Archive for January 2007

  • 25 Jan 2007 at 10:31 AM
  • Citi

Something You Can Bank On…

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…is that there are a whole lot of banks in this city, according to Observer scribe-cum-Master of Recon, Chris Shott. And get this: there’s about to be—and here’s where the story gets crazy– one more. That’s right: New York, Lexington Avenue between 58th and 59th streets, in the Bloomberg Tower, to be exact, is about to add a record 56th notch to its Citigroup bank branch bedpost. But will it be welcomed with open arms or is this a case of no room at the inn for one of Charles Prince’s babies?

The company’s forthcoming…branch…will fill a 5,000-square-foot void along this Upper East Side commercial block, which is so desperately underserved by the cavernous Wachovia branch next-door. And the Bank of America two doors north.

Shott’s (duly noted) attitude smacks of the latter. And, apparently, according to a like-minded executive from Vornado Realty Trust, he’s not alone.

“Who’s excited about having three banks on one side of the street?”
Her enthusiasm in confirming the deal was clearly lacking.

(Someone’s got a branch up her ass). But it doesn’t appear the branch bank craze will be slowing down anytime soon. Last April, Vernon Hill of Commerce Bank told the New York Times: “The building frenzy in branch banking is probably nearing its peak.” Less ominous words have clearly never been spoken. Further evidence of the phenomenon can be found in the sacrilegious conversion of the Second Avenue Deli into a Chase bank. We haven’t seen this much Jew-on-Jew violence since christ v Pharisees in the first century AD.
Bank Branches Disappearing? What Corner Do You Live On? [NYO]

    Opening Bell: 1.25.07

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    fordhydrogen.jpgFord loses $12.7 billion in 2006 (Detroit Free Press)
    Let it sink in, Ford lost $12.7 billion in 2006. Consider what that means. After all of the effort and production and sales of cars, the company ended up with significantly less than they started with. In theory, if the company had just frozen time, and just ceased operations and halted all payments they would have performed far better than they did. Granted, that’s impossible, but even if they had just halted time in the final quarter of the year (again, rather difficult, we’ll concede), the company would have saved itself nearly $6 billion. And it’s probably not going to get any better any time soon. The company anticipates “further deterioration” in 2007, with many plants to close and many employees to be shown the curb. There is one bit of good news: the company has unveiled a new hydrogen-powered, rechargeable car.
    EBay Shares Jump on European Growth, Profit Forecast (Bloomberg)
    Tech earnings seasons is shaping up to be some sort of version of “Revenge of the Nerds” where all of the picked-on companies do well, while all of the popular companies take it on the chin. Apple got hit after its earnings, so did AMD. Yahoo and SUN rose after theirs, and now eBay has turned in positive numbers, meaning that perhaps CEO Meg Whitman gets a reprieve on termination, as has been anticipated in the media for some time. Much of the company’s growth came from Europe, with particularly strong results in the UK.
    Incomes and Inequality: What the Numbers Don’t Tell Us (NYT)
    Tyler Cowen probably is risking his tenure as a NYT econ columnist with a piece questioning the conventional wisdom on income inequality. After all, the Times is nothing but conventional wisdom on many of these issues (on CEO pay, the paper might even be called “radically conventional”). Cowen makes a few simple points, such as the fact that growth in income inequality can be partly explained by the again population — disparity is greater among the elderly, who have had more time to diverge. It’s also greater among the educated, who tend to have a wider range of paths (e.g. some choose to be financial bloggers, while others actually choose to work in finance). Other apparent disparities can be chalked up to tax and accounting issues, which isn’t nearly as sexy as saying the game is rigged.
    Norway Deems iTunes As Illegal, Based on Non-Operability With Other Devices (PaidContent)
    Ah, those high-minded Europeans with their crazy ideals about technology, freedom and interoperability. Looks like Apple’s iTunes may have to pull out of the Norwegian market (too bad), because the government there doesn’t like the fact that your tracks bought of iTunes won’t play on a Zune. Granted, the fracturing of music does really blow — then again, it shouldn’t be illegal to blow.

    Continue reading »

      Write-Offs: 01.24.07

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      $$$Now That’s a Presentation [Banker's Ball]
      $$$Contextual Advertising: Do Not Push Your Investment Services Like This [Long or Short Capital]
      $$$NJB 4 U [Craigslist]

      Click Here

        Coffee Cultural Revolution

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        Mao.jpg If you were taking a body shot off of Melinda Gates’ chest at Davos and overheard someone mutter “is there a Chinese guy bitching about Starbucks?,” it was not the oxycotin chaser talking, it was Rui Chenggang.
        Chinese television anchor Rui Chenggang is throwing a hissy fit over the Starbucks that resides inconspicuously in the Forbidden City, located in the middle of Bejing, surrounded by a six meter deep moat and ten meter high wall. The literal translation of the Chinese term used to describe the Forbidden City means “Purple Forbidden City,” which sounds like a bad Jefferson Starship song or porno, and thus was lost in translation. Home to Emperors in the Ming and Qing dynasties and now home to the Grande Half-Skim Cinnamon Dolce Latte, the site is the world’s largest palace complex.
        Can you imagine there not being a Starbucks within a world’s largest palace complex distance from your office? For me, case closed, for Rui-dog, he’s out for justice, and this time it’s personal. When not sculpting his guns at the office or eating a whale’s vagina (a Chinese delicacy), anchorman Chenggang is blogging about evil American companies or how President Jintao’s gold Marc by Marc Jacobs bag is both undeniably adorable and totally not okay, all at once. Chenggangbang originally launched his complaint against Starbucks in his blog, which then led to a comment denouncing the coffee chain’s location on Chinese television last week. Now, Rui has been Chengspotted at a press luncheon in Davos expressing his surprise to the widespread reaction to his blog, which has attracted over half a million readers and elicited over 2,000 comments.
        Starbucks has 53 other locations in Bejing, none more popular than the Forbidden City location, partly because the bathroom inside the Forbidden City Starbucks contains the only other Imperial throne within the complex.
        With the success of the Starbucks location, a slew of other American franchises and other businessmen are rumored to be opening locations in the Forbidden City including:
        -A Pizza Hut inside the Hall of Supreme Harmony (huge startup synergies with the Hall’s current pagoda architecture)
        -A Taco Bell inside the Palace of Heavenly Purity (image consultants were responsible for this, trying to shed the chain’s E.coli burrito factory reputation)
        -A disgruntled hot-dog vendor outside the Gate of Divine Might
        Also the Mongolians have been spied trying to smuggle in one of their patented woks past the Meridian Gate and into one of the Three Front Halls.
        The Starbucks website is currently unable to map the location of its Forbidden City branch, and you need to call the store directly for hours.
        Tempest in a Coffee Cup – [DealBook]

          • 24 Jan 2007 at 3:10 PM
          • Apple

          The New York City Employees’’ Retirement System Thinks Jobs Blows (If We Have To Make Mountains Out Of Molehills We Will Do It And You Will Like It)

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          Steve Jobs.jpgThe Steve Jobs/backdating thing held our interest for a while but ultimately tapered off because of the all talk, no action nature of the whole situation. Yes, we get that it’s hard to take (literal) shots at the man who brought us the singular sensation that is the PC half of the “I’m A MAC, I’m a PC” commercials but come on—don’t get us all excited with your verbal assaults for nothing. So we were pretty happy to read that The New York City Employees’ Retirement System will be the lead plaintiff in a shareholder suit against Apple, brought to you by the fund’s law firm, Grant & Eisenhofer. The NYC fund was selected by Judge Jeremy Fogel, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, late last Friday. The fund owns about 1 million shares of Apple (approximately $87 million).
          New York pension fund takes lead in Apple lawsuit [Reuters via ZDNet via Daily Intel]

            • 24 Jan 2007 at 1:17 PM
            • Spitzer

            A Blind Item We Actually Want To Know the Answer To

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            When we told you earlier this morning that today’s theme was Ride the Smut Train With Us While You Can Still Get A Seat, we weren’t kidding. But that’s because 1. The WSJ said it was okay and 2. We thought there’d be a lot more trash to dirty our hands with; turns out, today, not so much. The following basically warrants half a siren or a third of a siren, but, unfortunately, Drudge has yet to come up with a graphic for us to represent the less-than-juicy nature of this item. Nonetheless, it piqued our interest, if only because from it, we can draw a tangential relationship to Senator Schumes, whom we adore.*

            Which new Spitzer appointee is going to find threesomes a lot harder to come by in Albany than he did in Manhattan?

            Don’t Shoot the Messenger [New York Daily News]
            *Concerned about our obvious affinity for men on the Hill (Schumer, Corzine, Biden, Feingold, etc)? Our therapist says it has to do with not being hugged enough by members of Congress during childhood. You have your thing, we have ours.

              • 24 Jan 2007 at 1:16 PM

              Do Traders Dream of Electric Stocks?

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              pre-cog.jpg The 3,618 securities on the “exchange” unit of the NYSE are going fully electronic today. The average time to complete a trade on the NYSE has fallen from 9 seconds to 0.3 seconds over the last several months with the increased push toward automation and gradual siphoning of human resources. The exchange hopes to reduce trading time by an additional 90% this year, and then hopes to pre-empt your trades before you place them once the pre-cogs under control.
              Since late 2005 restrictions on electronic trading volume were modified to allow for large automatic orders (max 1 million shares), 80% of current trading is electronic, up from 19% earlier last year. There are still around 100 NYSE stocks that still require an indigenous pack animal to trade, but the restrictions on those securities are expected to be modified this week.
              The increased electronic trading has resulted in a slight increase in average NYSE stock trade volatility, which may mean the machines are getting smarter, and already skimming a bit off the top. NYSE and dystopian robot army apologists claim that the average volatility of NYSE stock trades is still less than the NASDAQ.
              The NYSE: Faster (and Lonelier) – [WSJ]