Forget the bruising defensive linemen and the stellar quarterback play. Brooklyn’s Jennifer Pernice thinks her lucky garden gnome — clad in a blue Giants jersey — has been the key to the team’s stunning late-season run. “He’s looking over Eli’s shoulder. It just brings them good-luck vibes,” she said. “Since he came into my life, the Giants have been doing pretty good,” said Pernice, 30, who works at Morgan Stanley. The figurine, which is no taller than a football, was a Christmas gift from her sister Lauren. The Giants have been a flawless 4-0 since. Pernice can be seen every Sunday cradling the gnome she calls Ganomio at the Salty Dog Bar in Brooklyn, hoisting him up to the TV during crucial plays…“I take it very seriously. Nobody is allowed to touch him,” said Jennifer Pernice, who wears her white Hakeem Nicks jersey while her sister sports an Ahmad Bradshaw shirt each week. With the big game approaching, Jennifer Pernice says the New England Patriots might have to game-plan for the Giants’ quirkiest 12th man. “This little guy,” she said, “is giving Tom Brady the evil eye.” [NYDN]
football
The Columbia University marching band has been banned from performing at Saturday’s home finale against Brown, after poking fun at the Lions’ losing ways following a 62-41 defeat last weekend at Cornell. After every game, win or lose, the Columbia band plays the school fight song, “Roar, Lion, Roar.” But last Saturday, the band altered the lyrics to highlight the team’s recent struggles — the Lions are 0-9 this season. The altered verse began with the lyrics, “We always lose, lose, lose; by a lot, and sometimes by a little,” according to an article in the Columbia Spectator, the school’s student newspaper. “Our football players, coaches, alumni, parents are extremely hurt, disappointed and angry by the band’s behavior at Cornell,” Columbia athletic director Dr. M. Dianne Murphy said. [ESPN, related]
Penn State Alums/Merrill Lynch Wealth Managers “Struggle” To Understand Why This Had To Happen To Them
By Bess Levin
Two weeks back, former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was charged with 40 counts of sexual abuse perpetrated against young boys, including an alleged incident in which Sandusky raped a 10 year-old in the shower. Since then, even more victims have come forward, and it’s been difficult to imagine how they’re coping, particularly when Sandusky will only admit to “enjoying” young people, with whom he claims he has only ever touched on the leg (though not with sexual intent), hugged, showered and just generally “horsed around.” Beyond the actual victims, which is to say, the people who were touched in highly inappropriate ways by a man 40 and 50 years their senior who was often times naked when doing so, we’ve also heard about the aftermath struggles of others affected (in their minds) by the alleged crimes, such as Joe Paterno, the PSU undergrads for whom getting drunk and watching sports on a Saturday has been ruined!!! and the school store, where merchandising sales have taken a hit.
And yet there is another group of people who, in the last couple weeks, have been overlooked. People who’ve had their entire worlds turned upside down. People for whom we should consider saying a prayer. Naturally, we speak of the legion of Merrill Lynch brokers who graduated from Penn State in the last several decades. How are they holding up? Barely hanging on by a thread here, is how. Read more »
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Posted in:
Hedge Funds
Steve Cohen To Make Sure TriState Area Superbowl Will Cause All Other Super Bowls To Bow Down Before It In Awe
By Bess Levin
Yes, Super Bowl XLVIII is a long way off. Yes, it’s hard to get jazzed about a game for which we have no idea who will be playing. Yes, you might actually freeze your ass off. While all of those things may be true, yesterday brought news that should have you salivating for 2014. Because yesterday, we found out that that SB? Stands to be the best one ever, based on a host committee that includes (among others such as Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Citi, BlackRock and Paul Tudor Jones): SAC Capital. While the official list cites SAC president Tom “Silver Fox” Conheeney as its point man on the project, make no mistake that Steve Cohen will be heavily involved, no doubt going above and beyond the responsibilities of a typical host. Obviously, Cohen has a lot on the line here, given that his venerable initials are on the thing. Therefore, in an effort to make sure SAC isn’t associated with a sack-freezing joke, he’ll be taking the following steps to ensure the game is a smash hit. Read more »
Trying not to get carried away here, or sound boastful, or crazy, but this idea has a whiff of genius to it; I have a feeling you’re really going to like it. Had I proposed it to you a couple of weeks ago, or even around 2:30 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday, you would have laughed in my face, but right now it feels like irresistible, beautiful destiny, and you’re totally going to want to see it for yourself. The Detroit Lions and the Buffalo Bills are going to play in the Super Bowl…Lions. Bills. XLVI. [WSJ]
[Music playing while we wait includes "You Give Love A Bad Name" and "Livin' On A Prayer"]
12:45 Guy introducing Rex sees lots of similarities between the Jets coach and George W. Bush (who spoke last night): both are “winners, blunt passionate, and couldn’t care if the things they say might have consequences.”
12:50 Rex is happy to be here though, he must admit, doesn’t know anything about derivatives…”buy low, sell high, that’s all I’ve got” Read more »
We have no idea but apparently he’s been spotted “cruising around the trading floor with a bunch of senior guys this afternoon, shaking hands, etc, with hair that looks like it hasn’t been cut in months.” Wild speculation encouraged at this time. Read more »
Retired NFL Player Turned Failed Money Manager Self-Conscious About His Investing Skills
By Bess Levin
“It worked for nine years, but mistakes were made,” Harris Barton, 46, says as he sips a coffee at an Italian restaurant in Palo Alto, California. After the demise of HRJ Capital, the firm he co-founded with Ronnie Lott of which Joe Montana was a partner, he says he was embarrassed every time he walked into a place like this in Silicon Valley. “I felt like everyone was looking at me and saying, ‘There he is, the dumb athlete who couldn’t manage his firm.’” [Bloomberg]
“I’m surprised how fast the market bounced [Monday],” Tepper told Absolute Return today. “Shows you there’s a lot of money looking for any dip on the sidelines. Which is good, but I have to be a little more cautious than last week because I didn’t know how much this stuff could flair up. I’m still generally constructive but just a tiny bit more cautious than I was before because of this [Egypt] stuff.” As for the Super Bowl? The Appaloosa manager, who is a minority owner of the Steelers and pictured at left ready for the big game, is confident Ben Roethlisberger will pull one out. Read more »
If we learned one thing from the the financial meltdown it simply is “Don’t Fuck with Quants.” Armed with their designations, degrees and Excel spreadsheets they taught us that if tested, they will bring the global financial system to its knees, so help me God. Perhaps in a quest for redemption for the entire industry, one such individual has taken his talents to Vegas, where he’s trying to create value rather than mercilessly destroy it. For those whose bonuses sucked more than some dude with his lips around Michelle Ryan’s toes, you might what to check out this kid’s site if you’re looking for a little extra scratch.
Notable accomplishments this NFL Postseason include: Read more »
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Posted in:
Communiqués
Larry Robbins: “What Types Of Companies Are We Investing In? Again, I Use Tommy Boy As An Analogy”
By Bess Levin
As we’ve discussed at length, the hedge fund quarterly letter to investors is an art form. In down months and in up, it’s become increasingly difficult to come up with an original way to say you got your ‘nads ripped off and shoved down your throat “but it’s okay! because this had nothing to do with our analysis and everything to do with the market’s ridiculous mispricing of equity” or write that you’ve been doing chest bumps with IR all morning on account of “making the market our bitch” without sounding like you’re getting too cocky. Regardless of performance, managers tasking themselves with the responsibility of dazzling clients are faced with the challenge of how to do so in a fresh way that sets them apart from the pack. And few if any get the job done like Glenview chief Larry Robbins.
If Lar were teaching a Learning Annex class on the subject, he’d write one word on the chalkboard and underline it twice: analogies. In his Q2 2010 letter to investors, for example, Robbins likened being a steward of capital to being a bus driver, which included a story about driving his kids to school and debting the merits of taking the GWB versus the Harlem River. Impressive, yes, but the Maestro was just getting started. For for his latest piece, the Q3 note, Lawrence pulled out all the stops. They involved:
* Football fields and sprinklers:
In other words, if you look at the total investing landscape and assume that it is a football field of 100 yards, we think that many different asset classes – Treasuries, investment grade bonds, non-investment grade bonds, CMBS, actual real assets, real estate, gold, etc. – have gone from potentially and then wildly undervalued to now being at least fairly valued, or, in some cases, overvalued. Certainly on the debt side, if you are an absolute return investor, things are quite sparse there. So where’s the only place for the liquidity to go? The only place left for the liquidity to go, which can absorb that liquidity, is high quality US equities. That is where the undervaluation is. If you think of the market as a giant football field, then if 80% of the field is saturated but the liquidity sprinklers are still on all around the field, then that means that 5x as much water is going to find the remaining 20% which is still dry.
* Ornery tubes of toothpaste: Read more »
- Use the Bloomberg command
NH BLG_DEALBREAKER <GO>
to access Dealbreaker
