Liquidity Crisis

  

Categories: Trading, Metrics

You can't get cash. You have 14,000 acres of cattle ranch (and other ranchy stuff, like dressing). But that ranch just breaks even on a cash flow basis. And you really need cash for the water slide you wanted to put in your house. The slide company doesn't take cattle as payment. The uptight slogs want cash. Have cash = have liquidity.

But...you don't have either. If you try to sell half-fatted cows, instead of getting 5 grand apiece, you only get 2 grand. They're really not worth selling to get you out of this liquidity crisis. So you don't. And you live without the slide.

And this crisis happens on a macro level with nations as well. Think: post-WW2 Europe. The credit system exists for a reason. Credit card headroom = liquidity. You can do the rest of the math.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What is liquidity preference?27 Views

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finance a la shmoop. what is liquidity preference?

00:06

yeah well liquidity is a good thing you want it. being liquid means that you have

00:13

cash which gives you options to you know buy stuff. and yeah even the Amazon River [money leaves a wallet in the grocery store]

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shops at Amazon. all right so if your flavor of

00:21

investment has a liquidity preference over someone else's then your investment

00:27

all else being equal is preferable. see the liquidity preference . specifically if

00:32

you have liquidity preference and usually this is found in the form of

00:36

early stage of venture capital investor term sheets for investing in companies

00:41

in the form of convertible preferred stock- like it converts into common at

00:46

the IPO or something like that- then you get paid before everyone else

00:49

gets paid -at least in this form of stock- if the company gets sold.

00:53

all right well technically that is, but the company is sold and your convertible

00:57

preferred hasn't converted into common shares yet this company didn't go public. [convertible stock made into common stock]

01:01

but so like let's think about the example where if the company raised

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twelve million bucks in preferred stock, which all had a liquidity preference

01:09

over and above common ,and then the whole company was sold for just fifteen

01:13

million dollars. well then those with liquidity preference would get liquid

01:18

first .ie they get their twelve million bucks. then the remaining three million

01:22

would be sprinkled around everyone else who was do the dough. plus any dividends

01:28

or accrued assets that have come our way otherwise. and yes technically debt

01:33

holders get paid ahead of the various series preferred investors who then get [list of who gets paid first]

01:38

paid ahead of the common shareholder but that's a different video. all right so

01:41

when it comes down to it you want to have liquidity preference. clearly I

01:45

prefer to be liquid myself. [man floats in lake in an inner tube]

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