$$$ New York Forum: The New, More Focused Davos? [HuffingtonPost]
$$$ What Makes Banks Fail [TBM]
$$$ Bill Gates Supports Bank Fees [ABC News]
$$$ Katie Benner: The Fall Of A Hedge Fund Wunderkind [Fortune]
$$$ Minnesota Ponzi-Schemer Jailed for Refusing to Relinquish Submarine, Concert Tickets [NYM]
$$$ Amaranth’s Fish-Boy Engaged in Fraud, FERC Judge Says [Bloomberg]
$$$ The company’s dark-suited, bespectacled chief executive, Mark H. Bell, describes one of the Web sites, GetItOn.com, as a fast-growing new site that allows people to text search and “type in a sentence like, ‘I’m looking for people who ride motorcycles.’ ” Or, you know, ‘cock.’ [WSJ]
$$$ Jim Chanos: Actually, We’re Not Betting Against China [BI]
Archive for January 2010
Testicle bombers can apparently board planes freely despite being on terrorist watchlists and after having been reported to the CIA, but dammit, AIG emails will get a national security status.
Over the last year or so, homeless Twizzlers spokesman Lenny Dykstra has found out who his true friends are. Who he can count on and who he can’t. In the latter category, you can put basically everyone in his life, including but in no way limited to his ex-wife, Terri, JPMorgan née Washington Mutual, who Nails says is “responsible for me losing $38 million” due to predatory lending, and Jim Cramer, who put a curse on LD’s head by calling him “one of the greats,” fired him from his gig at the TheStreet.com, and then didn’t so much as make L-Dyks a low-ball pity offer on the toilet and other bathroom fixtures (including a gold-plated swan stripped off the tub) he ripped out of his house the day he was thrown out. So it was nice to hear that there’s still one person LD can still count on to offer a shoulder to cry on and a twenty to cover a couple hours with a no frills hooker who gets the job done.
For more than 20 years, Dykstra, 46, lived huge as a self-described “robes-and-room-service kind of guy” who gained notoriety in recent years as a stock guru who wrote an investment column for TheStreet.com. In an April 2009 article in GQ magazine, photo editor Kevin Coughlin described how he met Dykstra in his $2,500-a-night suite at the Carlyle hotel in New York while interviewing for a position on The Players Club, Dykstra’s now-defunct luxury magazine for professional athletes.
If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times. Rest assured that this coming April, when we finally get to see Shia LaBeouf in Money Never Sleeps, we can breathe easy knowing that this will not be the performance of some two-bit actor who knows nothing about Wall Street but a market moving BSD who’s sucked it all in and is currently deciding whether his next project will be a rom-com, running a Citadel spin-off Ken Griffin’s dying to land him for, or starting his own shop (potential investors: act quickly and he’ll trim his fees for the first $2bn in AUM with an 8-year lockup). Not only does the Level 1 CFA candidate have his own E*Trade account, read the Wall Street Journal every single day, trade on his cell phone, have Bloomberg on speed dial and “lots of friends in lots of places,” but he’s been briefed on what’s considered a dealbreaker when it comes to landing a coveted gig with Goldman Sachs. And now, he wants to share that wisdom with you.
I’m not sure what Bove’s been on this weekend, but it looks like something good.
The Rochdale analyst, in a rage and megalomania-infused report released today, predicts a new huge market crash if politicos don’t put their shit together, and soon.
On the Democratic side, there’s a “Venezuelan Style Democracy.”
Hugo Chavez maintains himself in power as Venezuela’s President by following a simple path: He constantly attacks the moneyed classes charging them with creating that nation’s problems. In so doing he keeps the population in a constant state of anger over the fact that it must be made to suffer due to the actions of the rich and what were once the powerful.
In the United States a similar style of Democracy is being crafted by its leaders: It is being argued that the moneyed classes of Wall Street have created the financial crisis through greed and fraud.
And on the Republican side, it’s not much better:
I don’t think I have to tell any of you that working at Citi, particularly over the last year or so and especially if one is the CEO, can be kind of a bitch. Obviously Uncle Vik knows what we’re talking about. Still, those closest to him know a few never fail tricks for getting Pandit to give us a smile. A pony ride around the lobby. A tickle of his vickles. A visit to the set of Two Coreys. A desktop Zen Garden for him to practice raking sand on until the real thing comes through. Nothing gets VP to bust out a wide one, though, like a surprise lunch order from his favorite restaurant, Sylvia’s. Crain’s reported yesterday that the head of the Big C is a huge fan of the Queen of Soul Food, so much so that he placed an order from the restaurant for forty executives visiting his office last week. Since we count ourselves among those who like our Vikram jolly and round, we obviously had to get in touch with Syl to find out what the Pandito Special entails, so that we might keep it on file, and call in the order as a li’l pick-me-up on a particularly low day for VP.
Brothers in arms Timmy G. and Ben B. will stand for each other ’til the end. In an interview with Politico, Timmy boy warned that the financial markets would react negatively, Armageddon will come and there will be locust showers if Ben isn’t confirmed.
So there you go. He warned you. In the meantime, there’s no word from Ben supporting Tim in anticipation of his testimony, Wednesday about his (non-)involvement in the AIG saga.
“In all my years of living in New York I’ve never whipped out my phone to take a picture of any celeb (CNBC or otherwise), but there was something about Kneale– couldn’t look away.”
Had dinner with a few Citi friends (VP’s and associates) this weekend and the story is as follows. Apparently Citi will tell the public they paid a significant portion of the compensation in stock (~20-30% in cash and the rest stock) and not cash.
The reality is that 70-80% of it will be in cash or stock with very short vesting (April 2010). They expect so many employees to be selling stock that they are analyzing having someone in the banks provide support for the stock that day in April.
Goldman Said to Limit London Partners’ Compensation (Reuters)
The banks will cap the salary and bonuses of its London partners at 1 million pounds ($1.6 million), affecting about 100 employees across the pond.
AIG Restricts Use Of Corporate Aircraft (Reuters)
For all executives except Robert Benmosche, obviously, according to a regulatory filing.
More on N.Y. Fed’s Actions on A.I.G. Details (DealBook)
The New York Fed kinda tried to get the SEC to keep the AIG bailout details on the hush-hush.
Hedgies Are Back And Having A Ball (Times Online)
Everyone was there: GLG’s Pierre Lagrange, Gartmore’s Roger Guy, Lansdowne’s Paul Ruddock and Tony Chedraoui of Tyrus. Jabre Capital won fund of the year. Its founder Philippe Jabre delivered a magnanimous acceptance speech before urging his fellow hedgies to join him in Geneva — “it’s a lovely place.” Two guests were heard moaning about the “cheap champagne.”
Bankers to lobby for softer reforms at Davos (FT)
“It’s not about being too big but about the interconnections,” said one banker. Executives said they would push quietly against the reforms to avoid giving the US president the “fight” he promised last week.
Tiger’s Thanksgiving Mystery– Solved (TDB)
Elin “confirmed her lingering suspicions about Tiger’s affair with Uchitel by impersonating her husband in text messages with Uchitel, prompting the rage that led to Woods fleeing his house.”
Citibank in 2011, Hypothetically (BreakingViews)
Timothy F. Geithner as Global Head of Strategy and Investor Relations.
$$$ Hovde Capital: “General Growth Properties: Inconsistencies and Errors Square’s Analysis” [PDF]
$$$ Hedge Fund Manager Sues Over Airline’s ‘Discrimination‘ Policy [FINalternatives]
$$$ Litterman Said to Retire From Goldman Sachs Hedge-Fund Unit [Bloomberg]
$$$ The Whopper Bar [NYDN]
$$$ Swig Shutters Helmsley Spear Brokerage [NYO]
$$$ Bloomberg Chases Rajaratnam Down After Lunch With Unidentified Woman [BI]
