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According to our vibrant tip-line:
[JP Morgan] open-sourced the CDS analytics engine because no one remembers which precise version of the “binaries” (compield source) code was originally handed over to Bloomberg to fuel the CDSW page. Seriously.
Earlier: Open Source CDS Analytics?
Via proxy! While we can’t get you up in Bernie Madoff’s grill (yet), we are offering Dealbreaker readers the opportunity to ask one of the Ponz. Master’s minions, “WTF were you thinking?” or something along those lines. Here’s the deal: a friend of DB, who is an investor in one of the Madoff feeder funds, is meeting with his firm in the near future, mostly to discuss them losing all his money. But he’s also graciously offered to pose any questions you people might have, time permitting. We won’t name the fund, on the off-chance they put 2 and 2 together, though you can probably guess. We’ll take the five best questions and forward them on (and provide a full report with Q’s and A’s once we have them). Real queries should be e-mailed here, ones that will categorically not be asked left in comments (to protect our devoted investor from inadvertent disclosure).
CNBC reports that managing directors in UBS’s investment management division will receive neither cash nor stock in ’09. As for 2010? Bonuses shall be 100 percent stock, with a three year vesting period attached to 1/3 of the package. AND if UBS has a loss over those three years, clawbacks will ensue.
Related: Bonus Watch ’09: BAC Get Bupkis
The Kind Of Perverse Genius Only The Swiss Could Develop
Everyone’s favorite she-males are safe and sound. We’re told the firetrucks at 72 Cummings Point Road earlier this morning were sent back from whence they came, when whatever caused the scare– and we have our unconfirmed guesses, natch– was deemed “a false alarm.” Also, supposedly it wasn’t 7 trucks but merely 1, a point we’re going to have to contest. When it comes to the big guy, you don’t take chances. The Stamford Fire (/Police/Pastry) Department knows this.
Announcer (in the most ridiculous announcer-ly voice I’ve ever heard): Please welcome Briannnnn Moynihannnnn, president of global banking and global wealth and investment management!
- We have to stay focused on our clients.
- How did I get here? In the old days I was a lawyer [goes through all the other jobs he's had since then], and then they asked me to do this.
- A transition of this magnitude has never been attempted
- One of the toughest markets any of us will ever face in our business careers
- People keep telling me, like the old baseball adage, “Wait til next year.” But we have to keep performing.
- We’ve had to reduce staffing, which was unpleasant.
- We’ve had to reduce compensation
- We’ve had to defer compensation
- We’ve had too many media stories
Let’s talk about our accomplishments:
- We stabilized the mortgage market when we bought Countrywide
- We’ve created a great franchise with Merrill Lynch
- We’ve lost the superlatives to describe to clients how to navigate the markets. That’s why we need Mr. Sontag.
Turns the mic to Sontag.
- Introduces a bunch of names, one of whom is described as “the guy who gave me all my bad ideas.” Nelson Chai, etc.
- You, our team, bring our services to our clients.
- You do it, by leaving nothing to chance.
- The press is fascinated with everything we do.
- People are questioning our integrity and our ability to do business…[what I have to say to them] is, we made 4 billion dollars last year.
- Some guy named Bruce, head of capital markets, talks about Q4
- I don’t want to talk a lot about Q4, cause it was ugly.
- At a time when they (who are you calling ‘they’?) said banks weren’t lending, WE DID
- It’s more strategically compelling than ever for bringing BAC and MER together.
[A bunch of guys are trotted out in a dog and pony show, made to say what new and exciting things they have in the hopper for '09]
So these quotes sound made up but, per the Post, sources claim that Bernie Madoff has been complaining about the stringent terms of his house arrest at 133 East 64th Street. Supposedly the Ponz. Master has been telling anyone who’ll listen “I can’t go anywhere! I’m stuck here all day!” My fave gripe is probably the one about how it’s not fair that he can’t even run to the corner deli for something to nosh on. But it gets worse. The problem solvers in the group will likely suggest that there’s nothing left to do but JO&C with a little YouPorn to pass the time but he can’t even do that. Private contractors are apparently installing wiretaps on the penthouse’s phones and computers, meaning, as a person close to the situation points out, “If he surfs the Web…it’s going to be tracked.”
Long or Short Capital has penned a missive on Chairman Peterson’s anti-CDS legislation that bears reading.
It’s about time that someone put together a way to stop the CDS market cold in its tracks. The instrument’s ability to provide hedging for companies’ debt, improved liquidity in names, and more accurate information about the health of issuers is not only dangerous, but it’s overtly capitalistic (they might as well be called Credit Default Ronald Reagans), which we now know to be a mistake. A healthy economy doesn’t need an unfettered free market system — what it needs is a regulated command economy that ensures that houses (and everything else) are always affordable, especially for people that can’t afford them and that politicians are always in control of all economic and financial processess.
This particular zimbabwenomic reform comes from the chairman of one the most progressive committees in the house, and hopefully he and fellow zimbabwenomicist Barney Frank can push forward appropriate regulation of all markets, specifically, regulation that will prevent them from going down.
Between this and a repeat of the Hawley-Smoot legislation, we are in for good times over the next decade.
The big JD leaves town for a few days to pontificate and ski and the office just melts down and starts giving away critical intellectual capital. Boy is he going to be mad when he gets back.
In this particular case, to the gleeful joy of finance geeks everywhere, JP Morgan has assigned ownership of its Credit Default Swap Analytical Engine to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, which plans to make it available as open source. That’s pretty sexy.
“J.P. Morgan has invested a lot of intellectual capital in this analytical engine. Its willingness to assign this to ISDA for us to make it available as open source to the entire industry demonstrates our collective commitment to the integrity of the CDS product,” said Robert Pickel, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, ISDA. “ISDA and its members are vigilant to public concerns around transparency. This is yet another measure of increased standardization in CDS.”
ISDA Announces Agreement [IDSA.org] via Alea
JP Morgan has “plenty of capital,” thank you very much.
And if you people don’t stop talking about this nationalization thing, you are going to fuck the whole thing up for us. Someone should just rewrite Basel II, make a nice speech about it and get the hell out of our way. I mean seriously.
Plus, we are the only people lending (to our related entities). So enough with this “you better start lending again” crap. You going to come up here and make me?
Anyhow, are we done yet? I’ve got some skiing I’d like to do.
JP Morgan says has ‘plenty of capital’ [Reuters]
There are apparently 7 fire trucks outside SAC headquarters in Stamford. We’ll keep you posted.
