Was it: a) the day two of his employees put the firm’s name in headlines next to ‘women’s underwear’ and ‘estrogen pills’ b) the day his ex-wife broke out of the psych ward c) the day he had to put his traders in a time out or d) none of the above? Continue reading »
Archive for February 2011
The body language experts at Fox Business could tell Vikram Pandit was telling the truth when he said it because he didn’t run away. He stood there. Cool. Calm. And owned it. Continue reading »
Instead, the self-described “mathematics genius” and “smartest student ever in the engineering department” took a moment to tell the bank representative who’d informed him they weren’t interested a piece of his mind.
From: [redacted]
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2011 11:55 AM
To: [redacted at Citi]
Subject: Re: Citi Sales, Trading & Quantitative Analysis Summer Analyst ProgramHi [redacted]:
Thank you so much for replying my email!!
Ah, what a pity that I missed one of the most prestigious bank in the world, and what a pity citi-group missed a mathematics genius like me, the smartest student ever in the engineering department, the one who beaten math majors in the most difficult competition in the world like idiots, and the one who astutely points out the mars existing in the Gaussian Copula and made proper corrections on it!! [Redacted]‘s stupidity can surely not appreciate my conspicuously superior intellectuality. Woe to the fatuous decision, yet I humbly accpet!
Best luck with citi-bank, and I sincerely hope the trading can still flourish with those incompetent workers, with those preposterous foreclosures and ludicrous CDOs, with those avaricious vampires drying the blood of tens of thousands of poor languishing in loans and poverty! Woe!
Something, supposedly. Continue reading »
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Posted in:
Communiqués
Hedge Fund Manager’s Decision To Take Blame For Performance Is Slightly Alarming
By Bess LevinIn a letter sent this week, hedge fund manager (and former co-head of proprietary currency trading at Goldman Sachs) Christian Siva-Jothy informed investors that he would be shutting down his firm, SemperMacro, due to poor performance (the fund is down 2.3 percent year to date, and lost 8.7 percent in 2010 and 27 percent in 2009). He also made some truly disturbing statements. Continue reading »
For those who need it broken down further, the President, putting it in a way “Americans can understand,” noted that “we won’t be running up our credit card anymore.” As for the question of why the deficit wasn’t fixed yesterday, Obama told a reporter, “Let’s face it, you guys are pretty impatient. If something does not happen today, the assumption that it isn’t going to happen.”
She’s part of the former Treasury Secretary’s reading material this month. Continue reading »
Senator Chuck Schumer just appeared on CNBC to discuss the Deutsche Boerse and NYSE Euronext deal. His thoughts? He likes it, assuming the New York name comes first, otherwise he’s going to handcuff himself to Maria Bartiromo’s desk until it happens. Continue reading »
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuit against Fabrice Tourre should be thrown out, lawyers for the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. trader accused of misleading investors in a product linked to subprime mortgages told a federal judge. Andrew Rhys Davies, Tourre’s lawyer, said yesterday that the SEC is trying to circumvent a U.S. Supreme Court ruling issued in June, Morrison v. National Australia Bank, that limits the reach of civil claims for acts occurring outside the U.S. “The SEC is attempting to do an end run around Morrison,” Rhys Davies told U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones in Manhattan. [Bloomberg]
Barclays Beat Earnings Expectations (MarketWatch)
The bank reported a net profit of 3.56 billion pounds ($5.7 billion) for 2010, beating earnings expectations as recently appointed Chief Executive Bob Diamond said the bank will step up its efforts to increase profitability. Profit rose 36% from the £2.63 billion reported in 2009, excluding a £6.77 billion one-off gain in the year-earlier period from the sale of the group’s asset management division. Including that year-earlier gain, profit fell 62%. The euro has started the week under a little pressure, but, with a data avalanche to come, it’s not likely to remain in the unwelcome spotlight much longer. Pretax profit rose 32% to £6.07 billion and was ahead of the £5.78 billion consensus forecast of analysts.
Bernanke Would Defend Lehman Actions To His ‘Deathbed’ (Bloomberg)
“I will maintain to my deathbed, that we made every effort to save Lehman, but we were just unable to do so because of a lack of legal authority,” Bernanke said.
Wall Street Missed Out On Commodities Boom (WSJ)
At J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., which made an aggressive push into commodities during the past few years, revenue from the business shrank by 43% in 2010 compared with a year earlier, according to people with knowledge of the results. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said its commodities business suffered “significantly lower results.” Swiss bank Credit Suisse Group AG, among the few to announce its commodities revenue, last week reported a 42% drop. The problem: The biggest banks in commodities by revenue, including Morgan Stanley and Barclays PLC, all are focused on the large and liquid energy markets of oil and natural gas. Both had a lackluster 2010. Price swings, which help Wall Street traders make money, were near record lows for oil and gas, while trading levels fell sharply.
Tiger Woods to Be Fined by European Golf Tour for Spitting on Dubai Course (Bloomberg)
“The Euro Tour is right — it was inconsiderate to spit like that and I know better,” Woods said in the Twitter post, which was confirmed in an e-mail from his agent, Mark Steinberg. “Just wasn’t thinking and want to say I’m sorry.”
Einhorn Buys BP, Paulson Jumps Into Energy (Reuters)
Greenlight Capital Monday disclosed new stakes in half a dozen companies ranging from telephone company Sprint Nextel to energy company BP. Meanwhile, John Paulson jumped into shares of top energy producers in the fourth quarter, while holding steady with his big bets on gold and financial service firms.
Berkshire Hathaway Beefs Up In Wells Fargo (WSJ)
Berkshire’s $52.6 billion U.S. equity portfolio now includes just 25 companies, the fewest in several years. At the end of the third quarter, Berkshire held $48.6 billion in stocks after exiting from investments in firms including CarMax Inc., Home Depot Inc. and NRG Energy Inc., stocks that were in Geico’s accounts. The fourth-quarter increase in the size of the portfolio reflects substantial increases in the value of major holdings, including Wells Fargo & Co. and Coca-Cola Co.
‘Jeopardy!’ pits man against computer in Round 1 (AP)
In the “Jeopardy!” battle of man vs. machine, man and machine were neck-and-neck on Monday. Human player Brad Rutter and the supercomputer named Watson ended an initial round tied at $5,000. The other challenger, human Ken Jennings, was far behind with $2,000. Rutter (the show’s all-time money-winner with $3.25 million) and Jennings (who has the longest winning streak at 74 games) are the most successful players in “Jeopardy!” history. Watson, named for IBM founder Thomas J. Watson, is powered by 10 racks of computer servers running the Linux operating system. “You are about to witness what may prove to be an historic competition,” host Alex Trebek told viewers at the top of the show. Continue reading »
