Former Galleon employee Zvi Goffer, his Emanuel Goffer and Michael Kimelman, their partner at Incremental Capital, were found guilty this morning on “fraud and conspiracy to commit insider trading” charges. They each face 25 years in prison, meaning it’s going to be along time before another one of these: Continue reading »
Archive for June 2011
Do you love cats? Do you love every kind of cat? Do you want a house full of them? Do you want a house full of so many that it’s starting to cost you a pretty penny but the idea of not having the cats to roll around with is too much to bear? Help is on the way. Continue reading »
As you may have heard, President Obama will be running for office again. In 2008, he had a whole bunch of support from Wall Street, including JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and a bunch of whole hedge fund managers. Things got slightly tense in the last few years and while some financiers vowed to never, ever trust Obama with their hearts again (not after what he did to them!), some remained loyal and others can be gotten to. Prior to announcing his reelection campaign, the President held a meeting at the White House, organized by the DNC and attended by bankers and hedge fund managers, with two goals. Goal number one: getting a few things straight and goal number two: seeing who can be counted on.
The event…kicked off an aggressive push by Mr. Obama to win back the allegiance of one of his most vital sources of campaign cash — in part by trying to convince Wall Street that his policies, far from undercutting the investor class, have helped bring banks and financial markets back to health…“The first goal was to get recognition that the administration has led the economy from an unimaginably difficult place to where we are today,” said Blair W. Effron, an investment banker closely involved in Mr. Obama’s fund-raising efforts. “Now the second goal is to turn that into support.”
A few weeks later, Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, held meetings with Wall Street donors, including one held at the home of Avenue Capital founder (and Hillary turned Barack supporter) Marc Lasry. Next month, Obama will “dine with bankers, hedge fund executives and private equity investors at the Upper East Side restaurant Daniel.” Tasting menus won’t be enough to sway everyone, though, which is why the president has enlisted some wingmen to help him get the job done. Continue reading »
I.M.F. Reports Cyberattack Led to ‘Very Major Breach’ (NYT)
Several senior officials with knowledge of the attack said it was both sophisticated and serious. “This was a very major breach,” said one official, who said that it had occurred over the last several months, even before Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the French politician who ran the fund, was arrested on charges of sexually assaulting a chamber maid in a New York hotel.
IMF Mum On Details Of Cyber Attack (WSJ)
“We had an incident,” said IMF spokesman David Hawley. “We’re investigating it and the fund is completely functional.”
Roubini: ‘Perfect Storm’ May Threaten Global Economy (Bloomberg)
There’s a one-in-three chance the factors will combine to stunt growth from 2013, Roubini said in a June 11 interview in Singapore. Other possible outcomes are “anemic but OK” global growth or an “optimistic” scenario in which the expansion improves. “There are already elements of fragility,” he said. “Everybody’s kicking the can down the road of too much public and private debt. The can is becoming heavier and heavier, and bigger on debt, and all these problems may come to a head by 2013 at the latest.”
US banks to cut Treasuries use (FT)
Some of Wall Street’s biggest banks are preparing to cut their use of US Treasuries in August as a precaution against any turbulence that could follow if warring Republicans and Democrats fail to increase soon the US debt ceiling, a senior bank chief said …Investors worldwide own large amounts of the $9,700bn of debt that has been sold by the US government as part of their portfolios. But nearly 40 per cent of the existing US Treasury debt – about $4,000bn – is used to back deals in the repurchase, futures and swaps markets, say JPMorgan Chase estimates.
Banks battle over US tax law (FT)
Banks and foreign governments are mounting an increasingly desperate push against a sweeping US tax law that will force overseas institutions to report their American clients to the Internal Revenue Service.
CalPERS has been automatically deleting emails after 60 days (LA Times)
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System has begun automatically deleting any emails older than 60 days, raising concerns among watchdog groups that the giant pension fund could be destroying evidence of misdeeds. CalPERS has been under state and federal investigation over allegations that former executives and board members improperly influenced the fund’s investment decisions and strong-armed a medical benefits vendor to retain a former board member as a consultant, according to an internal review ordered by the fund and released in April.
Israeli Economist Enters Race to Lead I.M.F. (NYT)
With probably the most impressive résumé and the least chance of succeeding, Stanley Fischer, the governor of the Bank of Israel, has added his name to the list of candidates for managing director of the International Monetary Fund.
In Greece, Some See a New Lehman (NYT)
Bond traders and officials at the European Central Bank have been unified in their warnings that a restructuring of Greece’s debt would set off an investor panic similar to the one that followed the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. Continue reading »
$$$ SEC Refuses to Disclose SAC Referrals to Grassley [WSJ]
$$$ Stocks Fall in Longest Dow Slump Since 2002 (Bloomberg)
$$$ US equity outflows largest in 10 months (FT)
$$$ Just $50 Billion Left in QE2 (MarketBeat)
$$$ Bank Of America to Shutter Bond Prop Desk (Deal Journal)
$$$ Judge narrows SEC lawsuit against Goldman’s Tourre (Reuters)
$$$ Bill Gross Is Selling His Hole in the Ground for $26.5 Million (NetNet) Continue reading »
In 2008, Nedim Soylemez paid $3.1 million for an apartment in Tribeca. He didn’t move in until 16 months later, though, as the space needed a “stressful gut renovation” that “surpassed his $1 million budget” by an undisclosed amount in order to attain perfection. For Soylemez, perfection includes:
* Unnatural light (The windowless north wall features a video installation of Joshua Tree, Calif, which “creates the illusion of a window suffused with changing desert light.” “People will say, ‘Oh, what does that look out onto?’” Soylemez told the Journal. Nothing and that’s how he likes it. “If it’s going to be all light and all windows, it should be in the Hamptons, where I can take my shirt off and jump in the pool,” he said.)
* A bathroom where he can get away from it all (The trader likes spending time in his 150-square-foot master bathroom, where the concrete-and-marble shower has speakers and four showerheads, and the tub has a TV.)
* “Inconspicuous shower drains and air-conditioning vents”
* “Asymmetrical kitchen counters and multiangled walls”
* A guest room that will freak out particularly inebriated guests should the wake in the middle of the night (in windowless room used as a guest bedroom, a spectrum of colored lights (fluorescent tubes with different-colored gels) placed behind a floating wall suggest sunlight peeking through a crack.)
* Enough space for him not to feel like people are breathing down his neck or demanding his constant attention (Mr. Soylemez’s girlfriend, 29-year-old Rebecca Lee, said the apartment creates opportunities to slow down for Mr. Soylemez, who tends to wander away in midconversation or become distracted by his BlackBerry.) Continue reading »
“Exude confidence. It’s contagious. Walk into rooms planning to make it happen. If you assume something is impossible, it probably is. But if you’re confident that you’re supposed to be there, others will be, too.” [Businessweek via BI]
Two huge wins for Jim Cramer-endorsed investor Lenny Dykstra today. Continue reading »
One of the great equalizers in the city of New York, whether you’re a CEO or a summer intern, a billionaire or a mere hundred thousandaire involves beef. Specifically, that found at Shake Shake. Come summer, everyone in this city** waits an ungodly amount of time for their order at Shake Shack, no matter who they are. Senior employees at Credit Suisse, whose building is located across from the original Madison Park Shack, have attempted work-arounds for years, i.e. sending junior staff to wait on line and place orders for them, but still, they wait. Today, however, two viable options for not spending three hours waiting for your Double Shack Burger have emerged. Naturally, they come courtesy of the innovators at Goldman Sachs.
1. Get a job at Goldman Sachs or
2. Work near their downtown office and figure out the secret hand signal that was clearly used in the following scenario: Continue reading »
