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All Frank Farricker is saying is that if he’d bought the winning Powerball ticket? He would’ve acted like it meant something to him, unlike Mr. It’d Kill Me To Crack A Smile over here. Continue reading »
Attentive readers may recall that a while back I signed up to take the CFA Level I exam, in order to (1) pursue my passion for standardized testing,(2) expose the secret behind-the-scenes workings of America’s trillion-dollar financial-analysis-certification business, and (3) have a major institution to stand behind my guarantees of consistent above-market investment returns. I wrote a post about it, and then mostly forgot all about it.
Thinking that the exam might be sometime in December, I looked into it a bit more this weekend. Here are some things that I learned that I didn’t previously know, though you might have:
1. The exam is given using pencil and paper at the Javits Center. I had vague visions of the anonymous computer lab where you take the Series 7 on computers from the mid-1980s. Now I have to go buy pencils.
2. All of its contents. Actually I’d read maybe 100 pages of the ethics reading but then I got bored and stopped.
3. It’s this Saturday. Oops! Continue reading »
Is this a press conference to discuss winning $254 million or donating that much to Jerry Sandusky's 'rainy day fund'?
Connecticut residents Gregg, Brandon, and Tim were initially bashful about coming forward. Continue reading »
A lot of legal issues look like substantive things but are actually things about what institutions can and want to do. Obviously more people want to think about questions like “should the U.S. have universal health insurance?” than about questions like “does the Anti-Injunction Act bar lower federal courts from reviewing the individual mandate until taxes are collected in 2014?,” but judges tend to get into the latter question. That’s why they’re judges. That difference can make judicial decisions sort of hard to interpret.
Today everyone’s favorite federal judge, Jed Rakoff, surprised few but pleased many by beating the ever-loving crap out of the SEC’s settlement with Citigroup, in which Citi had agreed to pay the SEC $285 million in exchange for the SEC not asking too many questions about its synthetic CDO deals that were maybe not so hot. Here’s the gist of it:
Applying these standards to the case in hand, the Court concludes, regretfully, that the proposed Consent Judgment is neither fair, nor reasonable, nor adequate, nor in the public interest. Most fundamentally, this is because it does not provide the Court with a sufficient evidentiary basis to know whether the requested relief is justified under any of these standards. Purely private parties can settle a case without ever agreeing on the facts, for all that is required is that a plaintiff dismiss his complaint. But when a public agency asks a court to become its partner in enforcement by imposing wide-ranging injunctive remedies on a defendant, enforced by the formidable judicial power of contempt, the court, and the public, need some knowledge of what the underlying facts are: for otherwise, the court becomes a mere handmaiden to a settlement privately negotiated on the basis of unknown facts, while the public is deprived of ever knowing the truth in a matter of obvious public importance.
Here, the S.E.C.’s long-standing policy – hallowed by history, but not by reason – of allowing defendants to enter into Consent Judgments without admitting or denying the underlying allegations, deprives the Court of even the most minimal assurance that the substantial injunctive relieve it is being asked to impose has any basis in fact.
Right on! But also maybe just a little disingenuous. Judge Rakoff was not being asked for “substantial injunctive relief,” not really. It looks like that on the surface, in the sense that (1) the SEC and Citi worked out a deal where Citi gives the SEC money, promises not to violate the securities laws again, and agrees to do some remedial stuff like telling its salespeople to stop peddling synthetic CDOs structured by the protection buyer without telling anyone because somehow that is still a problem; and in the sense that (2) the SEC was asking Judge Rakoff to enshrine that agreement in an injunction. And then, if Citi didn’t keep its agreement – by not doing the remedial things, say, or by violating the securities laws again – the SEC could go back to court and say “hey, Citi violated the injunction” and Judge Rakoff could hold Citi in contempt and fuck. it. up. Continue reading »
Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, the powerful top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, announced Monday that he is retiring from the seat he has held for more than three decades…His decision will almost certainly have ripple effects as Democrats compete for Frank’s committee slot. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the second-ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, has already started making calls to colleagues to try to shore up support to succeed Frank in her party’s top post on the panel. [Politico]
The good news: bank bonuses are going to be down by a lot this year, upwards of 40 percent down. If you are on the receiving end of one of these slimmed-down packages, congratulations! It (probably) means management really likes you, as evidenced by letting you keep your job,** unlike your colleagues who were replaced by some low-cost business student pre-schoolers or potted plants. Continue reading »
Are you a lady looking for love? Have you found relationships with men who haven’t done time in federal prison to be lacking a certain je ne sais quoi? Does the idea of being with a guy who has an elastic view of securities laws do anything for you? Then girlfriends, you are in for a treat. Roy Ageloff, a “former millionaire trader” who is finishing up an 11 year sentence for running a “vast pump and dump manipulation,” is schedule to be sprung free on Dec. 11, 2013 and he hopes you’ll be waiting for him. Interested? Here’s Roy, in his own words. Continue reading »
Leaders In Europe Seek New Pact (WSJ)
The proposal, which hasn’t yet been agreed to, would make budget discipline legally binding and enforceable by European authorities. Officials regard the moves as a first step toward closer fiscal and economic coordination within the currency area. That would mark a seminal shift in the governance of the 17-nation euro zone. European officials hope a new agreement, which would aim to shrink the excessive public debt that helped spark the crisis, would persuade the European Central Bank to undertake more drastic action to reverse the recent selloff in euro-zone debt markets.
Merkel Favors Fast-Track EU Treaty Change (Bloomberg)
Germany spurned investor calls to maximise financial firepower to calm markets, saying its fast- track proposals for European Union treaty change to enforce budget discipline are key to solving the euro-area debt crisis. Germany is working with “an ambitious timeline because we believe that Europe can’t wait for this forever, but that it should also be possible to put such limited change into effect in what for some is a surprisingly short time,” Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief spokesman, Steffen Seibert, told reporters in Berlin today.
Moody’s: Mounting Pressure on All EU Sovereign Ratings (Reuters)
“While Moody’s central scenario remains that the euro area will be preserved without further widespread defaults, even this `positive’ scenario carries very negative rating implications in the interim period,” the agency said in a report.
Dealers See Fed Buying $545B Mortgage Bonds (Bloomberg)
Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and his fellow policy makers, who bought $2.3 trillion of Treasury and mortgage-related bonds between 2008 and June, will start another program next quarter, 16 of the 21 primary dealers of U.S. government securities that trade with the central bank said in a Bloomberg News survey last week. The Fed may buy about $545 billion in home-loan debt, based on the median of the 10 firms that provided estimates.
Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks Undisclosed $13B (Bloomberg)
The amount of money the central bank parceled out was surprising even to Gary H. Stern, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis from 1985 to 2009, who says he “wasn’t aware of the magnitude.” It dwarfed the Treasury Department’s better-known $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. Add up guarantees and lending limits, and the Fed had committed $7.77 trillion as of March 2009 to rescuing the financial system, more than half the value of everything produced in the U.S. that year.
Schwarzman Backs Romney as Wall Street Turns (Bloomberg)
Schwarzman, chairman of the world’s largest private-equity firm, will host a fundraiser for Mitt Romney at his Park Avenue apartment next month, in a sign that Romney is closing the sale with Wall Street’s wealthiest donors. The fundraiser marks Schwarzman’s inaugural step to help Romney secure the Republican presidential nomination, according to a person familiar with Schwarzman’s plans, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He will follow up with efforts to persuade colleagues in the financial industry to get behind Romney’s presidential bid, the person said.
California Black Friday pepper spray suspect surrenders, is released pending investigation (WaPo)
A woman suspected of showering Black Friday shoppers with pepper spray surrendered to authorities but was released pending further investigation after she refused to discuss the incident, police said Saturday. The woman, whose name was not released, is suspected of firing pepper spray into a crowd in order to clear a path to a crate of Xbox video game players that were being unwrapped late Thanksgiving night at a Walmart in the upscale Porter Ranch section of the San Fernando Valley. Continue reading »
$$$ Could Bank Stress Tests Push US Back Into Recession? [CNBC]
$$$ S&P Cuts Belgium Rating [WSJ]
$$$ LinkedIn Shares Sag [WSJ]
$$$ Black Friday riot breaks out over $2 waffle maker [WBTV] Continue reading »
Unfounded rumor of the afternoon: apparently big cuts are said to be expected by the end of the year. Continue reading »
