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Archive for April 2011
The following post is by Dealbreaker reader and commenter Infinite Guest.
This is the worst time in decades to try to reduce the deficit. Unemployment is immorally high, growth remains anemic, private deleveraging shows no signs of abatement, infrastructure is rapidly deteriorating and the prospect of a stagflationary double-dip recession is all too imminent. Yet the drum beat for deficit reduction is deafening, with everyone from Standard & Poor’s to the Committee for Economic Development to the AFL-CIO keeping time, and the rest of the world joining in, marching for a cure to our ailing fiscal health. But if Dr. Dominique Strauss-Kahn prescribes it, and Dr. Zhou Xiaohuan concurs, then it’s snake oil. Don’t drink it. Continue reading »
Robert Hess, who interned at [Fortress] in 2008 and will attend Yale University in August, will try to see the future over the next seven days — on a chessboard. The 19-year-old grandmaster is alone atop his group in the first phase of the 2011 U.S. Championship in St. Louis, and has clinched a spot in the semifinals. In five months, he plans to use his chess skills to help study finance at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut, and join the likes of Harvard University economics professor Ken Rogoff as grandmasters to attend the university. “These are the kinds of things that I like doing, strategizing and finding patterns,” Hess said in a telephone interview from St. Louis. Hess, who deferred from Yale for a year to play chess full time, worked a summer internship at Fortress. There, Hess analyzed entertainment stocks and developed an interest in finance. [Bloomberg via BI]
A few years back, a hedge fund in Greenwich went out of business. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Was called Amaranth Advisors. Was run by a guy named Nick Maounis. Had this lovable goof of a Canuck named Brian Hunter making natural-gas trades. Brian was always up for a good laugh and one day, on a lark, put on some trades that resulted in the firm losing, I don’t know, like $6.6 billion. It’s was hilarious! Maybe you had to be there, but I’m telling you, it was pant-pissingly funny. Definitely one of the best things to happen to the hedge fund community in a while.
Anyway, Maounis went on to start a new fund called Verition with most of the gang from the old shop, except for Hunter, who did some work for Peak Ridge Capital and also spent the last few years unsuccessfully fighting fighting what he believed was a bum rap re: market manipulation (on good, non-firm-destroying trades). Continue reading »
If Someone Wants To Create A TV Series About Heroic Economists, Paul Krugman Would Be Okay With That
By Bess Levin
He’s not asking for it, he’s just saying, if you want to do it, it’s cool with him. A comic book would also be okay. [TCL]
Earlier this morning, Raj Rajaratnam’s 7-man legal team led by attorney John Down gave its final remarks in the insider trading case. While the Galleon founder is, of course, innocent until prove guilty, much of the evidence brought by the prosecution has made him look prettay prettay prettay bad, including but not limited to recordings of Raj complimenting Danielle Chiesi on how she “played” a tech exec into giving her material non-public information and one of him telling a friend he knew to buy shares of a company because “one of our guys is on the board,” as well as testimony from a former McKinsey exec that Raj paid him $1 million for his tip about AMD’s acquisition of ATI and the previously undisclosed fact that the defense’s big witness, Richard Schutte, was gifted with a $15 million investment in his hedge fund by the Rajaratnam family two weeks prior to speaking glowingly of Raj. How did Dowd explain all that in his wrap-up? It’s pretty simple, really. Everyone who said something that suggested his client was guilty is a liar. Continue reading »
Fund Of Funds Guys Are Worried About What Will Happen To SAC Capital If Steve Cohen Buys The Mets
By Bess Levin
As you may have heard, Steve Cohen recently put in a bid for a minority stake with the Mets. Should he be successful, the SAC Capital founder’s partial ownership will please a great many people- the organization, which needs the money, the players, who need the discipline, the SAC employees, who will have the honor of taking turns filling in for Mr. Met when his performance is deemed shit and most of all, the fans, who stand to benefit the most from Steve’s leadership, as you don’t win rings without having a guy around who will light a fire under everyone’s ass. It’d unquestionably be a win-win situation for all. And yet.
A coupla guys named Brad and Brett are worried. Worried that Steve will lose focus. Worried that he won’t be able to handle owning a Major League Baseball team and running SAC Capital.
“Owning a team can be a function of ego, it is very high-profile, and it could prove to be a distraction,” says Brad R. Balter, head of Boston-based Balter Capital Management, which farms out money to hedge funds. “As an investor, I have to consider that.” Words to bear in mind for Steven A. Cohen, the billionaire hedge fund manager who is bidding for a minority stake in the New York Mets. Investors such as Balter are watchful for signs fund managers have become less attentive to their day jobs. “We don’t begrudge managers getting rich, but we want to invest with people who are motivated and are concentrating full-time on managing money,” says Brett H. Barth, a partner at New York-based BBR Partners, which invests in hedge funds.
The little brains on Brad and Brett– most likely not SAC investors though they’d kill a man in cold blood for the privilege– seem to think that it takes constant monitoring of all markets as well as an extreme attention to detail to run an ultra successful hedge fund manager, and that were Steve to start going out on school nights and not put in 100 hours a week keeping up with his stocks, that the whole thing would fall apart. What they fail to get? Is just how easy this is for SC. Trading these markets? It’s a fucking joke to him. He could do it from the dugout during the 8th inning of a Johan Santana no hitter, whereas Brad and Brett could be given could be given an order to cover a short position and all they’d do is fumble around and fuck it up. Continue reading »
We’re told four UBS employees were pulled out of the Stamford office Tuesday, after two of them returned from vacation. Apparently all four “worked in operations and were responsible for securities movements and payments.” Continue reading »
Morgan Stanley Profit Drops, Beats Estimates as Trading Revenue Jumps (Bloomberg)
Net income fell 45 percent to $968 million, or 50 cents a share, from $1.78 billion, or 99 cents, a year earlier, the bank said today in a statement. Earnings from continuing operations, excluding a 26-cent loss tied to a Japanese joint venture and a 30-cent tax gain, were 46 cents a share. That compared with the 40-cent average estimate of 14 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
Ex-Goldman Sachs Banker Starts Hedge Fund Analyzing Japanese Blog Traffic (Bloomberg)
Former Goldman Sachs Group banker Hideki Furusho and a University of Tokyo professor have teamed up to create a hedge fund that invests in Nikkei 225 futures based on a computer model that analyzes Japanese blogs.
At Facebook Townhall, Obama Goes On Offensive (WSJ)
“The Republican budget that was put forward I would say is fairly radical. I wouldn’t call it particularly courageous,” Mr. Obama said. Mr. Obama offered a dire description of the budget drafted by Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. He said it would reduce taxes for corporations and the wealthy by cutting funds to clean energy programs and transportation. “I guess you could call that bold. I would call it shortsighted,” Mr. Obama said to applause from an audience of mostly young people. “I do think Mr. Ryan is serious,” Mr. Obama added. “He’s a patriot.”
BlackRock First Quarter Profit Gets Boost From Popular ETFs (Reuters)
The New York-based firm earned $819 million, or $2.96 per share, excluding some expenses, compared with $727 million, or $2.40 per share, a year earlier, BlackRock said on Thursday.
Weil: Geithner Downgrades His Own Credibility To Junk (BusinessWeek)
Fox Business reporter Peter Barnes began his televised interview with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner two days ago with this question: “Is there a risk that the United States could lose its AAA credit rating? Yes or no?” Geithner’s response: “No risk of that.” “No risk?” Barnes asked. “No risk,” Geithner said.
GE Profit, Revenue Beat Street View (Reuters)
The world’s biggest maker of jet engines and electric turbines said earnings attributable to common shareholders came to $3.36 billion, or 31 cents per share, up from $1.87 billion, or 17 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue rose 6 percent to $38.45 billion.
Bernanke Plans To Make Voice Heard (WSJ)
Next Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will do something no Fed chief has done before: Stand before a room full of journalists after officials conclude a policy meeting and answer questions about the central bank’s decisions…”You can argue that the chairman of the Fed is more important than the president of the United States, but very few Americans understand what the Fed does,” says Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who successfully pushed for the Fed to disclose more about its secretive bank lending. Addressing the press, Mr. Sanders says, will be “a step forward.”
Greece Seeks Probe Into Debt Restructuring Rumor (Reuters)
Greek bank stocks fell 4.58 percent on Wednesday and the broader Athens bourse index lost 2.62 percent, underperforming pan-European indices on what traders said where rumors, spread by email, that the country would soon restructure its debt…”The ministry urgently requested the prosecutor’s office to launch a criminal investigation regarding the move in the Athens Stock Exchange and the bond market,” the ministry said in a statement.
Taco Bell Demands Apology After Lawsuit Is Withdrawn (CT)
On Wednesday, the fast-food chain decided to trumpet that good news with full-page ads in 10 major U.S. newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal, demanding an apology. The company pegged the ads at a total cost of between $3 million and $4 million. “Would it kill you to say you’re sorry?” the ad exclaimed. “Sure, they could have just asked us if our recipe uses real beef. Even easier, they could have gone to our Web site where the ingredients in every one of our products are listed for everyone to see,” the ad read. “But that’s not what they chose to do. Continue reading »
$$$ Raj Rajaratnam’s attorney John Dowd delivered about an hour of his closing argument on Wednesday, attacking the government’s cooperating witnesses as “liars” and the prosecution’s case as “a fiction.” (He also said that this will be his last trial.) [CNBC]
$$$ Goldman names Rogers, Cooper as executive officers [Reuters]
$$$ CIT Gets Restriction On Bank Lifted [Dealbook]
$$$ ‘Fresh Prince of Bel Air’ cast: Where are they now? [NYDN] Continue reading »
