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$$$ House Prices Fall to New Post-Bubble Low as More Rent (NYT)
$$$ Consumer confidence drops in May (Reuters)
$$$ House Set to Reject Debt Ceiling Hike Democrats Dismiss as “Political Charade” (ABC)
$$$ Bernie Madoff Is Ruining Divorces Now, Too (Daily Intel) Read more »
Planning on getting out of town most weekends the next few months but not going points further than a 300 mile radius? Perhaps out East, on Shelter Island or Martha’s Vineyard? If you answered yes, please be sure transport doesn’t involve helicopter or, god help you, a car, because roads as a means of transport have been declared “over.” Read more »
Zarti, reprising the role of Jake LaMotta
In early 2008, Libya’s sovereign-wealth fund controlled by Col. Moammar Gadhafi gave $1.3 billion to Goldman Sachs Group to sink into a currency bet and other complicated trades. The investments lost 98% of their value, internal Goldman documents show… In July 2008, Mustafa Zarti, the fund’s deputy chairman, summoned Mr. Kabbaj, Goldman’s North Africa chief, to a meeting with the fund’s legal and compliance staff, according to Libyan Investment Authority emails reviewed by the Journal. One person who attended the meeting says Mr. Zarti was “like a raging bull,” cursing and threatening Mr. Kabbaj and another Goldman employee. Goldman arranged for security to protect the employees until they left Libya the next day, according to people familiar with the matter.
Update: According to Lucas van Praag, the Libyans’ anger was misplaced: Read more »
Last month, we noted that a group of UBS employees who “worked in operations and were responsible for securities movements and payments” had been escorted out of the building and told not to come back “pending an internal review into their conduct.” Now we’ve been informed they were recently told not to come back, period. If you’re a current employee or about to join the firm and are unclear on the rules, know this: it turns out UBS does in fact frown upon skimming some off the top for yourselves. Read more »
If you watched the HBO version of Andrew Ross Sorkin’s book last week, what kind of tears did you shed while watching? Read more »
On February 11th Goldman issued four warrants tied to Japan’s Nikkei index which were described in three separate filings amounting to several hundred pages. Buried in the instructions to determine the settlement price was a formula that read “(Closing Level – Strike Level) x Index Currency Amount x Exchange Rate”. It is Goldman’s contention that rather than multiplying the currency amount by the exchange rate, it should have divided by the exchange rate. Oops. [Economist via BI]
Unless the Wilpons think they can come up with $200 million, in which case they’d better start sending Irving Picard a daily Edible Arrangement now. Read more »
According to Absolute Return, despite not cracking the Top 5 places for hedge fund hiring (NYC, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Stamford/Greenwich/Westport), “hiring patterns indicate that Minnesota is the new up-and-comer hedge fund state, with a fistful of firms actively luring strong senior talent.” [AR]
Something that apparently constitutes a 'trophy pad' to some people.
Over the holiday weekend, the Post ran an article about New York men who use their “luxury apartments to attract the ladies,” in which several dudes were interviewed about their abodes’ abilities to get them laid. One of them was well-known comedian Jim Norton, who was obviously fucking with the paper when he said stuff like:
“Women see windows — and skirts come off. This one businesswoman, she came over, and she said she was ‘not like the other girls,’ ” he recalls of the guest, who announced that she did not sleep with men on the first date. “Well, fast-forward an hour after seeing the apartment, and not only was she like the other girls, she was worse. They like the view…I remember another woman . . . I knew she was impressed with the place and decided to sleep with me. I gave a horrible [sexual] performance. She walked around the apartment a couple of times before she left — almost reminding herself that this is why she just put herself through that.”
Then there was “financier” John, who clearly took this seriously and while flexing in front of the mirror, told the reporter:
“In New York, when you say porn, more people are likely to think you mean real estate,” says John, a multimillionaire financier who asked that his real name not be used. “Every two-bit banker at Goldman Sachs can buy you an expensive dinner or have a $175,000 Ferrari, but how many can have the $10 million trophy pad?”
Putting the call on speaker so he could use both hands to get in some Shake Weight time, John went on: Read more »
Mahmoud Abdel Salam Omar, 74, chairman of El-Mex Salines Co [and] the former chairman of the Egyptian American Bank and the Federation of Egyptian Banks, was arrested yesterday after a 44 year-old female maid alleged he attacked her May 29, according to a police department spokesman. Officers were called to the hotel, located in midtown Manhattan, after she informed security of an alleged incident when she went to Omar’s room after he requested tissues. Police charged Omar with sexual abuse, unlawful imprisonment, forcible touch and harassment. He allegedly asked the maid for her telephone number and she gave a false one before leaving the room, police said. [Bloomberg]
As a result of the Feds’ current attempt to prove insider trading has gone down at certain hedge funds on Wall Street, several shops- some without verdicts of guilt- have been forced to close their doors. Investors saw the fund’s name in the paper in the same headline in which the words ‘insider trading’ appear and that was that. Until recently, such has not been the case for SAC Capital and why is that? Because unlike other funds, which apparently need to include a ‘no pussies’ clause and a forewarning that any stories of possible illegality set off an immediate gate, SAC investors have balls. There is nothing you could put in their faces that would make them flinch. Bat-shit insane ex-wives crying insider trading? Associations with traders who’ve pleaded guilty to putting material non-public information to use? Sodomy by whiteboard marker? Staffers losing appendages in the deep-fryer? You’ll have to do better than that, they say. Except for one.
