As you’re aware, back in the day, President Obama and Wall Street got along just fine. Better than fine, in some cases, with Jamie Dimon being one of his boys and hedge fund managers like Dan Loeb, Steven Cohen and so and so forth donating considerable month to his campaign. But, things happened. People changed. Stuff was said that couldn’t be taken back. SC burned the two-man donkey costume he bought for election night ’08 and made a couplea traders get into to celebrate the night and now reportedly holds weekly Tuesday night GOP strategizing sessions. Loeb gets his feelings out on paper. Jamie doesn’t even think to call BO to chill and in fact couldn’t even if he wanted to, which he doesn’t, as that guy was deleted from his phone/life. And, just generally, the businessmen of America feel abused. Obama knows, he’s sorry, and he wants to make it up to you. Continue reading »
Archive for October 2010
Do Bloomberg Anchors Think They’re Too Good For The Kind Of Journalism That Involves Taking One’s Clothes Off?
By Bess Levin
One can’t help but get that vibe as Margaret Brennan and her colleague discuss the group of female business journalism students who posed in lingerie for a calendar in honor of Vladmir Putin’s 58th birthday, which features captions like “you put out the forest fire but I’m still burning.” I can tell you one network that doesn’t think it’s too good for this “kind of journalism.” The reason I know this is because I’ve seen an advanced copy of the shots being used to celebrate Alan Greenspan’s 100th birthday. You haven’t seen a Mr. September until you’ve seen a Mark Haines Mr. September, who follows the August sandwich that is Trish, Kudlow and Mandy (the Kudwich).
‘Smart Girls’ Strip for Putin 58th Birthday Calendar [Bloomberg]
Breaking: Banks May Actually Just Pretend Publicly To Be Playing By New Rules, Proceed To Do Whatever They Damn Well Please
By Bess LevinWhile Wall Street publicly is dismantling its dedicated proprietary trading desks, some veterans of the Street are skeptical that the banks will really stop trading with their own money. They say banks could continue making house bets by disguising proprietary trading as making markets for clients. House bets, when they are mixed with client trades, are more difficult for regulators to detect. “To me, it is all smoke and mirrors,” one former Goldman managing director said. “The truth is that most of the position-taking occurs at the market-making level.” [Reuters]
What drives a man who’s made billions already to continue coming into the office every day in a quest to amass even more, particularly at a time when many are closing up shop? What drives him to keep going when he could comfortably retire to a beach on the coast of a country he could buy, and the one next to that, plus all their women and small boys? For some money managers, it’s a matter of proving themselves to mommy or daddy, who never thought they were good enough. For others, it’s the thing that makes them tick, with nothing else being a proper substitute for the feeling they get in their plums when they’re playing the game. For AQR Capital Management founder Cliff Asness, the motivation can be summed up in two words: super hero. Continue reading »
El-Erian: More Fed Action Coming, But it May Not Help (CNBC)
“The rocket has to achieve escape velocity,” he said. “It’s not enough for it to go up—it has to go up sharply to achieve escape velocity. The question is: What’s the fuel for that escape velocity? There’s good fuel, which is private-sector ‘animal spirits.’ That is what we all should be looking for. There’s bad fuel, which is continuous policy injections, because that has consequences—the dollar, gold, etc.—and the judgment becomes whether that characterization is correct. Do we really need escape velocity or not?”
Man Group Jumps On Speculation Of Takeover By US Bank (Bloomberg)
Apparently there as been “vague talk a U.S. bank’s possible interest in bidding for them.”
Roubini: 40% chance of double-dip recession (MarketWatch)
There is a 40% probability of a double-dip recession, but you don’t need one for the global economy to feel like it is in a deep, continuing recession, Nouriel Roubini said Wednesday. He said external shocks, such as another Greek credit crisis, perhaps with problems in Spain, Portugal or Ireland, could trigger the shock needed for a double-dip recession. “You don’t need another Lehman story, you don’t need a major loss,” said Roubini at an American Enterprise Institute event. “You can have death by a thousand cuts.”
French Pave Way For EU Hedge Fund Deal (FT)
French officials now say that they are prepared to accept the principle of a passport for third-country funds, subject to strict conditions. In particular, Paris insists that it should be the new European Securities and Markets Authority which issues a passport to a third-country fund and then supervises that fund.
Payment To End Wells Fargo Inquiry (AP)
The bank is paying $24 million to end an investigation by eight states into whether lenders acquired by the bank made risky mortgages to consumers without disclosing their perils.
Ex-Hedge Fund Boss Convicted in NYC in Stock Scam (AP)
A jury in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday found 46-year-old Joseph Contorinis guilty of one count of securities fraud conspiracy and seven counts of securities fraud. Prosecutors said he executed illegal trades from 2004 through June 2006 when he acted on information he received from a close friend who was an investment banker. At the time, he managed a hedge fund at an investment advisory firm. Contorinis could face up to 20 years in prison on the most serious charge and millions of dollars in fines when he is sentenced Feb. 4.
Taxpayers Likely To Turn A Profit On Bailout (CNBC)
So that’s exciting.
Citadel Fixed-Income Trading ‘Positive’ – Source (Dow Jones)
Citadel LLC’s securities unit has had positive fixed-income trading revenue this year, and has no massive layoff plans in store for its investment-banking unit, a person familiar with the situation said Wednesday. “There is no plan for mass layoffs,” the person said. “Citadel is not shutting down Citadel Securities or its fixed-income operations.” But the person said there could be staffing changes as the firm is undertaking its annual business review. Such reviews, which take place in the fourth quarter of each year, will decide what adjustments the firm has to make in preparation for the new year.
Economist: Austerity Will Push Euro to $1.50 By The End Of The Year (CNBC)
Warren Mosler, who predicted that the euro would bounce back towards $1.60 in June, when the single European currency was trading at around $1.19, said there was nothing to stop the euro’s appreciation versus the dollar, short of a policy response from the European Central Bank. “If it (the euro) keeps going at the rate it’s going, it could go to $1.45-$1.50 by the end of the year,” he said.
Men Are Rewarded Financially For Being Overweight (WSJ)
Very thin men, on the other hand, tend to get paid less than male workers of average weight. Men earn more as they pack on the pounds – all the way to the point where they become obese, when the pay trend reverses. Continue reading »
$$$ “There are dramatic gender pressures on both men and women who are traders that systematically disadvantage women, regardless of which hormone is surging when,” Williams said. “The gender pressures on men are to be the biggest cowboy with the biggest gun who shoots the fastest. It’s all about who demonstrates manliness the best.” [Bloomberg]
$$$ Goldman Sachs May Be Losing Influence In Washington [CNBC] Continue reading »
These are your hints:
1) Asness is currently a Marvel comic book collector, in addition to his duties at AQR Capital
2) As we know from Scott Patterson’s The Quants, as a teenager in on Long Island, Asness was “obsessed with little besides girls and comic books”
3) Also from The Quants, the following image: “Friday morning at AQR, August 10. Asness glanced pensively at a candy-colored array of Marvel superhero figurines lined up along his east-facing window. Spiderman. Captain America. The Hulk. Iron Man.”
4) In a new profile of Cliff out tomorrow in Bloomberg Markets magazine, the manager sits on his desk flanked by said dolls, in a full-page glossy photo.
Okay, give it your best shot. Continue reading »
This didn’t go over so well. Continue reading »
Have you or your colleagues packed on some extra inches lately? Do you inject each other with hourly doses of corn syrup? Can you no longer see your dick over your stomach? Do the fat finger jokes hit a little too close to home? Great news. Continue reading »
Société Générale Seeking Suggestions For How Jerome Kerviel Can Make Things Up To Shareholders
By Bess LevinYesterday in France, a court sentenced everyone’s favorite rogue trader, Jerome Kerviel, to three years in prison and said he must also “pay back” the $6.8 billion that was lost. At his current salary as a technology consultant, it should only take Kerviel 170,000 years to do so. Attorney Olivier Metzner said his client is “disgusted” by the ruling and today JK compared it to being “hit on the head with a club…I’m starting to digest it, but I’m nonetheless crushed by the weight of the sanction and the weight of responsibility the ruling places on me.” Well his former employer has some news that might just turn that frown upside down. Continue reading »
It’s cool– she’s here to read it to you. [VF]
