The New York Times has a peculiar story on hedge fund manager John Devaney who managed to lose all his investors’ money. Not 80% or 90%. All. And it wasn’t as if the fund somehow blew up spectacularly over a short period. Devaney froze redemptions a year ago. That begs the question: had he started […]
Read more...The Wall Street Journal (hat tip Saboor) sends mixed signals in a page one story for tomorrow, “U.S. Mulls Future of Fannie, Freddie.” The Journal reports that contingency planning in case the two GSEs get into trouble has stepped up, yet go to some lengths to take a reassuring tone: The Bush administration has held […]
Read more...We recently wrote about a long overdue shot across the bow from the Senate Banking Committee about initiatives by the Treasury and now the Fed that amount to a regulatory land grab. Why do we think Congress should have done more, sooner? Because the proposed action put the Fed in the position, as with the […]
Read more...The media enjoys stories of bad times in hedge fund land. It probably makes up for having to write about their managers’ over-the-top lifestyles. What is a little different about today’s hedge fund sighting from Bloomberg isn’t that certain funds or certain styles are faring poorly (remember the quant disasters of last August?) but hedge […]
Read more...This comment in the Guardian by Simon Jenkins is a tad unfair, since it treats economists as having a fair degree of unanimity of thinking. Dean Baker, Nouriel Roubini, and Calculated Risk, among others, point out that there were economists (and market participants) who saw the housing bubble and the credit crunch coming. Jim Hamilton […]
Read more...Oh dear. This move comes after oil was starting to retreat a tad and Iranian president Ahmadinejad (a figurehead, but one who gets treated seriously by the Western media) was sounding sensible and willing to negotiate. From Reuters: Iran has test fired nine long- and medium-range missiles, including one which it has previously said could […]
Read more...According to Moody’s, the ratings implicit in credit default swaps on Fannie and Freddie treat the government-sponsored enterprises as if they are mere single As, versus their official AAA ratings. Now the real question is: do these marks reflect doubts about whether the implicit government guarantee will be honored, or is this an early warning […]
Read more...‘Drowning’ elephants rescued BBC Fringe autism treatment could get federal study PhysOrg Why Most Who Lose Their Jobs Don’t Get Unemployment Benefits Robert Reich Procter & Gamble to Increase Prices as Much as 16% Bloomberg (hat tip Ed Harrison). I missed this story, but what is interesting is that they are holding off on price […]
Read more...The oil bulls will take offense at Hussman’s contention that high oil prices will break, and probably break pretty seriously. Note we think high oil prices would be desirable if phased in over several years via a carbon tax to discourage use, but as everyone know from direct experience, a sharp runup is destabilizing, and […]
Read more...Only the Financial Times’ John Dizard would say straight out that monetary authorities (and diesel) constitute a bigger threat to our collective security than America’s pet nemesis, Iran. I would not be surprised to find some readers in agreement. Dizard dispatches Iran first. He starts with some colorful quotes, from Talleyrand (in French) and Lord […]
Read more...Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz tells us that neo-liberalism, witch is a catch phrase for policies that favor domestic deregulation and dismantling trade barriers internationally, has failed. The problem that Stiglitz fails to acknowledge is that despite the questionable record of these practices, they still hold considerable sway in the media and in the […]
Read more...Mohamed El-Erian, co-CEO of Pimco, usually strikes a cool, rational tone in his periodic comment pieces in the Financial Times. Today’s article, “Traversing wild market swings,” is a noteworthy departure. Or maybe it isn’t. El-Erian keeps to his detached, analytical style,but the guts of his message is so blunt that the packaging is secondary: Successful […]
Read more...We haven’t been covering the spectacle of Indymac twisting in the wind, since highly-regarded blogs like Calculated Risk and Housing Wire follow the mortgage lenders closely. However, the panic yesterday about Fannie and Freddie perhaps having to come up as much aswith $75 billion in equity ($75 billion?) diverted attention from what on any other […]
Read more...Incentives for carbon sequestration may not protect species PhysOrg $1.6 trillion: new estimate on writedowns Credit Writedowns. This post contains the full translation of the article we mentioned yesterday. This version is scarier than the short form. Toxic CDOs Given Up for Dead Coming to Life With Pension Funds Bloomberg, You can’t make this stuff […]
Read more...Some readers may think I am unduly fond of negative forecasts to be featuring the views of a mere PR maven, one Gershon Kekst, along with those of famous investors like Jim Rogers, Marc Faber, and George Soros. Ah, but there is a reason Kekst’s views are significant. Very few advisors, be they top lawyers […]
Read more...