Keith Hahn

Posts by Keith Hahn

  • 11 Sep 2007 at 11:22 AM
  • The Fed

Bernanke’s “Move”

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stop short.JPG
The unintentional Seinfeld reference that made us giggle today – Bernanke’s move on the U.S. economy is to stop short, emulating great central bank economists and driver’s seat molesters. Bernanke didn’t offer any inkling that rates would be cut at the September 18 FOMC meeting, disappointing Wall Streeters convinced that their whining was driving the Fed’s actions.
Many economists think the Fed will cut rates, but are arguing over the extent of the rate cut. Bernanke provided little clarity. More, from the Journal:

Comments Monday by San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen and Fed Governor Frederic Mishkin seemed to make the case for a half-point reduction, Fed watchers said. In contrast, remarks by Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart and Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher seemed to lean toward a quarter percentage point cut, analysts said. Wall Street was thus looking to Mr. Bernanke to break the tie, which he didn’t do. Mr. Bernanke’s speech is the last scheduled by a Fed official before the Sept. 18 FOMC meeting, meaning investors are likely to confront that meeting with much more uncertainty than they’re used to having.

Bernanke Speech Offers No Rate Clues [Wall Street Journal]

    • 11 Sep 2007 at 11:06 AM
    • Fat

    Other Countries Getting Fatter In August

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    fat_mcdonalds.jpg McDonald’s reported an August same-store sales increase of 8.1%. The primary drivers of the growth were new menu items, strength in breakfast offerings, more fat people and insatiable appetites for ridiculously unhealthy food abroad.
    Large sales increases in Japan, Australia and China spurred a 12.4% sales jump in the Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa regions for the golden arches. This is almost in exact correlation to the countries that are getting fat the fastest these days (no… not the U.S., because we’re already so large).
    Fast food chains are still saturating the Asia/Pacific region, and adopting the U.S. fast food business model of extended business hours and breakfast options that allow access to more than a day’s worth of fat in one sitting at all times. Combine this with the absence of a smoking stigma (at least big fat Americans are smoking less, and ostracized in public places) and less of a workout/gym culture and you get a rapidly expanding, and occasionally bursting, region.
    Shares of McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD) are up almost 4% in daily trading.
    In other McDonald’s news some broker friends of DB tell us that a popular stunt on their floor is the “McNugget Challenge,” where one person tries to eat as many McNuggets as they can in an hour. The last person who attempted this ate an incredible 72 McNuggets (more nuggets consumed than the popular “McNugget Power Hour,” with a 1 nugget/minute consumption rate). Thousands of dollars changed hands betting on the final tally (if anyone has any similar trading floor stunts that people bet on, let us know or drop an email to tips at dealbreaker dot com).
    McDonald’s sales boosted by breakfast, new menu items [MarketWatch]
    Obesity in Asia mirrors western increase [Guardian]

      • 11 Sep 2007 at 9:54 AM
      • research

      Please Sir, I Want Some More…Analyst Coverage

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      OliverTwist.jpg With the paring down of sell-side research groups, more and more companies are orphaned without analyst coverage. According to a new study, the fate of orphans is usually not a good one. Orphans are much more likely to turn to a life of underperformance than their covered stepbrothers. There are early warning signs with these troubled youths, as they pickpocket shrinking research resources and generate meager investment banking revenue.
      According to the study, an orphaned company is 26% more likely to be delisted, although research groups often leave orphans on the steps of a PE firm or other company. Half of delisted orphans go into liquidation, while 42% get acquired.
      A Sad Tale of Wall Street’s Orphans [DealBook]

        • 10 Sep 2007 at 4:04 PM
        • Banks

        You can make an incredible difference – to JPMorgan’s PR

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        DeadPoetsSociety.jpg You know how you wanted that banking job this year? Well you can have it, in a couple years. JPMorgan is all for extending you a rather nebulous, oft-revoked offer as long as you participate in Teach for America, at least until the market turns. JPMorgan still gets to say it hired a full crop of analysts and that it supports the less financially rewarding interests of its employees.
        In this case, those who can’t bank, teach. You still get some hush money – which is what the banks used to do anyway to get analysts to take a hike for a year. Unfortunately, using the cash to go on a far Eastern sex odyssey isn’t viewed as favorably.
        We personally think the program is a great idea, even if is a transparent attempt to avoid outright layoffs or steep hiring cuts. Budding bankers should go out and do something relatively selfless before they completely sell out, and if the effort gets more (presumably) smart individuals into programs like Teach for America, good for it.
        Of course, we think it’d be a great idea if there would be a teaching program similar to R.O.T.C. where you could agree to teach for a number of years in a dodgy public shcool and get a portion of your undergraduate education paid for. Many grad schools already have these programs if you avoid going corporate for a couple of years (you can get some of med and law school paid for at least).
        Sure the terrorists would win and fewer people would voluntarily sign up to get shot at in arid climates, but we could make a sequel to Dangerous Minds. If nothing else, we can finally start teaching the kiddies the difference between Muslim factions so they can grow up to run a half-competent state department.
        That being said, when you have a completely bogus chart that doesn’t take into account a bonus, bankers are just like everybody else (not even richer), so maybe we should have a Bank for America program. Entry-level salaries, from the Teach for America website:
        chart_financial_arrangements.gif
        Teach For America [JPMorgan]

          • 10 Sep 2007 at 11:30 AM
          • Media

          If A Former “Star” Falls In A Forest…

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          Not since Belushi doing Joe Cocker has there been a better parody of a musical performer than Britney Spears doing a parody of Britney Spears during last night’s VMAs.
          The VMAs have become so irrelevant that we need to remind you that they stand for MTV’s annual Video Music Awards. Once heavily promoted and occasionally watched, the VMAs represent one of the saddest whimpers of a dying network (in its current incarnation, before they redefine the “M,” ditch most of the current platform, and try to emerge as something that people will watch).
          If MTV would have only been more explicit about when the huge celebutard train wrecks were occurring, people might have tuned in. Although Kid Rock punching Tommy Lee – did we even care five years ago? MTV could air Viacom lawsuits and have a more interesting (and probably higher rated) televised feud.
          As the Times points out, more people will watch Britney’s shame spiral on YouTube than on TV, which must be a bitter pill to swallow for Viacom. Shares of Viacom are down over a half percent despite the boost in network web traffic.
          Britney vs. Belushi, after the jump…
          ‘Post’ Wins in Brit Bash Battle [Daily Intelligencer]

          Continue reading »

            • 10 Sep 2007 at 10:18 AM
            • Disney

            The Mouse’s Eyes (clap clap), Are Watching You

            By

            In response to the toy recall frenzy, Disney will be conducting random tests of licensed products. The tests are designed to make sure the 65,000 different Disney products sold by 2,000 vendors aren’t covered in lead or have small parts that fall off (there goes the Little Mermaid with the removable coconut bra, also lead coated for extra lift and support). One of the Mattel recalls involved a “Sarge” car toy based on the character from “Cars.”
            Disney’s tests are not designed to replace manufacturer safety protocols, but to scare toymakers into
            not selling small poison death traps, or accepting them from China. So we have a large private company acting as a self-appointed regulatory body. Is this even legal? Will Disney start suing toymakers if they find “unsafe” toys, and will the parameters of “safety” be defined by the Mouse?
            Since China is still going to be… well… China, the cost of all this “safety” and “avoiding child death” is unfortunately going to be passed on to the American consumer. The toy-selling landscape is already changing. For the first time, toys are trying the marketing tactics of U.S. automakers, urging the public to “buy American.” You can save the life of your child and battle the Commies in one tickle-me-purchase.
            Disney Plans to Test Quality Of Toys Using Its Characters [Wall Street Journal]

              Exposed Guts

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              yale.jpg A random Yale junior named Nick presents his “Semi-Annual Yale University Gut Course Review.” The email was picked up by Gawker, will probably be sent to the course profs and result in the gutting of the guts, dangerously close to the course drop date. Thus Nick will soon be public enemy #1 (right after Coach) to a sizeable contingent of large men in sweatpants, or equally dangerous female softball players.
              The secret to a good gut course is that it needs to be under the radar, at least enough not to attract any “official” attention. The second even a willing gut professor gets a little administrative or department heat over the ‘guttiness’ of a course, it instantly becomes a dangerous game of “let’s roll the arbitrary dice of liberal arts paper grading” or a nightmarish “I’m going to single-handedly combat the grade inflation of the entire university in this class” scenario.
              After extolling the virtues of classes like “Alcohol and Other Drugs in American Culture,” “Statistics as a Way of Knowing,” “The Hero in the Ancient Near East,” and “Great Discoveries in Archaeology,” Nick sends out a warning to aspiring I-bankers struggling to find relevant classes in a liberal arts degree:

              WHAT To Not Take:
              MICROECONOMICS: I cannot with any clear conscience send out a mass email and not remind everyone on the face of the earth not to take MICRO unless you like awful boring classes that you will end up getting a C+ in. Seriously though, utility curves are cool. So are horrible professors, arbitrarily shitty curves, tedious work, and gleaning no greater of economics whatsoever…. but for the 200 of you who take it… I told you so.

              Econ departments are lacking in obvious guts, even though the Econ major at most liberal arts schools isn’t exactly considered all that strenuous. Besides, who wants to take a gut-like “Economics of Something Really Cool” when you can learn about the Samurai?
              To help out the grade-grubbing future I-bankers of America trapped at liberal arts schools, if anyone knows of any good Econ guts, or just generally hilarious examples of making your parents proud of that $30+k they’re blowing, please let the public know.
              What Are The Gut Classes At Yale? [Gawker]

                • 07 Sep 2007 at 12:16 PM
                • Media

                UFC 76: Lulu vs. Hulu

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                There can be only one “ulu!” We gave the brain trust at NBC and NewsCorp some well-deserved flack over the decision to name their $1 billion video content portal “Hulu” after an inexplicable multi-month nomenclatural funk and near-extinction of Fantasia (or Fantastica) from the all-consuming Nothing. It seems Lulu is equally perplexed by the decision, and the one letter difference between the new name and its own. Lulu is suing Hulu (if litigatory karma exists, NBC and NewsCorp are right under Viacom in the pecking order of companies that need to be sued). Here’s more, from the Post:

                Hulu.com, NBC Universal and News Corp.’s soon-to-launch video Web site, has been slapped with a trademark infringement lawsuit by Lulu Enterprises for picking a name too similar to its own. Lulu, which controls the Web sites lulu.com and lulu.tv and specializes in digital self-publishing services for budding filmmakers, musicians and authors, claims in a suit filed in federal court in Raleigh, N.C., that NBC and News Corp.’s decision to name their service Hulu represents an intentional attempt to create confusion in the marketplace and an encroachment on its business.

                Do the Zulus have enough lawyers on hand to enter the fray? We hear creator god Nkulunkulu is especially pissed, but is not really an interventionist when it comes to human affairs.
                HULLABALOO OVER HULU [New York Post]