In fact, James Woods isn’t sure the economy can be saved at all, an outlook with which his girlfriend silently agrees. Continue reading »
Archive for November 2010
Barclays Profit Drops, Capital Remains Strong (MarketWatch)
The bank said pretax profit was down 76% at 327 million pounds ($527 million) after it booked a £947 million charge in its Barclays Capital investment-banking arm on the changing value of its own debt. Excluding that charge and a smaller charge a year earlier, Barclays said pretax profit dropped 28% to £1.27 billion. Chief Executive John Varley also moved to reassure investors about the bank’s capital position, saying Barclays is “well equipped to deal with regulatory changes” as the new capital rules known as Basel III are phased in.
Morgan Stanley Topped $100 Million On One Day Trading In Quarter (Bloomberg)
That represents lowest number of $100 million days since 2006. MS made more than $100 million in trading revenue on 18 days in last year’s third quarter. The firm’s trading division lost money on 10 days during the quarter, compared with five days a year earlier, according to a filing yesterday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Fed Action Gets an Unexpected Endorsement From India (NYT)
“A strong, robust, fast-growing United States is in the interests of the world,” said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. “And therefore, anything that would stimulate the underlying growth and policies of entrepreneurship in the United States would help the cause of global prosperity.”
Papaconstantinou Says EU Budget Cuts May `Choke Off Growth’ (Bloomberg)
“I am not one of those who thinks all the European countries should press on the brakes and do deficit reduction in the way that would choke off growth,” Papaconstantinou said at an event in London late yesterday. “There is a story to be told, whereby some countries have to do serious deficit belt- tightening, others less so…I worry very much if we simply all get into a situation where we are forced by markets to reduce our deficits,” it may “lead to a double-dip recession,” he said.
Junk-Bond Sellers Find Risk Too High (WSJ)
Mr. Makhija is among a growing number of hedge funds and other professional investors that are getting out of junk bonds and buying assets like mortgage debt and stocks instead. As they exit, mom-and-pop investors are flooding in, along with mutual funds that are usually dedicated to other investments, like stocks and government debt. All are lured by the outsize returns delivered by the junk-bond market over the past 18 months amid tepid gains in stocks and rock-bottom yields on Treasurys.
BP May Pay Billions for `Missed Signals’ That Led to Disaster (Bloomberg)
“BP has a broader corporate culture that does put profits ahead of safety, and that message permeates throughout the company and down through the rank and file,” Uhlmann said in a telephone interview. “BP will still have to pay tens of billions of dollars in natural resources damages and compensation to victims for economic losses.”
Kanye West Performs During Delta Flight (Billboard)
“He was like, ‘Yo, this your n***a, Kanye,’” a passenger said. “Then he couldn’t decide if he wanted to do ‘Good Life’ or ‘Gold Digger,’ so he was like, ‘I’ll just do a little bit of both.’ It was awesome… but I still have no idea how he got into the cockpit.” Continue reading »
$$$ Fed divided on bond buying risks/benefits [Reuters]
$$$ Hedge Funders Race Go-Karts In Stamford For Charity [CT Post]
$$$ Dick Bove on QE2 as a bank-less “financial war with China” [FT Alphaville]
$$$ FrontPoint Health Funds See Big Redemptions [Reuters] Continue reading »
As a busy member of the financial services industry, where time is money, it’s more than likely that on at least one occasion, you’ve found yourself in a situation wherein you sensed you might have had gonorrhea but didn’t have the hour to spare to get to the free clinic. From there it was a few quick late nights and company happy hours before the entire firm was stricken with an outbreak. In the near future, you’ll be able to avoid such incidents by simply entering a men’s or women’s room, pissing on a computer chip, returning to your desk and inserting it into your phone all in a matter of minutes (stage fright depending). Continue reading »
Sir Allen Stanford Beaten To Point Of Losing Feeling On Right Side Of Face For A Second Time
By Bess Levin
Last May, accused Ponzi schemer Allen Stanford’s lawyers asked that their clients be let out of prison for two reasons. 1) Keeping him there ahead of his trial, scheduled to start in January 2011, was unconstitutional and 2) he was getting this shit beat out of him, including one incident in which he was “so savagely beaten that he lost all feeling in the right side of his face and lost near-field vision in his right eye. The court decided not to let him out and he has again been roughed up a bit. Continue reading »
Cuts going down circa now. Continue reading »
An Itemized List Of Colorful Things Coming To Light Ahead Of The Prince Jefri Bolkiah Trial
By Bess LevinAs you may have heard, the case Casa de Meadows, Inc. v. Zaman gets underway today. Prince Jefri of Brunei is suing two of his former advisers, claiming they screwed him out of millions while managing some of his assets. The former’s attorneys have reportedly been trying to keep photos of six life-size bronze “erotic statues” created by artist J. Seward Johnson, which depict the Prince and his fiancée getting it on, out of the trial, over fears they might paint some sort of negative picture, prejudicing Jefri to a jury. Here are a few other items a narrow-mined jury might also take issue with: Continue reading »
Paul Krugman Doesn’t Give A Rat’s Ass About What Milton Friedman Would Think Of Fed’s Actions
By Bess Levin
And he’s had it up to here with people who do. You’re on notice, Ben Bernanke. Continue reading »
Remember the Galleon insider trading case? It’s still going on, and most recently, a federal judge has been asked to decide whether or not Raj Rajaratnam’s instant messages can be used in next year’s trial. Raj’s attorney’s, of course, would prefer the conversations to not be fair game, on the off chance he sent any messages to anyone with regard to the whole trading on material non-public information thing but there are others, too, who would like to avoid seeing the big man’s IMs going public.
For instance, there’s Stanley Druckenmiller, who spoke with Rajaratnam “regularly” prior to his arrest, in addition to Jim Pallota and Paul Tudor Jones, all of whom were in a fantasy football league together. None of the other men have done anything wrong but they would likely just prefer to avoid having their (screen)names mentioned in the same breath as an accused criminal. To that end, while she’s all good legally, a “longtime analyst” at George Weiss Associates would rather not have it come to light that she may have had a thing for ole Raj Raj. Continue reading »
A Columbia business student recently sent out an email peddling billions of dollars of iron ore to his classmates, pitching them and anyone they might know on the deal. It’s unclear how much money has been raised so far, but we figured we’d help cast a wider net. If you’re interested– get in touch!
From: [redacted at Columbia Business School]
To: All Students
Subject: For Sale: $13B of iron ore, +$10B of rare earth elementsI’m actually serious. This is a deal that I’ve put together.
Over the summer, Morgan Stanely financial adviser Martin Joel Erzinger, pictured, drove over a doctor who was on his bike and then kept going, “until he reached a Pizza Hut parking lot, where he stopped and called Mercedes auto assistance to report the damage to his vehicle.” Continue reading »
