“Thanks For Not Running” (Bloomberg)
Sean Swift, of JP Morgan, won the Corp Challenge this week in Central Park, and thereafter fired off this text to his pal: “Thanks for not running this year,” Swift, 24, wrote to his friend Karl Dusen, an analyst at American International Group Inc. who took the title in 2006, 2007 and 2008. “Maybe now I’ll get a bonus.”
Lewis Defends Merrill Deal (WSJ)
“Despite being pummeled by Congress, shareholders and other critics, Mr. Lewis likely isn’t stepping down anytime soon. “I don’t see anyone who could be doing a better job of leading this organization at this time,” said Walter Massey, Bank of America’s chairman.”
AIG Balks At Claims From Hudson Crash (NYT)
AIG is dragging its ass in paying the claims from the downed plane, it appears. The article attributes much of their slow response to the general perception that the crew handled the incident so well, explaining it’s hard to find fault in their actions when everyone considers them heroes.
BlackRock To Acquire Stake In Barclays Unit (NYT)
“BlackRock said Thursday night that it had agreed to buy Barclays Global Investors from the British banking giant Barclays for about $13.5 billion in one of the largest deals in the money management industry, creating a juggernaut with nearly $3 trillion in assets.”
Paulson & Co. Goes Long Distressed Debt/Mortgage Securities (Bloomberg)
Paulson & Co. is dumping a hefty little chunk of change into jumbo prime securitizations and distressed opportunities (including banks and finance companies). While not in direct contrast to his shorting of the subprime market in general, it could mark the fund manager’s belief that the market is turning (if only slowly).
Soros: Ban Credit Default Swaps (Guardian)
“Some derivatives ought not to be allowed to be traded at all. I have in mind credit default swaps. The more I’ve heard about them, the more I’ve realised they’re truly toxic…CDS are instruments of destruction which ought to be outlawed,” Soros told a meeting of the Institute of International Finance.
Mortgage Delinquencies May Have Peaked (Reuters)
“Among U.S. homeowners with mortgages, 7.01 percent were at least 30 days late on their loans in May, an increase of 58.4 percent from a year ago and up 1.3 percent from the prior month, according to monthly data by Equifax Inc. By comparison, 4.42 percent were delinquent in May 2008.”
Japan Probes Report Two Seized With Undeclared Bonds (Bloomberg)
“Japan is investigating reports two of its citizens were detained in Italy after allegedly attempting to take $134 billion worth of U.S. bonds over the border into Switzerland.”
Riverstone, Cuomo Come To A Deal (WSJ)
“Both firms have agreed to a new code of conduct. Under that code, Carlyle and Riverstone agreed not to use placement agents, or middlemen who earn fees by securing pension business for investment funds. Riverstone and Carlyle also agreed to restrictions on campaign contributions to officials who control pension-fund money.”
prince william, why did you miss this gem?
http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/06/bonds-in-question.html#links
@1- because it’s a bull shit story, which is how you can explain zh putting another post up a bit later saying “yeah, probably fake.”
re Sorors/CDS
Yeah, good idea. Ban insurance too – the whole idea. And while we are at it, ban stupidity – that should help.
Mary Thompson: “Czar sounds socialist.”
bitchy gaylord @2
if its good enough for bloomberg, its definitely good enough for db
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=a3Yvk_JGbfL4
@2 prince william pls do not comment under ‘guest’
5:04 pace takes that thing down? C’mon…
Banning stupidity is not a bad idea. Insurance calculates actuarial/probabilistic risk, a lot like gambling. In both cases the house ultimately wins while the players get paid off occasionally. You can look it up. It’s a good deal. Has anyone really got CDSs figured out? Jus’ askin’ …
where did the $ 134 b come from? was it a birthday gift for steve cohen, the gdp of canada, timothy sykes weekly earnings, a payment fron n-korea to russia, did they buy belgium?
was it madoffs profits?
was it the consulting fee japan paid to ‘the clown from delaware’ to advise them on matters of national security?
@7 – that’s what I was thinking. back in the day when I ran that thing, I posted a 16:42 and wasn’t in the top 5…wtf? I may have to lace up next year.
Anyone heard of elixio? I keep getting emails to join, but don’t know if it’s truly exclusive
@3 – CDS aren’t insurance you moron. Nice blanket oversimplification showing your lack of knowledge. Clearly, you and Joe Cassano are in the same category…surprising since he’s a graduate of Brooklyn College and all. Where’d you go? Talent like that doesn’t come cheap. Try reading the language in a CDS, its amazing what counts as a ‘default.’ Back to your daytrading desk.
@3 if it really was insurance, they would have had to have their liabilities backed by assets…so either ban them or institute a capital requirement
@13 i once was member of a truly exclusive club. how did i know? because they referred to me as client #5
@5
Well shame on Bloomberg for not doing their homework.
Scams like this one have been going on for years. In fact, the Fed had issued warnings so people and governments don’t get trapped in such scams. Here’s one such warning:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boardDocs/SRLetters/2003/sr0314.htm
A few commentators at Zero Hedge debunked this incident in a couple of hours. However, right wing tin foil hat wearers like EP (aka Marla) will have a tough time admitting that they have wasted so much time on this. Their conspiracy theories about this incident were ridiculous, but they refused to consider as most likely, that the paper was fake. The Philippines is a good source for these fake notes, if you want some.
Guest@#11…
‘the clown from delaware’ = Joe Biden = TCFD. I like it.
Guest@#4…
Mary Thompson: “Czar sounds socialist.”
TGFD used to be neutral toward Ms. Thompson. Now I think she is vapid.
The Guy from Delaware
p.s. TGFD is with Soros on that CDS business. No surprise, really.
Guest@#14…
“Try reading the language in a CDS, its amazing what counts as a ‘default.’”
How about a sample of some of that “language”. TGFD may not be the only one here who’d like to see it.
Thanks.
The Guy from Delaware
@14
Agree, the misconception of CDS equals insurance is widespread.
CDS, as private contract, have no regulatory constraints on what they cover, the needs for reserve, payment requirements and other details that conventional insurance provide.
In fact, as private contracts, the text of a CDS doesn’t have to be divulged by the parties involved. It’s a bonanza for lawyers who write them.
Has anybody ever produced the actual text of a CDS involving AIG and Goldman Sachs, for which the taxpayer foot the bill at 100%?
Ban Soros, stfu you senile weirdo
(yea yea I know I know)
@12, cluzo, your excellence in all that you undertake continues to amaze. I recall that you comment on golf at times. Let me guess, +2 handicap at aome place like Shinnecock.
@22
cluzo is a star – he also holds the worldrecord for undergoing a2m’s, over 50 in 6 hours if i’m not mistaken..
TGFD – the language is often not boilerplate and there are many various conditions that can trigger “default” in a CDS contract (bankruptcy, bond rating reduction, even missing just one payment sometimes requires payment of the whole contract). The point is, that insurance is heavily regulated by states that have huge bodies of law on what insurance providers can/can’t do. CDS are simply contracts. Our friends at the Wall Street law firms do a good job of conjuring these things up.
An example of a scam involving alleged $500 million Federal Reserve notes:
Federal authorities charged a Dallas woman in connection with a scam to sell billions of dollars in fraudulent Federal Reserve notes, including some with a face value of $500 million.
Maria Victoria Hoffman, 48, and two California men were part of a network that tried to market the fake notes to investors across the country, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said Monday.
“You would think the half billion dollar denomination would be a dead giveaway that these notes are fake, but people are nevertheless taken in,” Jennifer Silliman, special agent in charge for ICE’s office of investigations in Los Angeles, said in a written statement. “For investors, the bottom line needs to be, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/022608dnmetcounterfeit.38c632b.html
The criminal was claiming that the notes were stored in Switzerland, the same country the “Japanese” mules were heading to from Italy.
All you guys is weird.
Guests@#20, #24…
Thank you for your comments about CDS contracts. They’ve been helpful to me and hopefully to others.
It’s no secret that TGFD thinks CDSs are bad, should be heavily regulated like insurance products, should be traded sparingly, they shouldn’t be like warrants (per Soros), and they shouldn’t outnumber the underlying bond by 10X.
I don’t know a whole lot about CDSs (no secret either), but whatever I do know and whatever I’ve heard about them is almost all bad.
The most egregious thing of all is the AIG payout of taxpayer dollars at 100% to GS, to the tune of , was it $25 Billion? TGFD’s ass is thoroughly frosted by that one.
The Guy from Delaware
@22/@23 – you’re (not “your”) both in the running for a$$hat of the year. if you could read, you would have noticed that I wasn’t in the top 5 (how is that excellence?). perhaps you should aim higher. as for golf handicap, definitely not +2 range – but would happily play you straight up (mr. big shot)…
@28 all that “play you straight up” talk gives off very homosexual vibes…
@29 spoken like a fag
-not 28
@30
you got a problem with that?
-homo banker
@30 – well said. clearly @29 is projecting latent tendencies…
cluzo you suck.
@33 – is that the best you got?
- not Cluzo
- not @30
cluzo you remind me of tgfd
@33 – I know you’re my ex-gf. it’s been months, get over me, please.
@35 – while slightly more creative than @33, you need better material (do you read tgfd’s posts – can you read?).
Somebody said AIG’s CDS business was like “picking up nickels ahead of a steamroller.” I think it would be a good business model if you never intended to pay off in the first place and you could stash the premiums and your ass on some extrajurisidictional tropical island.
cluzo, your dick is smaller then steve cohen’s foreskin. I was fucking random streetvendors during our entire relation, still it didnt make me want to go back to you.
- your ex girlfriend
TGFD is with Soros – “no surprise really”
Here’s a tip: When you see someone making idiotic statements out of his own pure self-interest, don’t be so quick to jump on his bandwagon.
CDS provide a valuable benefit. Period. Markets that provide no ability to hedge are not really markets at all. Forcing CDS holders to be long the debt is also stupid, and removes liquidity from the market, likewise neutralizing the hedging benefit.
If, on the other hand, you & Soros wanted to push for transparency, via a central CDS clearinghouse so that it’s obvious who’s playing games, intelligent folks could agree with that.
@38 – ahaha…nice try, shall I post the text you sent me two weeks ago about missing my…? I saved it to show to your friends. the great part is that you can’t fake a text (unless you work for the phone co).
SOROS what the FUCK
SOROS what the FUCK
Cluzo@#40…
TGFD thought you were a happily-married, family man with a house, mortgage, kids, etc.
I always got the impression that you were stable.
WTF is all that “gf” trash you are talking?
The Guy from Delaware
Porker@#39…
If “transparency, via a central CDS clearinghouse” would clean up the CDSs, then TGFD is for it. I’ve heard that before, but I didn’t think to write it on my list in #27.
I said earlier that TGFD is not an expert on CDSs, but I do realize that Soros is a self-serving f’k. I was surprised that he came out against CDSs, though.
The Guy from Delaware
tgfd@43 – happily single (how else could I play so much golf?), with a mortgage, no kids (as far as I know) and no dog. as for the gf, I lose my senses every so often (after all, a man’s gotta eat)! glad to hear you think I’m “stable”…
@7 and Cluzo:
15k runners, and these schmoes wouldn’t beat the freaking high school kids who blow by me in weekend races. Those fuckers drop sub 16′s on a regular basis. Somebody tell these two guys to kill those Olympic dreams now, if you are 24 and aren’t turning out sub 15s, you don’t have a chance.
-Nominate me, dream killer
Cluzo@#45…
TGFD thought you ‘were’ stable. Now? Not too sure.
The Guy from Delaware
Nom me@46 – exactly! there’s a reason I’m a banker. sub 5 minute miles are a dime a dozen in the “real” running world. someone needs to tell these kids to wake up – it’s like telling your child (s)he can sing when you know (s)he can’t (anyone see the try outs for american idol? that $hit is sad)…
tgfd@47 – c’mon man. does marriage prove anything? I know plenty of guys who are already divorced (or cheating on their wives). the fact that they were (are) married doesn’t make them any more stable than me. at least I own a home – that’s got to count for some stability (right?).
As someone who has consistently asked for more Paulson, I have been overjoyed with all the Paulson news I have seen this week. However, at the risk of sounding greedy I would remind you that Paulson is like cowbell, you can never have enough so keep it coming.
@49- Golf clap for you devotion to this cause.