect the company's entire financial condition. The cash flow statement does not account for liabilities and assets, which are recorded on the balance sheet. Furthermore accounts receivable and accounts payable, each of which can be very large for a company, are also not reflected in the cash flow statement.

In other words, the cash flow statement is a compressed version of the company's checkbook that includes a few other items that affect cash, like the financing section, which shows how much the company spent or collected from the repurchase or sale of stock, the amount of issuance or retirement of debt and the amount the company paid out in dividends.

Conclusion
Like so much in the world of finance, the cash flow statement is not straightforward. You must understand the extent to which a company relies on the capital markets and the extent to which it relies on the cash it has itself generated. No matter how profitable a company may be, if it doesn't have the cash to pay its bills, it will be in serious trouble.

At the same time, while investing in a company that shows positive cash flow is desirable, there are also opportunities in companies that aren't yet cash-flow positive. The cash flow statement is simply a piece of the puzzle. So, analyzing it together with the other statements can give you a more overall look at a company' financial health. Remain diligent in your analysis of a company's cash flow statement and you will be well on your way to removing the risk of one of your stocks falling victim to a cash flow crunch. by Investopedia Staff, (Contact Author | Biography) Investopedia.com believes that individuals can excel at managing their financial affairs. As such, we strive to provide free educational content and tools to empower individual investors, including more than 1,200 original and objective articles and tutorials on a wide variety of financial topics.

Find Investment Quality In The Income Statement

I find this article simple and striaght to the point. Love it. To a large degree, it is the quality and growth of a company's earnings that drive its stock price. Therefore, it is imperative that investors understand the various indicators used to measure profitability. The income statement is the principal source of data to accomplish a profitability analysis, which should cover at least a five-year period in order to reveal trends and changes in a company's earnings profile. (To learn more basics on the income statement, see Understanding The Income Statement.) Accounting Policies With regard to the income statement, investors need to be aware of two things related to a company's accounting practices. First, the degree of conservatism, which indicates the degree of investment quality. The presentation of earnings depends, basically, on three accounting policies: revenue recognition, inventory valuation and the depreciation method. Briefly stated, a completed sale, last in, first out liquidation (LIFO) rather than first in, first out liquidation (FIFO) valuation, and shorter-term depreciation periods, respectively, would produce higher quality reported earnings. (For related reading, see Inventory Valuation For Investors: FIFO And LIFO.) Investors will be alerted to any changes and their impact on performance figures in a company's accounting policies in the notes to financial statements. Investors need to read these qualifying remarks carefully. Sales While the so-called "bottom line" (net income) gets most of the attention from financial analysts and investors in any discussion of profit, the whole earnings process starts with a company's revenue, or net sales. The growth of this "top line" figure is a key component in producing the dollars needed to run a company profitably. A healthy sales growth rate generally defines a growing company and is a positive investment indicator. For investors, all sales increases are good and can occur as a result of sales grow through more unit volume from existing products/services, the introduction of new products/services, price increases, acquisitions and, for international sales, the impact of favorable exchange rates. However, some increases should be viewed more favorably than others. There's no question that greater unit volume is the best growth factor, followed by product-line expansion and new services. Price increases, especially those above the inflation rate, have their limits, as does sales growth through acquisitions. As applied to companies with foreign operations, the currency translation effect into U.S. dollars, either positive or negative, will even out over time. Positive investment quality in the sales account comes from growth in better unit volume and the maintenance of reasonable pricing. Margin and Cost Analysis In the income statement, the absolute numbers don't tell us very much. A simple vertical analysis (common size income statement) - dividing all the individual income and expense amounts by the sales amount - provides profit margin and expense percentages (ratios) for the whole income statement. Looked at over a period of five years, an investor will have a clear idea of the consistency and/or positive/negative trends in a company's management of its income and expenses. The success, or lack thereof, of this important managerial endeavor is what determines, to a large extent, a company's quality of earnings. A large growth in sales will do little for a company's profitability if costs grow out of proportion to revenues. The term margin is used to express the comparison of four important levels of profit in the income statement - gross, operating, pretax and net - to sales. Aside from monitoring a company's historical profit performance, these profit margins (ratios) also can be used to compare a company's profitability metrics to those of its direct competitors, industry figures and the general market. Unusual Items Also known as special, extraordinary or non-recurring, these items, generally charge-offs, are supposed to be one-time events. When they are, investors must take these unusual items, which can distort evaluations, into account, particularly when making inter-annual profit comparisons. Unfortunately, in recent years, companies have been taking so-called "big-bath" write-offs with such regularity that they are becoming commonplace rather than unusual. Large multi-year charges on the income statement are increasingly distorting corporate earnings. Needless to say, evidence of undue use of major charge-offs is not indicative of investment quality. This practice is another reason why some financial analysts prefer to work with operating and pretax income numbers to evaluate a company's earnings, thereby eliminating the distortions of unusual items to net income. (To continue reading manipulating the books, see Cooking The Books 101.) Traditional Profit Ratios In addition to profit margin ratios, the return on equity (ROE) and return on capital employed (ROCE) ratios are widely used to measure a company's profitability. ROE measures the profits being generated on the shareholders' investment. Expressed as a percentage, the ROE ratio is calculated by dividing net income (income statement) by the average of shareholders' equity (balance sheet). As a rule of thumb, ROE ratios of 15% or more are considered favorable. The ROCE ratio expands on the ROE ratio by adding borrowed funds to equity for a figure showing the total amount of capital being used by a company. In this way, a company's use of debt capital is factored into the equation. For this reason, conservative analysts prefer to use the ROCE ratio as a more comprehensive evaluation of how well management is using its debt and equity capital. This percentage ratio will vary among companies, but suffice it to say, that investment quality is represented by a higher rather than a lower figure. (To read more, see Spotting Profitability With ROCE, Measuring Company Efficiency and Keep Your Eyes On The ROE.) The impact of leverage is picked up in the return on capital (return on invested capital or ROIC) ratio. (To read more, check out Spot Quality With ROIC.) Earnings Per Share While an absolute increase in net income is a welcome sight, investors need to focus on what each share of their investments are producing. If increased net income comes as a result of profits from increased share capital, then earnings per share (EPS) is not going to look so great, and could fall below the previous year's level. An increase in a company's capital base dilutes the company's earnings among a greater number of shareholders. (To learn more, read Types Of EPSand How To Evaluate The Quality Of EPS.) Because of this circumstance, a company's net income, or earnings per share, is expressed as basic and diluted. The former represents EPS as of the balance sheet date as per the number of actual shares outstanding and net income as of a certain date, which is generally the company's fiscal year-end. Diluted EPS captures the potential amount of shares that could be outstanding if all convertible bonds, stock options and warrants were exercised. While such a consequence is highly unlikely, it is possible. In terms of the investment quality of the income statement, a significant spread between basic and diluted EPS should be seen as a negative sign. Conclusion Logic tells us that growing, profitable companies are generally attractive investment opportunities. However, how that growth is achieved is more important than the absolute sales and income numbers. In addition, conservative accounting policies, substantive sales growth, consistent and/or improving profit margins, the absence of outsized write-offs, above average returns on equity and capital employed, and solid earnings per share performance are the hallmarks of top-level investment quality. It is this set of attributes that investors should attempt to find in the income statement before they invest. By Richard Loth Richard Loth has more than 38 years of professional experience in the financial services sector, including banking, investment consulting and capital markets development, both internationally and in the U.S. He has worked with Citibank, Fleet National Bank and the Bank of Montreal. Mr. Loth is currently the managing principal of Mentor Investing, an independent Registered Investment Adviser based in Eagle, Colorado. Over the years, he has authored several investment education articles, publications, and books. His most recent book (self-published), "Finding Investment Quality in a Mutual Fund," is available from Mentor Investing (email mentor@centurytel.net or call (970)328-5591).