Yes. CMBX. As in Commercial Mortgage Backed Credit Default Swaps. They’re currently going south big time, signaling that commercial real estate itself is in trouble. Wait, wasn’t subprime residential real estate just supposed to be a little blip and not contagious? Whoops, guess not.
Hey, what’s happens if huge banks own hundreds of billions of dollars of TGPKAI (Toxic Glop Previously Known As Investments) and not only can’t sell them, they can’t even price them? So, they just sit on the floor stinking up the place while everyone either runs in panic or pretends it’s not happening. Until the garbage rots the floorboards and the floor collapses, that is.
Citigroup reports $134.8 billion in ‘level 3’ assets ( level 3 assets have “no reliable price” and are impossible to sell, because they are difficult to price and no one wants to buy them.)