Rehypothecation: a simple guide

From Keith Fitz-Gerald, via The Browser, here is a useful introductory article to what is likely this year’s coming hot topic.  Excerpt:

Assets in brokerage accounts can be used and re-used in such a way the credit multiples far outweigh the actual assets in the accounts. In effect, rehypothecated assets become part of a daisy chain, for lack of a better term, wherein one company’s liabilities become another’s assets.

If there is a hiccup anywhere in the chain, the effect is one of instant collateral collapse as everybody in the chain is forced to buy back, or recall, their assets. The effect is not unlike a colossal global “short” on world markets.

Imagine what happens if something goes wrong and everybody wants their $10 back, but find that there is only $1 in actual cash.

I believe this is what Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his counterparts at the ECB are so concerned with and why they are obsessed with liquidity. Everybody knows that too much debt caused this mess, but what they don’t realize is that it’s the use of rehypothecated assets that make collateralizing it nearly impossible barring massive injections and printing.

I would define it as “an asset used as collateral more than once, at the same time.”  And there is this:

Take the United Kingdom, for example, where there is no limit on the amount of client assets that can be rehypothecated. There, brokers have reportedly and routinely rehypothecated 100% of the value of client accounts, not just those assets pledged as collateral.

What kind of day would Arnold Kling be wishing you at this point?