There's something slightly awhiff in the phrase 'comfort in guarantees', something a bit dark, and sinister.
It's quoted from an article about 'monolines', large insurance companies that are involved in the sub-prime losses.
To wipe out the monolines' capital cushion, it would take a loss twenty times bigger than the hit they took last year. Even in today's febrile markets that is hard to imagine, especially since the insurers are at the back of the queue when it comes to taking losses on CDOs. So, though losses may run into the hundreds of millions, they are unlikely to be big enough to deprive the biggest monolines of their cherished triple-A rating.
The monolines may lose business as investors turn their back on CDOs and other structured products. But MBIA's finance chief, Chuck Chaplin, thinks the general confusion over credit risk may even help them, as more debt issuers seek comfort in guarantees.
The passage is from the article linked to below. The whole thing reeks of Capricorn: "structured products", "asset-backed bonds", "collateralised debt obligations", "rating agencies that put their money where their mouth is". The "structured and securitised bond markets" that are at risk sound totally Capricornian.
What is a monoline? According to www.ft.com, a monoline is "a company that insures against the risk of a bond or other security defaulting. For a fee, bond insurers promise to make the payments on the insured security over the lifetime of the security. American insurers MBIA and Ambac are the world’s biggest."
These two companies, MBIA and Ambac, were both formed....guess when? At the last Saturn-Neptune opposition! So they've spent the last 2 years or so resonating like tuning forks to the Saturn-Neptune opposition that's just ended last year (or is still ending now if you use a wide orb to measure it).
Of these two, Ambac was the pioneer. Only the year of formation is known at present - 1971. However it was the first to guarantee a municipal bond on 1st August of that same year, so we know it was in existence by that date at the latest. At that time, Saturn was just over 4 degrees orb of the opposition with Neptune.
MBIA was formed just after, in late 1973, when Saturn and Neptune were in and out of septile aspect to each other. The managing agency of MBIA, Municipal Issuers Service Corporation (MISC), was formed in 1971, however, showing how the development links to the Saturn-Neptune cycle. MBIA guaranteed its first bond issue, and received the prestigious AAA credit rating from Standard & Poor (S&P), in 1974 when Saturn and Neptune were still within orb of their septile.
In January 2008 just days before Pluto moved into Capricorn for the first time, AMBAC lost its coveted AAA rating and was downgraded to AA. This was the first time ever this had happened. Less than a week after Pluto entered Capricorn S&P removed their AAA rating for another bond insurer (FGIC - formed in 1983 when Saturn was sextile Neptune), and placed MBIA's and another's AAA under review for a downgrade. These were seismic shifts in the industry.
From "A monoline meltdown?" 26th July 2007 The Economist http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9552987
"Monolines" Published: January 18 2008 20:01 | Last updated: January 18 2008 23:20
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/1/7f0e1af8-c5e3-11dc-8378-0000779fd2ac.html
"Q&A: Monolines" By Saskia Scholtes and Aline van Duyn in New York
Published: January 18 2008 21:36 | Last updated: January 18 2008 21:36
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/247e85e4-c5f9-11dc-8378-0000779fd2ac.html