Laid off? Worried about getting laid off? Pissed off about your bonus? Don’t crap on the floor. Find a new gig instead. The hardest part is getting started, which is why we spend some time each week searching our extensive Career Center to find you a new job. Tell them to take that job and shove it. You don’t need to work there anymore.
Mortgages are making a comeback, baby. A leading financial firm is on the hunt for a senior mortgage modeler. Here’s the job: On a daily basis, you’ll be a senior member of the mortgage research team, designing, estimating and developing MBS prepayment/default models. You will be the hands on architect for developing next generation prime prepayment models using statistical tools.
To land this, you’ll need at least 5 years of experience as a senior mortgage modeler including experience with regard to model factors, forecasts, performance and security valuation implications.
Archive for January 2008
Growing industries usually want to be left alone but lawmakers have trouble seeing other people have fun without them. Hedge funds are finding this out right now. Once these industries come to Washington, however, laissez-faire goes out the window, and public-policy profiteering takes over. Tim Carney (who is Bess Levin’s brother) continues the chronicle of the hedge-fund industry’s entrance into Washington–namely, hiring away a Congressman to be their top-lobbyist.
Regulate your way to riches [Washington Examiner]
I would say I’m offering up these two gems because it’s the weekend and we all deserve something special (me especially) but let’s be honest, even if you hadn’t earned it, it’d take gale force winds to stop me from sending these latest boy toys out into the universe. First up we have Gary, who is the logical extension of Tanner, in that Tanner was a towel boy and Gary loves to stand in still bodies of water. Gary is 29 and a commodities trader. Next is Monte, a 27 year old analyst who legitimately looks like a member of the Hitler Youth. Now I know I say that about a lot of people, but this time it’s true. Which is ironic, because Monte is employed by an insurer founded by Jews. Yes, it’s like Stalag 17 all over again.
According to John Mack’s assistant (I kid, of course, though the tip was anonymous so it’s a fifty-fifty chance it could’ve come from her), Morgan Stanley’s population restructuring project will affect “more than just [the rumored] 1,000 brokers,” with cuts occurring in all departments but most heavily in IBD, and impacting 10-15% of total employees. But layoffs, these things happen all the time, and I don’t want to say I’m not beside myself with this news, but I’m not losing any sleep over it. Know what I am losing sleep over? Know what’s seriously cutting into my mid-morning nap schedule? Weighing on my mind? Distracting me from my Mark Haines fantasies? Infringing on my ability to stare off into space? This news (smut, rather) about Goldman Sachs—GOLDMAN SACHS—being forced into this pedestrian layoffs business. Cutting one person—VP, associate, analyst, trader, CEO, secretary, janitor—from Goldman Sachs is too many; according to Reuters, GS will be cutting a whopping 5 percent of its global workforce. I would like to know where the hell God, Goldman Sach’s co-pilot, is during all of this. What he could possibly be doing that’s more important than protecting his children. The only plausible explanation that I can come up with is that he was busy ghost writing this. If that happens to be the case, cool. It was worth it and “Who knows how many men unwittingly dropped their pants under the government’s watchful eye”? That was inspired my friend. Otherwise, we have a problem.
Wall Street, even Goldman, faces ’08 slowdown [Reuters]
What Happens in Men’s Room, Stays in Men’s Room [Bloomberg]
Rogue Trader’s Story Raises More Questions Than Answers (Dealbook)
Given the extent of Jerome Kerviel’s losses, folks aren’t quite ready to believe he was a jackal working alone. We think it probably was though. But for now, people would rather believe that there was a conspiracy of sorts, rather than believe that a little knowledge of SocGen’s computer system was able to render its entire risk management infrastructure 100 percent useless. People like to call big “nine-sigma” events black swans, but they’re really not, because we get once-in-a-millennium perfect storms once every five years or so. But nobody’s got a formula that knows how to take into account one trader that knows how to bypass security checks.
Trader Turns Societe Generale Report Into a Nightmare (Bloomberg)
Someone suggested yesterday that this whole story was a coverup for deep subprime losses. Better to pin it on a 31-year old kid that didn’t even go to an elite college than on the upper ranks. We doubt it. Nobody would’ve blinked if the company had lost another $7 billion on writedowns. As it is, the company actually reported a big subprime writedown and nobody even noticed.
Scottish & Newcastle Agrees To Buyout by Carlsberg, Heineken (WSJ)
Beer consolidation, bring it on. Scottsh & Newcastle looks set to approve a sale to Carlsberg and Heineken in a deal worth $15.4 billion. That’s a lot of money, for beer. With the deal, Scottish and Newcastle will be broken up, with Carlsberg and Heineken each taking over certain regional assets.
Buying Randy Newsom (Ideoblog)
Have you heard about this baseball player that’s going to sell chunks of his future income to the public? Yeah, for as little as $20, you can buy a slice of infielder Randy Newsom’s future earnings stream. Larry Ribstein looks at some of the legal issues and wonders whether this counts as a security that, theoretically, would be regulated by the SEC.
$$$ “I always knew it was a bad idea to let kids run the global financial system.” [DealBook]
$$$ Jerome Kerviel is down to ONE FRIEND on Facebook, from eleven this morning. Let this be a warning to all of you contemplating breaking the law. [Facebook]
$$$ Crash [WallStrip]
Don’t Forget: tonight on MOJO, the people who brought Tim Sykes into all our lives–Wall Street Warriors, season 2 (9:00 PM), Bobby G: Adventure Capitalist (9:30 PM), Start Up Junkies (10:00 PM). Discussion groups tomorrow.
Radar has the details of the first suit brought against massage enthusiast Jeffrey Epstein in court (in November Epstein decided to take his chances and forgo a plea bargain. Ballsy. I like it.) The plaintiff, “Jane Doe,” is seeking $50 million from the Palm Beach billionaire. Unfortunately, it’s for pretty standard-issue Epstein stuff, and at no time mentions a transsexual named Maximilian. I’ve anticipated how disappointed DealBreaker readers will be to hear this news, and have enclosed a little treat which you’ll get shortly. First, the complaint from JD: the girl was underage, lured to Epstein’s house by personal assistant Sarah Kellan under the pretense of “giv[ing] a wealthy man a massage for monetary compensation” while wearing only a towel, forced to stand there awkwardly while Epstein masturbated into a towel, and sometimes be touched with a purple vibrator. On several occasions she was asked to bring friends. Now, the treat:
- Use the Bloomberg command
NH BLG_DEALBREAKER <GO>
to access Dealbreaker
