For many who work or aspire to work on Wall Street, getting a gig with Steve Cohen at SAC is the holy grail, for obvious reasons. Money. Prestige. “Stretching” rooms. An office on the water, perfect for midday contemplation. All the fleece clothes you could ever want. The opportunity to be called “sport” or “champ” or “idiot” by the big guy. And so on and so forth. Having said that, most people probably only know of the standard practices for obtaining employment at SAC. They include connections, applying, impressing representatives of the firm at your college or business school, and things of that nature. Unfortunately, we don’t generally hear about the less orthodox tactics some people have used (other than Gary Busey’s avenue for getting in good). Today James Altucher relates his tale. If you’ve been trying with little success to get your foot or other body part in the door, you’ll want to take notes. Step one: obtain Steve’s screen name. Continue reading »
Archive for February 2011
He showed up this morning in a White Honda Civic, requesting face time with “the president.” Continue reading »
No word if they’re using Metro North to move all their stuff, but it’s certainly possible. Continue reading »
$$$ Hisham Ezz Al-Arab, chairman of Commercial International Bank Egypt SAE, said today’s news was like Egypt “winning the World Cup” [Bloomberg]
$$$ “Professors at Texas A&M and Ohio State universities concluded that following contrarian investors is more profitable for stocks in which analysts and short sellers strongly disagree. In other words, buy if short interest is low and the analyst consensus is to sell; sell short if short interest is high and the analyst consensus is to buy.” [Reuters]
$$$ Fannie, Freddie Phaseout Proposed [WSJ]
$$$ Kinder Morgan’s Giant IPO [NetNet]
$$$ Bill Ackman’s Soft Power [BusinessWeek] Continue reading »
Former Commodities Exchange chairman Martin Greenberg is suing former NBA star Alonzo Mourning’s charity after he won $1 million for hitting a hole-in-one at its golf tournament — then was denied the prize after it was claimed the course had been improperly shortened. Greenberg hit the hole-in-one at the Alonzo Mourning Charities tournament at Donald Trump’s National Golf Club in Briarcliff Manor, NY, last August. But the insurer backing the event refused to pay up, claiming Greenberg’s required 150-yard shot had actually traveled only 139 yards. [NYP]
Wall Street Dominatrix Seeks Affair With Someone Looking For A Woman Who Can Understand The “Pressures” Of The Business
By Bess Levin
From Bloomberg Market Magazine‘s story on AshleyMadison.com, a site for people “looking to have an affair,” comes LuckyJane who herself is single but is looking for a married man: Continue reading »
John Thain Regrets Not Busting Out His Onesie, High School Wrestling Moves On Hank Paulson
By Bess Levin
“We collectively, the group of us, we should have just grabbed [Paulson and other Treasury officials] and shaken them and said, ‘Look, you guys cannot do this,’ ” Thain told FCIC interviewers in a Sept. 17, 2010 interview. “In my opinion, allowing Lehman to go bankrupt was the single biggest mistake of the financial crisis.” [Bloomberg]
Numbers are out this week and apparently there are “lots of unhappy campers” among associates and VPs. Continue reading »
Bonus info “started rolling in last night / this morning at Barcap and the mood isn’t good.” Numbers people have heard, plus deferral levels and splits: Continue reading »
The following letter was just sent to investors.
