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Monthly Archives: October 2007
Skype: Overvalued or Not?
The second-most-emailed Technology story on nytimes.com is "Co-Founder of Skype Defends Its Value" a story published on October 10 but which carries an October 9 dateline. Now back on October 9, the NYT didn’t have this story, but Reuters did. … Continue reading
Posted in technology
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InTrade Plays of the Day
Tyler Cowen recommends shorting Thompson: Friday I heard Fred Thompson talk for three minutes, he was so terrible I had to leave the room…. Most of all he has rotten diction (odd for a former actor), plus he had no … Continue reading
Posted in prediction markets
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Short Sharp Strike
What is it with these super-short UAW strikes? The one at GM lasted only two days, while the one at Chrysler lasted about six hours. Is it a way for the UAW negotiators to concede gracefully while appearing tough to … Continue reading
Posted in labor
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VaR Datapoint of the Day
Morgan Stanley has some of the most sophisticated risk-management systems on planet earth. And yet, somehow, The company disclosed today that daily trading losses during the quarter exceeded the firm’s trading value-at- risk calculation on six days during the quarter. … Continue reading
Posted in banking
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The Uselessness of Zagat’s Cost Estimates
Eleven Madison Park is a very good, and very expensive, restaurant. At dinner, the cheapest menu costs $82 per person. A glass of red wine will cost you somewhere between $8 and $26. So a dinner with one drink can’t … Continue reading
Posted in consumption
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Hidden Fees in Mortgages and Credit Cards
Have you ever wondered where the enormous profits being booked by various bits of the financial sector come from? Elizabeth Warren, whom I interviewed in June, has an excellent blog called Credit Slips which specializes, among other things, in revealing … Continue reading
Posted in personal finance
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Bonkers Idea of the Day, EM Debt Edition
One of the things I love about academic economists is that they have a certain amount of freedom to be utterly bonkers occasionally. The LSE’s Bernardo Guimaraes has a modest proposal up at Vox: rewrite the bonds of developing countries … Continue reading
Posted in bonds and loans, emerging markets
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Krugman Datapoint of the Day
Tyler Cowen goes searching for Paul Krugman’s lastest book: At my Borders, circa 4 p.m., they hadn’t even unpacked it. "Yeah, we have that in the back somewhere, I haven’t seen it yet." was what the guy said. Cowen reckons … Continue reading
Posted in Media
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Bank Stock Datapoint of the Day
On Tuesday, shares in Goldman Sachs closed at a new record high of $239.20 per share. Goldman stock has risen by more than 50% from its August lows – a trajectory, says, Helen Thomas, "we’re more accustomed to seeing on … Continue reading
Scotus: Good News on Stoneridge
Stoneridge v Scientific-Atlanta is one of those battles where both sides really deserve to lose. But I am very glad that it’s the plaintiffs who are actually losing this one. For all the lobbying surrounding the case, the central fact … Continue reading
Posted in law
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How to Thin the MoMA Crowds
Callen Bair wants to know what can be done to reduce the crowds at art museums. Callen, meet Robert Reich: At a time when the number of needy continues to rise, when government doesn’t have the money to do what’s … Continue reading
Posted in art
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Taking Net Asset Value at Face Value
Do you remember when Dave Neubert bought shares in Countrywide because they were only a little bit rich to book value? That didn’t work out too great. But now he’s back to the single-indicator trade, and is buying the Morgan … Continue reading
Posted in bonds and loans
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Barack Obama Gets it Right on Cap-and-Trade
It’s great news that the centerpiece of Barack Obama’s energy plan is a 100% auction cap-and-trade mechanism. Ryan Avent and Peter Dorman have some niggles, which are on point, but the big picture – that a cap-and-trade system should be … Continue reading
Posted in climate change
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Structural Complexity in the Banking System
When Northern Rock started falling apart, it prompted people like accountant Richard Murphy to start taking a detailed look at its borrowing structure. Like all banks, Northern Rock structured a very complex series of bankruptcy-remote special-purpose vehicles to do its … Continue reading
Posted in banking
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Unpredictable Bernanke
One of the reasons that the markets loved the Greenspan Fed was that it was generally very predictable: for all that Greenspan was an expert at mumbling incomprehensibly, the markets never seemed to be in much doubt what he would … Continue reading
Posted in fiscal and monetary policy
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Why Bank Shares Rise on Write-Downs
Dan Gross tackles the write-down paradox today: how come the share price of [Citigroup/Merrill Lynch/Bear Stearns/Whoever] rises when the bank announces massive losses? After all, he writes, Write-downs should be especially worrisome when taken by banks, since they are in … Continue reading
eBay Should Sell Skype to News Corp
Further proof, if proof be needed, that eBay should never have bought Skype: the fracas currently underway between eBay and Jajah. Jajah is an internet telephony company which has developed "buttons" that eBay sellers, and others, can embed on their … Continue reading
Posted in technology
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Blogonomics: How Big Media Will Sell Ads on Blogs
Blogger Barry Ritholtz has looked at the existing mechanisms for monetizing blog readers, and he’s not impressed. Here’s the problem: blogs get a lot of readers in aggregate, and advertisers are, in principle, very interested in advertising on blogs. But … Continue reading
Posted in blogonomics, economics, Media
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Give Anti-Malarial Bed Nets Away for Free
The NYT covers the bed-net debate today, if debate it can reasonably be called. The article itself is good; the main problem is the headline, which says that "Distribution of Nets Splits Malaria Fighters". Er, no, it doesn’t. Once upon … Continue reading
Posted in development
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The Death of the Incandescent Bulb
Dan Gross gives us the incandescent light bulb’s obituary, mentioning only one problem with its replacement, the compact fluorescent: that CFLs aren’t bright enough to help German chancellor Angela Merkel find things she’s dropped on her carpet. He neglects to … Continue reading
Posted in climate change
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Why Louis Vuitton Needs Richard Prince
Lauren Goldstein Crowe is unimpressed with my defense of Richard Prince’s new handbag line for Louis Vuitton, claiming that "Vuitton is going too far from its roots" and wondering whether this handbag line might not be financially disastrous for the … Continue reading
The Third Fall of Victor Niederhoffer
There are a few real characters in finance, and Victor Niederhoffer is one of the most compelling. An inveterate and compulsive speculator, he does fabulously well until he blows up – again and again and again. John Cassidy started profiling … Continue reading
Posted in hedge funds
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Numeracy in the White House
Why is it that Saturday Night Live applies more critical judgment to Fred Thompson’s statements than the Wall Street Journal does? The WSJ’s Amy Schatz lapses into full-on stenographer mode today: Mr. Thompson has advocated reining in discretionary spending and … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
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Debit Cards vs Cash
If you want to read Andrew Leonard’s blog entry about Visa’s ad campaign today, and you’re not a subscriber to Salon, then you’ll have to sit through an ad for Visa to get there. It’s possible that the ad will … Continue reading
Posted in personal finance
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The WSJ and Luxury Watches
One of the great things about Portfolio magazine is that it has, so far, managed to avoid any kind of feature article on the subject of high-end watches. Any reader of high-end glossies aimed at rich businessmen is by this … Continue reading
Posted in Media
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