Brooksley Born, former head of the CFTC and now a member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, finally had her chance to stick it to Chris Cox.
Born, remember, was the only member of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets in 1998 to call for comprehensive regulation of OTC derivatives like credit default swaps.
Cox, then a member of Congress and the chairman of the Task Force on Capital Markets, vehemently opposed the regulation as did Alan Greenspan, Larry Summers and Robert Rubin. Well, we know what kind of havoc unregulated OTC derivatives have caused since then. Continue reading »
Goldman Sachs held a conference call for clients of the private wealth management unit this afternoon.
Lloyd Blankfein was on the call, as were several journalists who were no doubt leaked the call-in number and not thrown off as they usually are. As expected, the entire call seemed to be a nice advertisement for Goldman with Lloyd repeating most of what he said on Charlie Rose last week. This quote from the call pretty much sums it up:
“We don’t want people to just be happy to be with Goldman. We want them to be bragging.”
Tell that to IKB Deutsche Industriebank.
First off, let it be known that I don’t think LB should or will go anywhere. Nevertheless there are some people, some haters, talking about that very possibility. Dick Bové said it a couple weeks ago but she was on the rag at the time and not to be taken seriously. Now there’s a story out today, hopefully based on vicious lies, that there are people within in Goldman Sachs– the same people who gave Lloyd a standing ovation the other day for beating Ginger the resident chicken at tic-tac-toe– who are daring to speak of a day in which LB’s golden scrot and shining pate do not run shit at 200 West. Continue reading »
12:10 Sure, it would’ve been worse to do it on 4/20 but Cinco de Mayo? Still pretty mean.
12:12 This thing is set to get underway in a few minutes. While we wait, I have a ton of items on the “wish-list” but beyond the obvious, I really, really want him to act like a stoned 17 year old who just got busted. “I know my rights, man.” “I’ve read the constitution.”
12:20 LET’S DO THIS. Reading of the prepared statements. Incredibly, CNBC thinks interviewing the CEO of Nike is more important than Big Jim, so you can follow along here.
12:30: Alan Schwartz maintains that Bear was awash– nay, drowning– in liquidity days before it went down for the dirt nap.
12:32: Jim concedes, “in retrospect, in hindsight, leverage was a bit too high.”
12:41: Angelides: Could you have done anything to prevent that weekend in March?
Cayne: Nothing. There was nothing that could have been done. We were taken down by hedge funds. Bear Stearns [and these words seriously just exited JC's mouth] “was a big fat goose walking down the lane that’s about to be eaten up by competitors.”
Angelides: You were in Detroit that weekend, right? At a bridge tournament?
Cayne: That’s correct. Continue reading »
Paul Friedman, a former senior managing director at Bear Stearns, once famously said “we did this to ourselves. . . . It’s our fault for allowing it to get this far, and for not taking any steps to do anything about it.” He told William D. Cohan there was “mismanagement at the top” of the firm.
But now, Freidman is taking back his words. “I was interviewed at a time when I was looking for someone to blame,” he told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. “I’m sure you’ve read things where I blamed people I’ve never even met. It has bothered me for two years” he said. “I am human.” Continue reading »
Reports say as many as 60,000 people are protesting in Greece in response to new austerity measures that increase sales taxes to 23 percent, reduce pensions and wages and make it easier for government workers to be fired. Excise taxes on tobacco, alcohol and fuel will also be raised.
The austerity measures, which are meant to save about $40 billion are a condition for a Greek bailout announced Sunday by the European Union and the IMF.
Those moves haven’t gone over well with the Greek people, to say the least.
Continue reading »
Citadel’s Griffin Pledges to Pursue Investment Bank After CEO Departures (Bloomberg)
Ken Griffin vowed to press ahead with his plan to graft an investment bank onto his $12 billion hedge- fund firm even though he hasn’t been able to find the right executive to run the business. “We did not embark on this initiative to be a middle-tier player,” Griffin, founder of Chicago-based Citadel Investment Group LLC, said in an internal memo yesterday.
What-Ifs For Goldman Sachs (WSJ)
In one possibility being discussed, Henry Paulson, who stepped down as Goldman’s chief executive in 2006 to become Treasury secretary, would take the chairman job, these people said. But one person familiar with Mr. Paulson’s thinking said he would never return to Goldman. Goldman declined to comment on the internal conversations.
Ex-Bear Stearns Heads Say Firm’s Collapse Unavoidable (CNBC)
And Bear was awash with liquidity, don’t forget that.
SEC Investigates Firms Doing Business in Terror Hubs (WSJ)
The SEC’s enforcement division has sent letters to several companies in the pharmaceutical and energy industries, these people said. The State Department currently designates four countries—Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria—as state sponsors of terrorism. The letters, which were sent within the past two months, are part of an investigation by the SEC division that looks into potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. It isn’t clear which companies received the letters.
PIMCO Investment Outlook May 2010 (PIMCO)
Bill Gross: In all of the hullabaloo over Goldman Sachs, a CQ analysis of the rating services – Moody’s, Standard and Poor’s and Fitch – has escaped front-page headlines. Not that a number of observers haven’t been on to them for a few years now, including yours truly. Back in July of 2007 some of you will remember my description of their role in the subprime crisis. “Many of these good-looking girls are not high-class assets worth 100 cents on the dollar. You were wooed, Mr. Moody’s and Mr. Poor’s, by the makeup, those six-inch hooker heels and a ‘tramp stamp.’” Continue reading »
$$$ Cayne Said to Blame `Irrational’ Market for 2008 Collapse of Bear Stearns “The market’s loss of confidence, even though it was unjustified and irrational, became a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Cayne said in written testimony to be presented to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in Washington tomorrow, according to the person who declined to be identified since the remarks aren’t public until delivery. Cayne will also tell the panel his company had a “strong culture of risk management,” the person said. [Bloomberg]
$$$ Citadel Senior Executive Has Left The Firm [WSJ]
$$$ If anyone has noticed the soaring share price of Priceline.com, it’s an easy bet that Canadian actor William Shatner had something to do with it. Unofficial word on Wall Street is that Shatner, who was initially paid in Priceline shares when he became pitchman for the Internet travel website startup in 1997, is now worth a cool $600 million. [Toronto Sun]
$$$ Chanos Says Long-Term Government Bonds Are Bad Bet [BW]
$$$ Bill Ackman: Let’s Have a Public Registry for Stock Opinion [Barron's]
He signs their paychecks but, damn it, this still counts. (I love the li’l fella myself but chose to express my feelings in other ways, rather than making a big show of it.) Also, you will be pleased to hear that not unlike a certain Duke lacrosse squad, Team GS is banding together to prove they did nothing wrong and that bitch is full of shit. I mean…the SEC– I mean–I — I’ve said too much.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s employee morale remains good and Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein received a standing ovation from partners at an April 20 earnings call, analyst Brad Hintz told clients. According to the firm, “employees are pulling together like a team under pressure,” Hintz, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., wrote in a note to clients today after a meeting with five senior executives at Goldman Sachs. “The partnership has closed ranks, too, and at Goldman’s April 20, 2010, managing directors earnings call, Lloyd Blankfein received a standing ovation from his partners.”
Raj Rajaratnam may be facing jail time, but his investments are still paying off. Yesterday, ReachLocal, an online advertising company in which Raj’s Galleon Group owned about 7 percent, priced an initial public offering.
Galleon didn’t sell any shares in the offering, but the firm appears to have doubled its investment in a little over two years. Not bad for Raj. Galleon owns about 1.6 million shares, which it bought in a VC deal for around $9.20 a share in Sept. 2007. Continue reading »
