Not the Fed, America, your cash flow-draining girlfriends, banks, paper, gold ETFs. Get your hands on some real, physical gold, put it in “a safe deposit box ideally outside the US, in various locations- Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, Canada,” lay low and wait for his signal. Continue reading »
Archive for August 2011
The meeting is said to be scheduled for 3PM, leaving the staff, Beamers girls, Morton’s bartenders and the guy who “sells a whole lot of brown-bagged bottles of liquor to UBS employees every evening” plenty of time to freak out that they’re going to potentially told the bank is leaving the state. Alternatively, those who dream of a giant Costco taking over the 100,300 square foot space will have the entire day to salivate over potentially pillaging delicious and moderately priced cheesecakes every day after work. Continue reading »
The good news: UBS has figured out a way to save $2.5 billion annually moving forward. The less than good news: Continue reading »
$$$ Prosecutor Asks Court to Drop Charges Against Strauss-Kahn (NYT)
$$$ Oil Producers Take Steps to Return to Libya (WSJ)
$$$ Members of Merkel’s Party Emphasize Opposition to Euro Bonds (NYT)
$$$ Icahn Gained on $2 Billion Bet Against S&P 500 (Bloomberg)
$$$ Russians dodge £75,000 bill at Sardinia’s Billionaire nightclub (Guardian)
Continue reading »
Kruggles taking a break from “socialist hellhole blogging” to raise some sails. [NYT]
Although you know that Eliot Spitzer was slightly preoccupied during his time as New York’s Attorney General, maybe you can understand why William Gilman and Edward McNenney might have thought that he was devoted full-time to bullying them. Gilman and McNenney, formerly executives at insurance broker Marsh & McLennan, have not exactly had positive interactions with the Spitz these past seven years. Let’s go down the list: Continue reading »
Dennis Gartman Positions Himself Perfectly To Be Able To Say He Called The End Of The Gold Rally
By Bess Levin“Gold is strong in any and all currency terms, and it is now entering that stage when prices go parabolic,” Gartman said today in his Suffolk, Virginia-based Gartman Letter. “This will end when it ends; there is really nothing more that can or shall or should be said.” [Bloomberg]
Related: Dennis Gartman Just Wants To Point Out That He Sooooo Called That Earthquake In Japan
When Ruth Rooney bought a home in Vallejo, California in 2005, Bloomberg reports, “there were few vacancies and the historic Hill neighborhood attracted young professionals.” Then the city lost the US Navy’s Mare Island shipyard, it’s largest employer and filed for bankruptcy and now? Rooney’s property value has “dropped 70 percent in six years” and Vallejo attracts a different type of “professional” to the area. One that can do a “job” out of your car or anywhere it’s convenient to drop trou. Continue reading »
Market Apparently Shocked To Find Out Goldman Sachs CEO Takes Investigations Seriously, Hires Best Lawyers Money Can Buy
By Bess Levin
Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein has hired Reid Weingarten, a high-profile Washington defense attorney whose past clients include a former Enron accounting officer, according to a government source familiar with the matter…The move to retain Weingarten comes as investigations of Goldman and its role in the 2007-2009 financial crisis continue. The Securities and Exchange Commission scored a $550 million settlement against the bank in a fraud lawsuit in July 2010, but other investigations continue. “Why do you bring in someone like that?” said the source, who was not authorized to speak publicly. “It says one thing: that they’re taking it seriously.” [Reuters]
Hottest Sell-Side Analysts Distinguish Themselves By Covering Companies That Don’t Trade Yet
By Matt Levine
I actually own these cufflinks
It’s not difficult to find cases of sell-side analysts recommending a stock at its peak, and then keeping the buy on all the way down to its bottom – at which point it becomes a sell. Josh Brown points out an egregious example and asks:
I have no idea how much brokerage firms pay analysts to cover stocks or whether or not the costs are really offset by revenues from institutional trading. I’m assuming that whatever they pay them, it is money well spent and they make more than enough in reciprocal brokerage profits – because how else to explain it otherwise?
Conveniently the Times this weekend answers both questions. Re: how much they’re paid, the answer is “more than a potted plant, anyway,” although the compensation packages do suggest that if they were really so good at picking stocks they’d do so on the buy side: Continue reading »
From the front lines: Continue reading »
