In addition to the whole “help turn Morgan Stanley around” task, Ruth Porat, who was named CFO last January, has another entry on her to do list: don’t get unceremoniously canned like your girlfriends. “Be careful in everything you do, because we all know how this ended before,” an analyst told her at a cocktail party earlier this year, the insinuation being that she ought to avoid getting fired from Lehman Brothers, forced to take a leave of absence from Credit Suisse, and ultimately spend her days taking spin classes and dating a firefighter in the Hamptons, like Erin Callan, or getting the bootskie from Vikram Pandit, like Sallie Krawcheck.
Porat may have gone from a client-facing banker job to a “technical” one where you have to, as Glen Schorr puts it, “know everything about everything,” without ever working in a finance department but forget about “numbers” for a second. This lady doesn’t have any quit in her, and has shown that crippling back pain or even labor contractions are mere speed bumps that will not in any way hamper her from doing what she has set out to do, unlike her male counterparts who would be crying for a heating pad at the first spasm or an epidural the second their water broke. Continue reading »
GM Reports $2.16 Billion Profit Ahead of Share Sale (BW)
Earnings before interest and taxes rose to $2.28 billion from $2.03 billion during the previous three months of the year, the Detroit-based company said today in a statement. Revenue was $34.1 billion. Chief Executive Officer Dan Akerson, who took over from Ed Whitacre on Sept. 1, has said GM can make “significant” profit even amid a U.S. auto sales rate running about 30 percent slower than before the financial crisis.
Ireland’s Fate Tied To Doomed Banks (WSJ)
With doubts swirling about the solvency of the Irish state in early September, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan summoned a dozen senior government and bank officials to a conference room nicknamed the “torture chamber,” a nod to its history as a venue for painful meetings. For two years, Ireland had poured money on a raging banking crisis, to no avail. Each estimate of the rising price of rescuing Ireland’s banks turned out too low. Mr. Lenihan needed to halt the drip-drip of bad news that was leading his country to ruin. “I want a final figure ASAP,” he told the group. Two weeks later, the estimate came in: Up to €50 billion—nearly $50,000 for every household in the Emerald Isle. But now, investors are betting the bill could be higher still and could reignite Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis…It wasn’t supposed to be this way. In October 2008, Mr. Lenihan boasted that his government had devised “the cheapest bailout in the world so far.” Ireland’s financial regulator pronounced the banks “more than adequately capitalized.”
Zoellick Sees ‘Elephant,’ Not Endorsing Gold Standard (CNBC)
What “the price of gold has been telling people is that there is a lack of confidence in some of the fundamentals growth policies,” Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank said. “The golden elephant in the room, whether people recognize it or not, is being used as an alternative monetary asset,” he said.
Goldman Executive Fired Over Violations (FT)
Alexandre Harfouche, a London-based managing director and head of European block trading, was sacked for failing to make proper disclosures to the bank’s compliance department, according to people familiar with the matter. “Mr Harfouche no longer works for the firm, and I have no idea what his plans are,” a Goldman spokesman said, declining to comment further. Mr Harfouche could not be reached for comment. While Goldman did not specify the reasons for Mr Harfouche’s departure, people close to the situation stressed that no securities law had been violated and no client had been harmed by the events that led to his dismissal. Continue reading »
$$$ “It has exceeded all my nightmares,” said Jeff Meyer, chief executive, reflecting on Gartmore’s recent troubles. Earlier this year another fund manager left after being exposed for breaching internal rules. [Telegraph]
$$$ J.P. Morgan, BofA Report Perfect Trading Quarters [WSJ]
$$$ Eight Explanations for the Mystery California Missile Launch [NYM] Continue reading »
Bloomberg says yes. Continue reading »
Odds are, the urge to talk shit about your boss or firm on Facebook have struck at least once or twice. But despite the fact that the jackhole really had it coming, or that all of your friends and acquaintances you haven’t spoken to since third grade really needed to know that whoever stocks the snacks in your pantry has been slipping and you’ve just about had it with this shithole, you held your tongue. Well thanks to the courageousness of one young woman, a precedent may be set wherein you can take to the Good Book and rail all you want about the insufferable prick who insists every mundane task must be charted out on a dry erase board when a simple 30 second conversation would suffice, and who you strongly suspect was dropped on his head with alarming frequency as a child. Continue reading »
According to a regulatory filing this morning, someone has yet again decided to sue Goldman Sachs over two ABACUS-esque CDO deals. Rather than get bent out of shape about it, however, the bank has remained calm and made peace with the fact that there are probably going to be a lot more of suits where that came from, in addition to other investigations into the firm’s dealings, because we live in a word populated with idiot regulators and know-nothing sheepestors, with whom Goldman must regrettably co-exist. Continue reading »
Cuts going down circa now. Continue reading »
As you may have heard, Dunkin Donuts has created a new delicacy called Sausage Pancake Bites, which are ‘pancake balls’ stuffed with meat and dipped in syrup. Like KFC’s Double Down, this represents Dunkin’s foray into the exciting world of exotic battered-meat derivatives. To celebrate, someone must endeavor this week to consume an amount of Bites that would constitute a “challenge” and rile up self-appointed Obesity Czar, Julian Robertson. Continue reading »
The brass balls are earning their keep. Continue reading »
For all you billionaire money managers out there wondering, is there a life after being labeled a sex offender in the eyes of the law, Jeffrey Epstein is here to prove the answer is yes.
Epstein, he of the Underage Massage Appreciation Society, has been hard at work on a new project: a blog called Jeffrey Epstein’s Profiles In Science. It is here, for some reason, that Epstein conducts interviews with various leaders in the field, muses on evolutionary biology, offers tutorials on theoretical physics, and shares party pics of him barbecuing with Stephen Hawking. There’s also a “testimonials” page, where noted leaders are to offer praise for Epstein’s mind and while so far it only has a single entry, it’s unlikely to be topped. Continue reading »
For the third quarter this year, Goldman Sachs’s trading desks made more than $100 million on seven days, some sort of profit on 64 out of the 66, and lost on a mere two. At Morgan Stanley, which only had one single $100 million day and lost money on ten days, these results would be considered excellent and the sort that James Gorman would knock off a hobo to report. There would be piñatas and cake and they’d let everyone take the rest of the year off for a job amazingly well done. But this is not Morgan Stanley, this is Goldman Sachs, which means the responsible parties are going to pay. Continue reading »
