All that effort creating “an encyclopedia of everything” for nothing! Continue reading »
Archive for May 2011
Bloomberg Brief: Speaking of participants, a lot of commodity hedge funds got hit pretty hard by the sell-off earlier this month. Any theories what that might be about?
Jennifer Fan, Arrowhawk Capital Partners: A lot of funds’ decisions to focus on directional trading, particularly in light of the late move, is at least in part based on their capacity. Many of these funds are large, due to the fee incentive to grow as big as possible as fast as possible, and for that you need to run mostly directional bets that provide the units of volatility for the size of the markets. For us, if we’re doing things like Skype-ing farmers and trading ocean freight to get an informational edge the best way to generate alpha is through some of the examples I mentioned earlier. for this type of investing there are constraints, so we tend to be very conservative about capacity.
BB: Hang on. Skype-ing farmers?
JF: I Skype with farmers. Farmers love Skype.
Mexico Central Bank Governor Agustin Carstens On Why He Deserves This Job (Running The IMF)
By Bess Levin
“I think I have all of the qualifications to run the institution. I have 30 years of public service. I have a PHD from the University of Chicago. I have worked all my life in matters relevant for the Fund. I was the Executive Director of the Fund, the Deputy Managing Director of the Fund, in charge of the relationship with 80 countries. I was Minister of Finance of Mexico and now I am the Governor of the central bank. I have wide experience, I have participated in the G20, part of the steering committee of the Financial Stability Board, I’m a board member of the Bank for International Settlements. I know the institution from all different angles. I know the Fund as a member of the staff and its management, I was an Executive Director and I know the Fund, having been in authority with a lot stake at the Fund. I think I make a good candidate.” And despite all that… Continue reading »
Fred Goodwin’s Alleged Secret Lover Had Nothing To Do With RBS’s Near-Burning To The Ground
By Bess Levin
To those who think the woman- an RBS staffer who was promoted twice while she was (maybe) having an affair with Goodwin- “impaired” his “decision-making capacity,” which ultimately resulted in the bank having 82% of its ass owned by the government, think again! An internal investigation has concluded that 1) the woman was no more of a distraction than a hobby 2) he didn’t empower her to make any “big” decisions and 3) Goodwin was fully capable of running RBS into the ground without anyone else’s help, thankyouverymuch. Continue reading »
“Dykstra came to visit me on ‘Celebrity Rehab,’” Dwight “Doc” Gooden told WFAN’s Boomer & Carton on Tuesday. “I’ll tell you what, it was crazy. He thought that I had been hypnotized and (Dr. Drew) got me in there and was holding me hostage. He tried to come in with two guys to get me out of there. “So they come in. I’m talking to him, he wanted to talk, ‘Doc, I don’t like this.’ So we go out on the patio, me and him and the two guys are sitting there, we’re talking. “He said, ‘you sure this is what you want?’ I go ‘yeah.’ He goes, ‘I don’t know, I don’t feel good about this … let me take you bags and if you don’t like it, you call me.’ I was like, ‘trust me, I’m cool.’” [CBS]
Time was, you put a house on the market in Greenwich, Connecticut and you got your $35 million asking price in a matter of days- and it didn’t even have to come with 26-toilets, a property that would cause a serious bidding war. Greenwich could count on Wall Street to make it rain ka-ching! on people’s faces come bonus time and those people would in turn say sure, here’s $35 mill in cash, buy yourself something nice and all was right in the world. Now? With this bull shit about putting “greater emphasis on deferred compensation” and “incorporating risk management into performance measures”? It’s making would-be buyers think things through and not jump at relative bargains at $15.95 million. Continue reading »
Financial Services Employee Refuses To Accept Double Standard That Men Can’t Spruce Up Their Appearance With Plastic Surgery Like Women
By Bess LevinLooked in the mirror lately? If you’re a man of a certain age it’s quite possible you were repulsed by what you saw. Those bags under your eyes. Those wrinkles. Those 4 necks where only one should be. And dear god we’re not even going to touch on the breasts you’ve sprouted. The longer you look in the mirror the more disgusted you get. You start to wonder if maybe your bonus would’ve had a few extra zeros if it weren’t for that massive gut of yours. You want to do something drastic about it and fast but society says no, you must suck it up, unlike the lucky ladies who are free to get as much plastic surgery as they please. Well no longer. A small but burgeoning group of men, like Jim Wehrheim, founder of Wehrheim Financial Services, are standing up and demanding equal rights. Continue reading »
And it’s not Steve Cohen, i.e. Fred Wilpon just made the biggest mistake of his life. Continue reading »
Strauss-Kahn’s pals bid to pay off woman’s kin (NYP)
Friends of alleged hotel sex fiend Dominique Strauss-Kahn secretly contacted the accusing maid’s impoverished family, offering them money to make the case go away since they can’t reach her in protective custody, The Post has learned.
JPMorgan, UBS, Deutsche Bank to Face N.Y. Probe (Bloomberg)
JPMorgan Chase & Co., UBS AG and Deutsche Bank AG are being investigated as part of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s expanded probe of mortgage securitization, according to a person familiar with the matter. Four bond insurers also were subpoenaed: Ambac Financial Group Inc., MBIA Inc., Syncora Holdings Ltd. and Assured Guaranty Ltd., according to the person, who couldn’t be identified because the probe isn’t public.
Moody’s warns 14 UK banks face downgrade (Telegraph)
“The reassessment is not driven by either a deterioration in the financial strength of the banking system or that of the government,” said Elisabeth Rudman, a Moody’s senior credit officer and lead analyst for a number of UK banks, on Tuesday. “It has been initiated in response to ongoing guidance from the UK authorities (the Bank of England, the Financial Services Authority and the Treasury) that banks that fail in the future should not expect capital injections from the public purse.”
Greek default could make others junk: Moody’s (Reuters)
Portugal and Ireland would be at risk of multi-notch credit downgrades, pushing their ratings into junk territory in the event of a default by Greece, Moody’s EMEA chief credit officer told Reuters on Tuesday.
French government says China backs Lagarde for IMF head (Reuters)
French Budget Minister and government spokesman Francois Baroin said on Tuesday that China supports Finance Minister Christine Lagarde as candidate to be the new head of the International Monetary Fund.
Goldman, Morgan Stanley Bullish on Commodities, Predict 20% Return on Oil (Bloomberg)
Goldman…boosted its 12- month prediction for Brent crude to $130 a barrel from $107, analysts led by Jeffrey Currie said in a report today. Morgan Stanley raised its Brent estimate by 20 percent to average $120 a barrel this year and by 24 percent to $130 in 2012, it said.
Steven Rattner: Valley’s euphoria is tech bubble version 1.5 (FT)
“Yet, just as Facebook and Google are viewed today as bullet-proof franchises, so was AOL viewed as impregnable in its day. Its more than 20m customers paid $19.95 a month in steadily recurring revenue for, among other things, early versions of e-mail, chat and networking. With the advent of the worldwide web, those subscribers were essentially paying for nothing more than slow-speed dial-up connections. As broadband access spread, the customers melted away. Today, AOL has a trading value of only $2bn.” Continue reading »
$$$ Spain and Italy Turn Against Greece Over Reform Efforts (NYT)
$$$ Dominique Strauss-Kahn told the New York hotel maid, “Don’t you know who I am! Don’t you know who I am?” while pinning her down during the alleged sexual assault, law enforcement sources close to the investigation told FoxNews.com…“Please stop. I need my job, I can’t lose my job, don’t do this. I will lose my job. Please, please stop! Please stop!” she told Strauss-Kahn, according to law enforcement sources. Strauss-Kahn allegedly responded: “No, baby. Don’t worry, you’re not going to lose your job. Please, baby, don’t worry,” Strauss-Kahn responded, according to investigators. (Fox)
$$$ Belgium’s Debt Outlook Revised to Negative by Fitch on Political Stalemate (Bloomberg)
$$$ ‘Fear Gauge‘ Tops 20 for First Time in Two Months (WSJ) Continue reading »
In related news, Straus-Kahn has said in a statement Friday night “I deny in the strongest possible terms the allegations which I now face.” [NYP]
