I hate working in an information vacuum.? Look, I lack the advanced analytics of major Wall Street firms.? A Bloomberg terminal is powerful, but not as good as the major investment banks, or third party specialists.

My friend jck gave me constructive criticism regarding my post on Maiden Lane III.? I am still waiting for the 2009 audit report for Maiden Lane III.? It should be published soon.? The 2008 report said that there were no gains or losses.

jck said that I should look at the decrease in book value in liabilities over time — that would measure the success of Maiden Lane III over time.? But any payment on the liabilities should stem from a diminution of the assets.? Even though the assets are held at fair value, and the liabilities at book value, this would still remain true.? Thus the gap between assets at fair value and liabilities at book value have significance.? So here it is for Maiden Lane III:

With ML III there was an investment of $5 billion of equity, there is still a loss against that yet, though not much.

But there is a similar graph for Maiden Lane II:

There is a rhythm to this because assets are revalued in the first month of the quarter, whereas liabilities are fixed, at least subject to paydowns and draws.? I would not be surprised to see a further improvement in the gap by the end of April, even as credit metrics continue to decline.

The Maiden Lane II Portfolio

Aside from two privately placed interest only securities, the rest of Maiden Lane II could be modeled.? Here are the credit metrics:

Rating	Principal $K	Percentage
AAA	1,719,167	5.0%
AA	2,173,090	6.3%
A	2,166,569	6.3%
BBB	1,211,229	3.5%
BB	2,648,188	7.7%
B	4,955,596	14.4%
CCC	16,362,857	47.6%
CC	2,456,082	7.1%
C	687,387	2.0%
Total	34,380,166

The average credit rating is B-, with a downward tendency.? 56.7% of the portfolio is rated CCC and below, and 71.2% of the portfolio is rated B and below.? But what types of collateral are in the portfolio?

Alt-A	4,289,185	12.4%
HELOC	1,012,497	2.9%
Home Equity	8,644,853	25.0%
Subprime RMBS	13,581,921	39.3%
Fixed WL	500,599	1.4%
Floating WL	6,519,656	18.9%
Total	34,548,712

All of it is housing related.? None of it is agency quality.

What sort of origination vintages does the portfolio have?

Issue Year	Principal $K	Percentage
2000	503	0.0%
2001	1,657	0.0%
2002	690	0.0%
2003	112,273	0.3%
2004	747,871	2.2%
2005	5,630,124	16.3%
2006	17,635,093	51.0%
2007	10,251,954	29.7%
2009	168,547	0.5%
Total	34,548,712

The average vintage is mid-2006, which is lousy for any debt portfolio on residential real estate in the US.? I would expect bad performance from a portfolio with these characteristics.

Compared to ML III, ML II has better collateral, but worse vintage years.? Both are messes.? I am not saying that the Fed will necessarily lose money on either one, but I question the valuations on the assets.? If Blackrock is doing the valuations, maybe I should be quiet — who has more knowledge than they do?

All the same, I still question the ability of two Fed vehicles to extract liquidity out of illiquidity, and on favorable terms.