“I got crucified because I said you can keep your money in Bear Stearns. I got crucified in this country!!! I learned my lesson, you can’t be as confident as you’d like. I never said you should buy Bear Stearns, I said you should keep your money there. In 36 hours Bear Stearns fell apart. It was fine to say it wasn’t going to fall apart and then it fell apart. My first call was that it was okay to keep your money there which turned out to be true.” Continue reading »
Archive for August 2011
When former Microsoft-division Expedia launched in October 1996 on the cusp of the late-nineties Internet boom, the concept of a cost-comparison shopping website was still as foreign to people as mass market cell phones and the mp3. Today, the word Expedia is synonymous with travel, as the company has revolutionized the consumer shopping experience and inspired a legion of similarly themed business models. Continue reading »
Jeffrey Chiang: Reason Number One You Should Be Happy You Failed The Level III CFA Exam
By Bess Levin
Two days ago, the results of the Level III CFA exam were released. Fifty-one percent of you breathed sighs of gratitude and relief. After years of sacrifice and moments of crippling self-doubt, you were officially granted permission to place those little letters next to your name. Forty-nine percent of you were left feeling a bit less satisfied with how the June test panned out. We haven’t spoken with everyone, but in our professional opinions, we’re guessing most who failed are at stage two of Kübler-Ross. You’re so angry you can hardly see straight and you’ve fired off at least two emails to everyone associated with the Institute, Subject: “I see your three little letters and raise you three of my own: S a D” followed by a picture of a rabbit with a knife through it and a little card that says “YOU,” and then later, a photo you took using the self-timer function in which, and it’s kind of dark so it’s hard to make out, it looks like you’ve arranged hundreds of small candles spelling out the letters ‘c’ ‘f’ ‘a’ on your front lawn? And are attempting to put out the flames with your own piss?
And while many people have tried to tell you that it’s not a big deal, that you can take it again next year, that it doesn’t reflect who you are, that it happens to a lot of guys, nothing has seemed to work. You’re still really, really angry and deep down inside, you’re really sad, sad that you’ve been denied access to the club where apparently now they’ll let in just over half of anyone who shows up to take the goddamn test.
You shouldn’t be. In fact, you dodged a bullet. Continue reading »
Morgan Stanley Cuts Outlook, Cites Threat Of Recession (Reuters)
Morgan Stanley slashed its global growth forecast for 2011 and 2012, saying the U.S. and the euro zone were “dangerously close to a recession”, and criticized policymakers in Washington and Europe for not acting more decisively to contain the sovereign debt crisis. The bank cut its global gross domestic product growth forecast to 3.9 percent from 4.2 percent for 2011, and to 3.8 percent from 4.5 percent for 2012.
Fed Eyes European Banks (WSJ)
The New York Fed recently has been holding extensive meetings with the lenders to gauge their vulnerability to escalating financial pressures. The Fed is demanding more information from the banks about whether they have reliable access to the funds needed to operate on a day-to-day basis in the U.S. and, in some cases, pushing the banks to overhaul their U.S. structures, the people familiar with the matter say. Officials at the New York Fed “are very concerned” about European banks facing funding difficulties in the U.S., said a senior executive at a major European bank who has participated in the talks.
S&P Backs French Triple-A Rating (WSJ)
“We’re confident in the triple-A rating, stable. We have confirmed it, we confirm it today,” said Carol Sirou, the head of S&P in France, in an interview on French radio. “There are several rumors, but we never comment on them.”
Lawyer: SEC Files Were Illegally Destroyed (NYT)
An enforcement lawyer at the Securities and Exchange Commission says that the agency illegally destroyed files and documents related to thousands of early-stage investigations over the last 20 years, according to information released Wednesday by Congressional investigators. The destroyed files comprise records of at least 9,000 preliminary inquiries into matters involving notorious individuals like Bernard L. Madoff, as well as several major Wall Street firms that later were the subject of scrutiny after the 2008 financial crisis, including Goldman, Lehman, Citi and Bank of America…The agency’s records were routinely destroyed under an S.E.C. policy, since changed, that called for the disposal of records of a preliminary inquiry that was closed if it did not get upgraded to a formal investigation, according to Congressional records and people involved in inquiries into the matter.
Grassley Questions SEC Over Records Claims (Bloomberg)
U.S. Senator Charles Grassley asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to answer allegations that the agency destroyed files from initial investigations of firms including Goldman Sachs Group, SAC Capital and Bernard Madoff Investment Securities LLC. Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, made the request in a letter to SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro dated yesterday, citing claims by an agency employee that more than 9,000 such files have been purged. The Iowa lawmaker asked Schapiro to explain whether the SEC routinely destroys documents related to so-called matters under investigation that are dropped in their initial phases. “It doesn’t make sense that an agency responsible for investigations would want to get rid of potential evidence,” Grassley said in a statement. “If these charges are true, the agency needs to explain why it destroyed documents, how many documents it destroyed over what timeframe, and to what extent its actions were consistent with the law.”
Pope Demands Greater Ethics In Economic Policy (AP)
He said: “Man must be at the center of the economy, and the economy cannot be measured only by maximization of profit but rather according to the common good.” “The economy doesn’t function with market self-regulation but needs an ethical reason to work for mankind,” he told reporters traveling aboard the papal plane. He said the current crisis shows that a moral dimension isn’t “exterior” to economic problems but “interior and fundamental.” Continue reading »
$$$ Move to curb Swiss franc’s rise backfires (FT)
$$$ China May Stop Buying Treasurys as Growth Slows: Roach (CNBC)
$$$ Stop worrying about China and US Treasuries (FT Alphaville)
$$$ Madoff Decision Is Significant Setback for Owners of Mets (NYT)
$$$ Chavez Preparing Government Takeover of Venezuela’s Gold Mining Industry (Bloomberg)
$$$ Australian Investment Banker Is ‘Collar Bomb’ Suspect (WSJ)
Continue reading »
The market volatility of last week was not kind to the hedge fund behemoth John Paulson, whose flagship fund was down 34 percent through Friday’s close, according to an investor who was briefed on the performance today…Paulson’s merger funds are faring considerably better, though still in the red with the enhanced levered fund down 7 percent year to date and the unlevered fund down 3 percent year to date. [CNBC]
Thanks to Merrill Lynch. Continue reading »
Today is really becoming pile on the SEC day. First Matt Taibbi gets on them for not using “subpoenas, depositions, everything short of hot pokers and waterboarding” on people just because they hadn’t done anything wrong. Now the unfortunately named Toby Scammell, whom the SEC sued for insider trading last week, has fired back with his own blog called #SECFAIL.
Scammell made hundreds of thousands of dollars by buying a lot of short-dated out-of-the-money call options on Marvel just before it announced that it would be acquired by Disney. Scammell claims he came up with this strategy because he is an awesome options trader who once “spent four months researching and writing a book on scenario-based trading.” The SEC claims his girlfriend was working on the acquisition as a Disney consultant and told him about it in advance.
You’d think they could just agree to disagree on this, but Scammell has spent a lot of time with the SEC answering questions, and based on the quality of those questions and the SEC’s complaint, he’s decided that they’re a bunch of morons and not worth any more of his time. Specifically:
Continue reading »
Matt Taibbi Thinks It’s “Orwellian” For the Government Not To Keep Records On You Just Because You Haven’t Done Anything Wrong
By Matt Levine
Today Ladies Home Journal 2001 pie baking champion Matt Taibbi takes a break from bashing Goldman Sachs to bash the SEC in Rolling Stone. Like others, he’s kind of unimpressed by the SEC’s failure to keep track of complaints / referrals / pretty much anything that’s going on. Unlike everyone else, though, he attributes this failure not to incompetence but to a far-reaching cover-up:
Continue reading »
Winifred Jiau, a former consultant with expert networking firm Primary Global Research LLC, lost a post-trial bid to overturn her convictions on charges related to insider-trading. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff denied Jiau’s motion for an acquittal or a new trial in federal court in Manhattan, where she was convicted June 20 of conspiracy and securities fraud. The jury found her guilty of passing information regarding earnings and other matters on Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) and Marvell Technology Group Ltd. to hedge fund managers Noah Freeman, a former SAC Capital Advisors LP portfolio manager, and Samir Barai, founder of New York-based Barai Capital Management LP. Jiau, of Fremont, California, faces as long as 25 years in prison when she is sentenced by Rakoff. [Bloomberg, earlier]
Who is the greatest Ponzi schemer of our generation? If we’re evaluating on the basis of sheer size, Bernie Madoff is the obvious answer. But as many of you know, size can only get you so far in life- it’s what you do with what you’ve got that matters. And Berns really didn’t do anything all that exciting with his ill-gotten gains. He bought a bunch of homes, yes, but his primary residence faced Lexington and from what we can tell, he didn’t buy anything that interesting with his cash. Same goes for most other scams- funds are spent on cars, maybe some jewelry, maybe some prostitutes, maybe some Teddy Bears. Frankly, from an investor stand point, it’s a little insulting- if you’re going to rip people off, at least do something real with the money. Make a name for yourself. Penetrate a community like never before. Follow in the footsteps of Nevin Shapiro.
Nevin, and you can quote us on this, became the frontrunner for greatest Ponzi schemer of our time when, from a jail cell, he chose to fuck the University of Miami football program raw, not unlike the players who he arranged prostitutes for over an 8 year period. How did he claim such a tittle? What steps should budding Ponzi schemers hoping to make a name for themselves be taking notes on? Continue reading »
