• 15 Jul 2008 at 5:57 PM

Write-Offs: 07.15.08

$$$ The Fed Limited Short-Selling Fannie, Freddie and Lehman. Will it work? [Deal Journal]
$$$ John Devaney’s yacht rechristened “Espresso III” [1-2]
$$$ Are you a tattooed/goth/punk I-banker or stockbroker? [craigslist]
$$$ The SEC Mandated Debate + Prohibition On Short Selling=Government Sponsored Market Tyranny/Only Chance In Hell To Bottom [TimothySykes]
$$$ That Bush press conference no one cared about [CNN Money]

Comments (48)

  1. Posted by NotNasser | July 15, 2008 at 5:55 PM

    Thank god. Tim-may will explain it all to us now. Gee, and I was worried there for a moment that things were skidding out of control.

  2. Posted by guest | July 15, 2008 at 5:59 PM

    I know that I did a lot of drinking last week, but I do not remember hiring Erin Callan. I did do a bit of “interviewing” and I’m trying to recall the day-to-day details, but it’s pretty fuzzy.
    I hope I don’t regret this.
    –Calgary Schmooze

  3. Posted by TimothySykes | July 15, 2008 at 6:00 PM

    You’re damn right I’m gonna give my view on this regulatory bullshit! Don’t make me brag about how I was the #1 ranked short selling hedge fund manager 2003-2006. Oops, too late! :)

  4. Posted by guest | July 15, 2008 at 6:01 PM

    @ calgary– would’ve been funnier if you’d signed it ‘brady dougan’

  5. Posted by AJ | July 15, 2008 at 6:03 PM

    If this new regulation rids the world of Tim Sykes, I’m for it

  6. Posted by TimothySykes | July 15, 2008 at 6:16 PM

    sorry AJ, I buy stocks too, gotta adapt to profit from all environments/regulations…
    and why would you wanna rid the world of lil ole me? I’m just trying to cut through the BS and open this game up to the little guys…or maybe have I struck a nerve where you make your money from propagating such BS/shitting on those little guys? If so, I look forward to ridding the world of you dinosaurs

  7. Posted by guest | July 15, 2008 at 6:17 PM

    Lil’ Tim, doesn’t the shtick get tiring? Not trying to wound your fragile little ego here, just asking.

  8. Posted by TimothySykes | July 15, 2008 at 6:21 PM

    Fuck my ego and fuck you too…this is about freedom to use whatever strategy you want, especially those that people look down upon all due to assumptions. Go check out my verified trades on Covestor, maybe that’ll help teach you why I’m so determined:
    http://www.covestor.com/rankings/portfolio?perf=risk&q=tgr&tf=si

  9. Posted by guest | July 15, 2008 at 7:01 PM

    Timmy-baiting has almost reached the level of a sport. Of course, it’s far too easy, because he bites too often.

  10. Posted by guest | July 15, 2008 at 7:03 PM

    lol
    i like this guy timmys approach.
    no rulez~!
    fuck it. while we’re at it, get rid off rule 144, reg d, reg s, margin requirements…
    timmeh gotta gets paid!
    timmeh~!

  11. Posted by guest | July 15, 2008 at 7:05 PM

    KLW, it is unfair (or retarded?) to simply read the headlines as interpreted by far left wingers to start denouncing stuff.
    Did you actually read through the thing. The key phrase (emphasis added by HHS) was -
    “The Department proposes, then, to allow individuals and institutions to adhere to their own views and adopt a definition of abortion that encompasses both views of abortion.”
    That is abhorrent – letter individuals and institutions adhere to their own views?
    Somewhere in the crusade of imagining that Bush (as an agent of the crazy right wing) is imposing some views on everyone, I think you have forgotten that the left has ALREADY imposed its views on everyone else and assumed that to be the baseline.
    So we are to pre-assume that punitive redistributive taxation is good, abortion is good, guns are bad, unions are good, government is good.
    If anything, the right wing resurgence has managed to shake people’s belief in these self-evident truths of the left and let people chose an alternative for themselves. Be it chosing whether to go to public school or not, be it chosing whether to be a part of a union or not, be it chosing whether to patronize private charities of government institutions, be it whether to let your own community chose to keep firearms or not.
    Is that what you leftists hate so much – the fact that people may freely chose things which do not jive with YOUR worldview?

  12. Posted by guest | July 15, 2008 at 7:06 PM

    lol
    i like this guy timmys approach.
    no rulez~!
    fuck it. while we’re at it, get rid off rule 144, reg d, reg s, margin requirements…
    timmeh gotta gets paid!
    timmeh~!

  13. Posted by guest | July 15, 2008 at 7:06 PM

    Ahh.. damn typos…

  14. Posted by JorgeCad | July 15, 2008 at 7:14 PM

    I actually met the jerk, John Devaney. Arrogance personified. I met up on his boat, believe it or not he called it “Forward Carry”(Or something arrogant like that).
    Lectured me for about half an hour how carry trades work. I said nothing, except, what happens when the market turns.
    This jerk deserves to go down in flames.
    geo

  15. Posted by TimothySykes | July 15, 2008 at 7:15 PM

    rules are not only fine, they are necessary, but when the SEC tries to step in and help, exposing thm as the ignorant, incompetent, lobbyist whipping boys they are, we gotta speak up cuz shit ain’t right

  16. Posted by I am a Dude | July 15, 2008 at 7:20 PM

    put a sock in it sykes.
    if we wanted to hear you rant and froth at the mouth we’d go to sniveling site.
    stay off DB, nobody wants hear you here.

  17. Posted by JimBob | July 15, 2008 at 7:34 PM

    That party barge would be called “Naked Shorts” if I owned it, but realistically I could not even afford to pay for a fill up on that bad boy.

  18. Posted by guest | July 15, 2008 at 7:54 PM

    Look back at the HHS statement, nowhere does it DENY any choice to anyone – if anything it only talks of letting individuals adhere to their own definition.
    So for starters – on face value – I am yet to see what was wrong with that. HuffPo assumed that statement to implicitly have some evil connotation simply because it came from an agency under the Bush administration, and you chose to pick up that version and amplify it here – while berating the remaining 6 months of Bush’s term.
    This particular issue is probably on of the most vexing ones, and ‘pro-choice’ is simply a political label which has nothing to do with expression of ‘choice’ regarding the underlying issue (same is the case – partly – with ‘pro-life’).
    I confess that I started off as someone firmly in the ‘pro-choice’ camp. However, in an ever changing medical world, there are deep ethical issues involved which a simple slogan like ‘choice’ cannot cover.
    For example, an infant a month old cannot survive without adult support. So can the adult in-charge ‘chose’ to terminate the infant’s life?
    Compare that to the case of an ‘embryo’ at 6 months. Given advances in medical procedures, the embryo can be separated and very much kept alive without ANY involvement of the mother. In effect, the 6-month old embryo is no different from the month old infant.
    So should the mother be allowed to terminate the infant in this second case? Is this decision simply classifiable as ‘choice’?
    Also, given constant advances in medical technologies, very soon it may be possible to fully sustain embryos 3,2,1 month old without any involvement of the mother.
    So at what point do you draw the line between whether the embro is a human or not? Are overworked, tired and ill single mothers holders of the ‘choice’ to terminate their 2 month old infants? Is that even an individual ‘choice’?
    I do not claim to know or have a crytal clear defensible position on this. However, I do believe that claiming that this highly complex ethical issue which involves 2 lives can be simplified to being the matter of personal choice of 1 individual is an oversimplification, and fatally so.

  19. Posted by trojan | July 15, 2008 at 7:56 PM

    i am a tattooed i-banker. street cred goes far with my crew. just dont get some ugly chinese shit.

  20. Posted by guest | July 15, 2008 at 7:57 PM

    And just to loop back there were 2 issues here.
    1) The statement by HHS nowhere hinted that it was taking away any ‘choice.’ If anything it furthered ‘choice’ as per the clearest and most straightforward interpretation (I cannot comment on what the ‘evil hidden’ connotation might be)
    2) I do not think that what you claim to be your ‘choice’ in the second post is really just an individual ‘choice.’ Rationale explained in the above post.

  21. Posted by guest | July 15, 2008 at 8:13 PM

    7:54 here again,
    HuffPo seems to have edited the initial entry and changed the emphasized part (wierd, they said they didn’t add it initially?).
    Anyways, I quoted the HHS statement above at 7:54. And here is the HuffPo conclusion
    “Most dangerously, perhaps, this new rule establishes a legal precedent that may eventually be used as a basis for banning the most popular forms of birth control along with what is, in fact, abortion”
    First, it was not any ‘rule’ but a recommendation. Secondly, how ‘letting individuals and institutions adhere to there own definition’ is equivalent to ‘basis for banning popular forms of birth control’ is simply completely beyond. It defies elementary logic.
    Your infrequent posts tend to show you as someone reasonably sharp. However, irrespective of where your views lie in the abortion debate, picking this gem a baseless illogical conclusion up without reasoning through it yourself is sad.
    And then you chose to make a snide hit on Bush. Whatever wrong the guy may have done, this was hardly anything he deserved to be hit for. Bush Derangement Syndrome is full view.

  22. Posted by guest | July 15, 2008 at 9:22 PM

    @ 7:54
    The issue of when life begins is a very complex and personal mattter. I believe the issue of whether to terminate a pregnancy is personal choice. Merely because a fetus may survuve outside the womb does not mean the government should substitute it’s view for the individuals choice.
    As a practical matter a 6-month old embryo is very different from month old infant. Try about $2 million dollars different. A baby born at 22 – 24 weeks is barely viable and will need to spend about 2-4 months in an incubator at a NICU (neonatal intensive care). If the baby survives it will have long term developmental and physical problems. Further, what about when a woman terminates because she finds out that her baby is going to be born with severe mental/physical disabilities. If this child is brought to term the mother will suffer severe economic consequences (amongst other consequences). In the previous scenerio’s is the governmemt going to provide for the long term care of these infants (probably close to $20 million over the course of their life time).
    As long as the cost (pysical,mental,emotional, economical) is left up to the individual mother and as long as the choice to have sex is left up to the individual then the choice of whether to terminate
    is best left up to the indiviudal.
    Finally, as a real practical point banning abortion is like bannig prostitution. Neither is effective demand for the service. It merely causes the seekers and providers of the service to go undergroud.

  23. Posted by guest | July 15, 2008 at 9:32 PM

    What happened to WallStrip? Did they not do it today?

  24. Posted by Bulging Bracket | July 15, 2008 at 9:37 PM

    Yacht was positive carrry… mentioned a few times here and on 1-2, do keep up. Devaney being a douche… how unsurprising.
    Timmay – go to your room and sit in the corner, you’re on a time out!
    From CL – “somewhat lame at math, but good at intuitively understanding trends” you’ll be BRILLIANT at breaking into finance at 46!!! Er, wait. She should just parlay the anthro and interest in finance into marketing advisory services. She could be the Paco Underhill of financial sevices. Cause otherwise… you kind of have to be good at math, even if you can let the underlings do it when you’ve made it.

  25. Posted by guest | July 16, 2008 at 12:28 AM

    So what does everyone think of the emperor’s new clothes?

  26. Posted by guest | July 16, 2008 at 12:49 AM

    check out the file name-
    http://tinyurl.com/67h2uk

  27. Posted by guest | July 16, 2008 at 1:24 AM

    Hmmmm. Somone is dedicatedly outing BL today.

  28. Posted by guest | July 16, 2008 at 1:28 AM

    Yup that certainly seems like bl. theres the jew-ey nose and we’ve seen those manhands before. Result of years of playing field hockey (as I saw in the earlier picture posted this evening on the erin callan thead that was taken down)?

  29. Posted by guest | July 16, 2008 at 1:30 AM

    that hand actually looks pretty small but it couldn’t be her b/c the nails are painted.

  30. Posted by guest | July 16, 2008 at 1:31 AM

    Posted by guest, Jul 15, 2008 11:52PM
    the Levin stalkfest continues. was this one taken at the bat mitzvah?
    http://tinyurl.com/5cvjql

  31. Posted by guest | July 16, 2008 at 1:33 AM

    you people hve an absurd amount of time on your hands. get lives, please.

  32. Posted by guest | July 16, 2008 at 1:36 AM

    someone is wet

  33. Posted by guest | July 16, 2008 at 2:25 AM

    Everything will be fine if Citi bring back the umbrella.

  34. Posted by guest | July 16, 2008 at 2:57 AM

    @2:25AM
    Love you umbrella comment!
    Under my umbrella…..ella ella ella, eh.

  35. Posted by guest | July 16, 2008 at 6:25 AM

    Mar’97//Citi with no umberella//share price 16 ish
    Apr’98//Citi gets red umbrella/ share price 30.59
    Decade of red umberlla glory
    Feb’07//Chuckles Prince scraps umbrella// share price 50.37
    Jul’08//Citi with no umbrella//share price 14ish, party likes its 1997

  36. Posted by guest | July 16, 2008 at 6:26 AM

    Sorry umbrella

  37. Posted by guest | July 16, 2008 at 6:38 AM

    Note:
    The immense power of the umberlla may only exist within the metal one that used to be in Tribeca as Travellers has slumped too.
    My bet is the a shady cabal of Washington insiders (or a hedge fund) have discovered its awesome power and a keeping it somewhere.
    If you want America’s children to eat we need to find that umbrella and put it out front of the Fed.

  38. Posted by guest | July 16, 2008 at 6:54 AM

    the umbrella was my port in the storm

  39. Posted by guest | July 16, 2008 at 6:54 AM

    the umbrella was my port in the storm

  40. Posted by guest | July 16, 2008 at 6:54 AM

    the umbrella was my port in the storm

  41. Posted by guest | July 16, 2008 at 6:56 AM


    Posted by AJ, Jul 15, 2008 6:03PM
    If this new regulation rids the world of Tim Sykes, I’m for it”
    agreed!

  42. Posted by guest | July 16, 2008 at 6:57 AM

    sykes, what would it take to make you go away? name your price.

  43. Posted by guest | July 16, 2008 at 7:00 AM

    July 16 (Bloomberg) — Gordon Brown says he wants the brightest people in the world to come live in Britain. Unless they are Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Michael Dell, all of whom would be excluded under the government’s new immigration rules.

  44. Posted by guest | July 16, 2008 at 7:01 AM

    drop outs

  45. Posted by Bugs Meany | July 16, 2008 at 8:35 AM

    I still don’t get the relevance of Arianna Huffington. What does this bitch know about anything?

  46. Posted by guest | July 16, 2008 at 8:40 AM

    I smell a catfight.

  47. Posted by guest | July 16, 2008 at 9:38 AM

    @8:35 – she doesn’t know much but nothing like a woman scorned. She was exposed as a beard and now is using ex-hubby’s money to try to prove to herself that by existing, she is somehow relevant to the rest of us.

  48. Posted by guest | July 16, 2008 at 12:32 PM

    It’s not her ex-husband’s money which is backing HuffPost; she has a private backer who is content to lose money in the short-term as the site builds.
    I not quite sure why, but I find her incredibly obnoxious.

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