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$$$ Charlie Munger: One Firm Behaved Worst of All (Dick Fuld, Come On Down) [CNBC]
$$$ Will John Paulson’s Deal With Goldman Sachs Cost Him His Seat On the Board of Spence? (Kinda Doubt It) [NYM]
$$$ Goldman’s troubles may hurt money management unit [Reuters]
$$$ ‘Cuddle hormone‘ makes men more empathetic [BBC]
MBIA, the mortgage insurer that decided to back all those subprime securities underwritten by Countrywide and others, will now have its day in court.
A judge ruled earlier this week that MBIA can proceed with its fraud claim against Countrywide (now Bank of America.) The insurer claims Countrywide lied when it told MBIA the mortgages being insured were “in in strict compliance with its underwriting standards and guidelines.” Continue reading »
Which former treasury secretary would you rather hear about sticking his tongue down a woman’s throat whilst placing his hands “everywhere sort of like an octopus”? Which former treasury secretary would you like to hear about coping with the stress of the financial crisis with a good spoon? If you said “anyone but Larry Summers,” you’re in luck! Today Iris Mack (pictured), a former investment banker, MIT professor and derivatives trader is writing about her brush with Bob Rubin’s appendages. Monday we’ll track down all the lucky ladies who’ve taken a ride on the Summers express. Sayeth Mack, who met Rubin while buying a smoothie in Miami circa October 2007:
Three days after [our first phone] chat, Prince resigned, forcing Bob Rubin to add an additional chairmanship — of the board — to his business cards. But he kept calling me all the while, and by December some of my friends, late mother and siblings knew about my unlikely “phone buddy” relationship with the former Treasury Secretary. He seemed kind of lonely and lost, I told them; like he didn’t have a lot of close friends, and if anyone back at the office had been in the mood to joke around it wasn’t going to be with him. … He flew down to Miami to visit his father again on Christmas Eve. When he called he seemed disappointed to learn I was in Alabama, visiting my family in Mobile (where most of them eventually moved after losing their homes in Hurricane Katrina.) I politely explained that when you want to have a meeting with someone, it helps to inform her ahead of time. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and sure enough, a few days later he called to make a dinner date for January 10 at the Setai on South Beach.
Now, I say “date,” but even with our budding “buddyship” I did not really realize at the time that this was a “date.” He was an extraordinarily wealthy and powerful (much older) man who spent his days traveling around in a Citigroup jet and I was a math/finance geek who’d been covered in five miles of sweat and no makeup the one time we’d met in person. Now, I clean up pretty nice for dinner in South Beach with the former Treasury Secretary, but maybe it didn’t matter; later he would remind me that the first time we’d met I had something written on my backside. (I promise you, I had not even noticed when I picked up a few pairs of gray sweatpants on clearance at Victoria’s Secret that the words “Pink University” were screen printed on the behind, but give the man credit for being observant.)
An email apparently going around today.
“We are Wall Street. It’s our job to make money. Whether it’s a commodity, stock, bond, or some hypothetical piece of fake paper, it doesn’t matter. We would trade baseball cards if it were profitable. I didn’t hear America complaining when the market was roaring to 14,000 and everyone’s 401k doubled every 3 years. Just like gambling, its not a problem until you lose. I’ve never heard of anyone going to Gamblers Anonymous because they won too much in Vegas.
[A participant in yesterday's festivities, waiting downtown to give Lloyd a mustache ride. ]
Yesterday’s Wall Street Protest: A Good Time Was Had by All [Daily Intel]
That question came up in the hearing earlier this week in reference to an email sent by Josh Birnbaum, a former MD in Goldman’s structured products group.
The email, sent in July 2007, sought authorization form senior management for the structured products desk to buy put options on a slew of competitors including Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. The email also revealed that Birnbaum had bought put options on MBIA, Ambac and Countrywide. Continue reading »
You also narrowly avoided being ambushed into having a conversation about tranny tits while waiting on line for the bathroom, so same diff, no diff.
Tried to grab a beer at the Gin Mill Bar the other night, but with 100 members of the SEC inside (whose bar tab the taxpayer presumably covered), it kinda killed the vibe. We sat outside and watched as group after group walked to the door, saw the sign and muttered, “SEC Happy Hour, what the fuck?” and then walked away in disgust. As for tranny porn, I didn’t get close enough but that might be more of an after-work Friday happy hour get together type thing.
Update: In his haste to (understandably) get indignant re: footing the bill for a bunch of sick fucks who have no business celebrating a job well done, our tipster did not realize that SEC, in this case, refers to Southeastern Conference. Obviously it’s not all his fault, but given that I’ve previously publicly stated the fact that I know jack about football, I’m not taking too much blame for this. Additionally, I’m adding that this also went over NakedShort’s head. As you were.
Hong Kong-based hedge fund manager DragonBack Capital has seen a dramatic reversal in its fortunes over the last 12 months, with its assets plunging 85 percent to around $45 million amid continued redemptions from fund of hedge funds. Last year at this time, assets in the fund were at $316 million, falling to $187 million by year end, DragonBack Asia Chief Executive Robert Lance told Reuters on Friday. “The AUM gods giveth and they taketh away,” said Lance referring to assets under management. “You have to stay philosophical and practical about these things.”
HK hedge fund DragonBack sees assets cut by 85 pct [Reuters]
Criminal Probe Looks Into Goldman Trading (WSJ)
The investigation from the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office, which is at a preliminary stage, stemmed from a referral from the Securities and Exchange Commission, these people say. The SEC recently filed civil securities-fraud charges against the firm and a trader in its mortgage group. Goldman and the trader say they have done nothing wrong and are fighting the civil charges.
Buffett Set To Fire On Goldman (WSJ)
Berkshire shareholders heading to Omaha, Neb., this weekend may soon get a view into Mr. Buffett’s thinking. “I expect to get multiple questions about Goldman and I’ll give extensive and complete replies,” Buffett said in an interview Thursday. Charlie Munger, Mr. Buffett’s longtime business partner at Berkshire’s helm who shares the stage with him at the meeting, will likely have some choice words for Wall Street. “They were very competitive in maximizing profits in a competitive industry that was permitted to operate like a gambling casino,” Mr. Munger said. “The whole damn industry lost its moral moorings.”
Moore Capital Settles With CFTC For $25M (HFN)
The CFTC alleged that from November 2007 through May 2008, a former Moore Capital portfolio manager engaged in a practice called “banging the close,” meaning he built up a substantial position toward the end of the trading day and then offset it. As part of the settlement, Moore Capital won’t be able to trade in the futures and options within 15 minutes of and during the closing period for platinum and palladium.
Think Blankfein Will Resign? Want To Bet? (NYT)
When the wagering began on Tuesday morning, as Fabrice P. Tourre and other more junior Goldman executives defended their conduct before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, 55 percent were betting on a Blankfein resignation. By Wednesday afternoon, that figure was 45 percent. Mr. Blankfein’s stock continued to rally on Thursday, with expectations of a resignation falling to just 20 percent. The likelihood of a settlement, however, rose to 55 percent from 49 percent. Continue reading »
$$$ How Much Did Lehman CEO Dick Fuld Really Make? Oliver Budde, former Lehman Brothers associate general counsel, says Fuld failed to disclose hundreds of millions in compensation. [BW]
$$$ ACA became Wall St’s trash can, now haunts Goldman [Reuters]
$$$ The Power of Lucky Charms [WSJ]
$$$ Tiger Woods’ Tally: 121 kills [HF]
$$$ Blankfein Says He Was ‘Humbled‘ By Senate Hearing [NPR]
This is the one we’ve been waiting for.
James Cayne and Alan Schwartz, who served as chief executive officers at Bear Stearns before the firm collapsed in 2008, will testify on May 5 along with former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox, the commission said today in an e-mail statement.
Since recent events have demonstrated the government’s inability to ask the right questions, and we want to actually get something out of this thing, let’s come up with a few now to send their way. I’ll start: Mr. Cayne. When confronted about the fact that your office smelled like pot, you attributed the scent of marijuana to “a new leather couch in my office,” and later demanded a fellow executive come take a whiff, asking him, and I quote, “does the couch smell like pot or not?” Did you realize at the time just how genius that was or, in a rare moment of self-awareness combined with a seriously paranoid trip,* did you sweat bullets figuring no one would buy it?
Geithner, Bear Stearns Executives to Testify for Crisis Panel [Bloomberg via DI]
*That’s the last time you buy from a degenerate first year in the alley behind 383 Madison.
