Robert Darling commutes once a week from his two-bedroom apartment in Bradley Beach, N.J., to seek love in Manhattan, panhandling for affection beneath a sandwich board. ”I’m looking for a wealthy lady to be my wife,” reads his entreaty, written in multi-colored marker…For nearly a decade, he has donned the portable personal advertisement at his three preferred love-seeking locations: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Columbus Circle and Wall Street. Besides financial security, Darling says his requirements for a lady love are fairly lenient. He wants a smart woman who will make him laugh and enjoys listening to the band Genesis on the audio cassettes he carries with him. And his threshold for wealth is refreshingly lenient, at least by the standards of the posh Manhattan areas where he looks for love: an eligible bachelorette must have a net worth of $750,000, he says. Darling is willing make exceptions for the right person. His sign offers the following caveat: “Ladies Not yet rich but very well off will be considered.” [WSJ]
Archive for August 2011
Attention Unwed Women Of Wall Street: Area Man Seeks Genesis-Loving Rich Lady To Be His Wife
By Bess Levin
From time to time around these parts, when things get really, really bad, we like to take a few moments to get a little perspective. Yes, you could be getting your face ripped off for the 7th day straight. Yes, your boss could be forcing you, literally, to stay in a job you hate. Yes, you could be ruing the day you tempted fate by ejaculating for a second time into your colleague’s water bottle after the first emission went unnoticed. But you’re not Gavin DeGraw and for that you should be thankful. Continue reading »
collector's item
According to the Fed, which changed its tune from “exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate for an extended period” to “exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate at least through mid-2013.” From the Fed’s statement:
The Committee currently anticipates that economic conditions–including low rates of resource utilization and a subdued outlook for inflation over the medium run–are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate at least through mid-2013. The Committee also will maintain its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its securities holdings. The Committee will regularly review the size and composition of its securities holdings and is prepared to adjust those holdings as appropriate.
Three governors preferred to keep it vague. Continue reading »
It’s sort-of-good-news day at BofA, with Dick Bové declaring that if he were hypothetically buying bank stocks he’d hypothetically load up on BAC. In that tradition, footnoted.com has a nice note pointing out that, with the stock down 20% yesterday, Brian Moynihan looks less like a shareholder and more like a bondholder. Which at this point is – yeah, sort of good.
As they explain:
That’s not because Moynihan has been selling a significant number of shares — he still owns 481,806 shares, up 7% from a year ago, plus heaps of options and restricted shares that he may get title to eventually. Even at today’s depressed prices, the shares he actually owns are worth something like $3.4 million.
But BofA also owes Moynihan a bundle, in the form of pension and deferred-compensation promises. Unlike retirement benefits for the rank-and-file, executive benefits typically don’t actually reflect cash set aside in a dedicated pension fund or 401(k) account. Rather, they’re nothing more than IOUs — in Moynihan’s case, IOUs worth some $10.7 million as of March 16, according to BofA’s latest proxy, and probably at least a little more by now.
Compare the structure of Moynihan’s claims to his firm’s capital structure. Continue reading »
The Observer reports that “someone paid for an airplane to fly by the New York City offices of Standard & Poor’s with a banner screaming: “THANKS FOR THE DOWNGRADE. YOU SHOULD ALL BE FIRED.”"
UpdateActually it turns out that the person who hired the plane has no problem with S&P and meant to say “YOU SHOULD ALL BE FIRED” to someone else. Oops!
Fortune has learned that the person who paid to fly the banner is a Midwestern broker, who woke up last night with the need to vent at those who she believes are leading the nation into an economic morass.
“I originally wanted to fly it over Washington, D.C., but learned that you can’t do that,” says the banker, who asked to remain anonymous for job security reasons. “So I chose Wall Street instead, but didn’t specifically intend it to fly over S&P. I’m just a mother from St. Louis who feels the only reason we got downgraded was people in politics.”
About that plane over S&P [Fortune]
Sometimes he doesn’t get you people. It’s like you’re speaking another language or something. Needless to say, you sicken him. Continue reading »
After yesterday’s nonconsensual relations with the market, Bank of America’s CEO apparently felt it necessary to send a memo to employees today telling them that everything is fine and not only that but “we’re stronger than we were in 2008-2009,” when it was considered a good day if its chief executive officer only needed to be scraped off the floor of Yesteryears Goodtime Pub and not be picked up in the abandoned alley where he was left by the Treasury Secretary after having his legs broken. [CNBC]
Financial Services Employee Who Inserted His DNA Into A Colleague’s Water Bottle Ordered To Pay $13,500 Per Shot
By Bess Levin
It probably wouldn’t be too out of bounds to say that at least a handful of you have considered jerking off in a coworker’s water bottle. Conservatively. As prudent risk managers however, you’ve held off until you could quantify how much non-reward you would be getting with each unit of risk. Finally, and not a moment too soon for some, we got answers. Continue reading »
Tumult In Global Market Continues (NYT)
Jean-Claude Trichet urged Spain and Italy to quickly shore up their credibility with the markets, and called on European leaders to move quickly to implement measures agreed on July 21 to bolster the euro-zone’s bailout fund. “Taken together, and particularly since Lehman Brothers, this is the most grave crisis we have faced since World War II,” he said in an interview with Europe 1 radio in Paris, citing the “financial turbulence” that started in August 2007. “And I believe that it would be the worst since World War I if the authorities had not taken the important decisions they have.”
Disaster Movie Gets A Sequel, With Subtitles (NYT)
“While the players in Washington certainly haven’t performed at AAA level, I would certainly take U.S. Treasuries over other AAA sovereigns any day,” Hank Paulson said.
Why This Crisis Differs From The 2008 Version (WSJ)
The reality is that, unlike 2008, governments’ money is no good in today’s stressed environment.
Europe’s Leaders Play Tennis While Markets Implode (CNBC)
British Prime Minister David Cameron had to return from his vacation on Monday night as parts of London erupted in rioting (a report on Sunday saying that Cameron had flown out a tennis instructor from the UK for the second week of his family holiday in a plush Tuscan estate, was not well-received). His Finance Minister George Osborne has been snapped on a rollercoaster in California. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is off on her usual summer break of a two-week hiking holiday in the Tirol Alps …French President Nicolas Sarkozy headed off to the French Riviera with his pregnant wife Carla Bruni. José Manuel Barroso is taking some sun in his native Portugal, although his spokeswoman insists that he is working from his vacation. In contrast, Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero canceled a planned trip to a nature reserve in southern Spain as yields on the country’s debt shot up. His Italian equivalent Silvio Berlusconi has abandoned his usual trip to his Sardinian holiday villa, allegedly the scene of “bunga bunga” parties.
$2,500 Bullion? (NYP)
JPMorgan analyst Colin Fenton came out with a strong buy on the relic yesterday, saying bullion could hit $2,500 an ounce by Dec. 31 — a whopping 45 percent above yesterday’s close.
Manager: Market A Spoiled Baby Crying To “Daddy Bernanke” (CNBC)
Following huge losses for the Dow on Monday and further selling in Asia overnight, the markets are watching what the Fed and Ben Bernanke will do at their July Meeting today. Speculation is mounting that the Fed will attempt to restore calm but one fund manager thinks that policy action is unnecessary. “The markets have become like a spoiled baby who expects daddy Bernanke to rush for help whenever they feel a little bit of pain” Pedro Noronha, a fund manager at Noster Capital in London, told CNBC…“This correction was long overdue and it is healthy, as it allows assets to pass from weak into stronger hands and to be more fairly priced” said Noronha. Continue reading »
$$$ US Senate Banking Committee Looking Into S&P Downgrade of US Credit Rating (Reuters)
$$$ S&P 500 Extends Worst Slump Since 2008 Bear Market (Bloomberg)
$$$ Noting public concerns about the economy, Obama declared: “Markets will rise and fall, but this is the United States of America. No matter what some agency may say, we’ve always been and always will be a triple-A country.” (CNN)
$$$ Global Banks Poised to Slash 101,000 Jobs in Fastest Reductions Since 2008 (Bloomberg)
$$$ Hedge Funds Unload Shares (WSJ)
$$$ Dick Bové: “BAC can go to one dollar and it won’t need to raise capital.” (SI) Continue reading »
S&P President: Maybe The Market Crash Was A Reaction To The Downgrade And Maybe It Wasn’t
By Bess Levin
The drop could be attributed to anything- The shit in Europe. Rex Ryan’s tattoo. The god damn heat (and SACs busted AC). You have no idea. Continue reading »
