Monthly Archives: November 2007

Microsoft: It’s Not Our Fault Our Operating System Sucks

Posted on November 19, 2007 by Felix

Apple has a very good operating system, but minuscule market share. Windows, by contrast, has a much clunkier operating system, but also much larger market share. So far so boring. But how about this: Microsoft admits that Apple’s operating system … Continue reading →

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How Can Index Funds Beat the Market?

Posted on November 19, 2007 by Felix

Ben Stein loves Dimensional Fund Advisors. They "run the most amazingly successful, low-cost, unmanaged but somehow deep-value index funds I have ever found," he says, adding that "their returns are amazing, and they charge almost nothing." It’s a bit weird: … Continue reading →

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Thain’s Pay

Posted on November 19, 2007 by Felix

What does Jack Flack make of the fact that John Thain’s employment contract with Merrill Lynch was filed on a Friday evening? It seems to me that Merrill Lynch was trying to bury its details by having them appear on … Continue reading →

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Pinot Contest

Posted on November 18, 2007 by Felix

Last night, a dozen or so friends and I discovered one of the best-value wines in America. I’ll tell you what it is in a minute. But first, it’s worth explaining how we came to that conclusion: Michelle and I … Continue reading →

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Extra Credit, Weekend Edition

Posted on November 17, 2007 by Felix

CPDO Cash-In Newsflash: The Law Matters! Elizabeth Warren on the Deutsche Bank case. Trusting the birth/death model GM Watch: The Flap Continues: All you ever wanted to know about third-party document custody. It’s interesting, really! What Will $1 Million Buy? … Continue reading →

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Fannie Mae Datapoint of the Day

Posted on November 16, 2007 by Felix

Peter Eavis, who started the Fannie Mae ball rolling on Wednesday, moves the story further today, with this rather startling and scary datapoint: Using fair value accounting, Fannie Mae’s capital — the company’s net worth — has declined sharply this … Continue reading →

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Gay Demographics Datapoint of the Day

Posted on November 16, 2007 by Felix

Gary Gates: Since 1990, the Census Bureau has tracked the presence of same-sex "unmarried partners," commonly understood to be lesbian and gay couples. From an initial count of about 145,000 same-sex couples in 1990, the 2006 data show that this … Continue reading →

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Art Market Datapoint of the Day

Posted on November 16, 2007 by Felix

Alexandra Peers at the fall auctions in New York: All told, the auctions at Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips de Pury totaled $1.7 billion, compared to $1.4 billion six months ago at a similar round of spring sales.

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Why Are ARMs So Expensive?

Posted on November 16, 2007 by Felix

A friend of mine is shopping for a mortgage right now, and I just had a very frustrating conversation with her mortgage broker. What I’d like to do is be able to choose between a fixed-rate mortgage and an adjustable-rate … Continue reading →

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Ignore Short-Term Market Moves

Posted on November 16, 2007 by Felix

Accrued Interest today has a great post about what really drives markets over short stretches of time. He uses the phrase "technicals", by which he means not drawing lines on charts, but rather the simple dynamics of how traders make … Continue reading →

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Blogging Datapoint of the Day

Posted on November 16, 2007 by Felix

Dan Frommer reports: WordPress is now the No. 2 most-visited blog host, passing rival SixApart’s TypePad last month, according to the latest tally from Nielsen Online. WordPress is the anti-MySpace. It’s clean, easy to use, easy to read, and generally … Continue reading →

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Currency Devaluation Datapoint of the Day

Posted on November 16, 2007 by Felix

Justin Fox reads research from Merrill’s David Rosenberg: While the loonie plummeted against the dollar between 1992 to 2002, Rosenberg says, inflation in Canada declined from 4.5% to 1.3%, the short term interest rate set by the Bank of Canada … Continue reading →

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Did Anyone Other Than Citigroup Have Liquidity Puts?

Posted on November 16, 2007 by Felix

Why hasn’t this "liquidity put" thing gotten greater play? I never made it down to the 11th paragraph of Carol Loomis’s interview with Bob Rubin, where she introduces the concept more than 900 words into her article. Floyd Norris, today, … Continue reading →

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Extra Credit, Friday Edition

Posted on November 16, 2007 by Felix

Life, liberty and the right to play online poker: Andrew Leonard watches the Family Research Council’s Tom McClusky get slapped down by Steve Cohen, D-Tenn. Why I’m Prepared to Become Citigroup’s Next CEO: Michael Lewis The making of a UPS … Continue reading →

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Explaining the Absence of Grocery Stores in Poor Neighborhoods

Posted on November 15, 2007 by Felix

Nathan Berg, of the Center for Urban Economics, has noticed that there are many fewer grocery stores in poor urban neighborhoods than economic theory would suggest. The public-health implications of eating mainly processed food are pretty nasty, to say nothing … Continue reading →

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Virtual Deflation

Posted on November 15, 2007 by Felix

Can you think of an economy where the money supply is increasing but consumer prices are falling dramatically? Eyjólfur Guðmundsson can: it’s called EVE Online. Over the course of the third quarter of 2007 – which is equivalent to about … Continue reading →

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Pointless Shareholder Activism, Pardus Edition

Posted on November 15, 2007 by Felix

The problem with airline mergers is not that people think they’re a bad idea. Not at all: pretty much every airline-industry executive in America thinks that consolidation in the industry is inevitable and a great idea in theory. But the … Continue reading →

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The Resurgence of Sculpture

Posted on November 15, 2007 by Felix

With the sale last night of his "Hanging Heart (Magenta/Gold)" for $23.6 million, Jeff Koons is now the priciest living artist at auction. Now it’s entirely possible that someone will decide to go the auction-house route rather than the private-dealer … Continue reading →

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UBS: Waiting for the CDO Shoe to Drop

Posted on November 15, 2007 by Felix

UBS had over $24 billion in gross CDO exposure at the end of October – much more than any other bank bar Citi. Yet its writedowns to date amount to just $3.1 billion, or 13% of that exposure. By contrast, … Continue reading →

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The Limitations of TradeSports

Posted on November 15, 2007 by Felix

Last week, I wrote about the TradeSports contract on whether Alex Rodriguez would stay at the Yankees. It might be "a screaming buy," I said, but warned that it was very illiquid. So what has happened to the contract now … Continue reading →

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The Goldman Sachs Special Sauce

Posted on November 15, 2007 by Felix

What’s the difference between Goldman Sachs and all the other investment banks? You know, aside from that whole profitability thing. The answer seems to be that where other banks have org charts, Goldman has managers. It’s unthinkable that Goldman would … Continue reading →

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Extra Credit, Thursday Edition

Posted on November 15, 2007 by Felix

Why homeownership may be bad for America The Real Cost of Smoking: "Every pack of cigarettes that an adult male smokes knocks off $222 from the value of that man’s life." Why I Need CNBC: Ken Houghton discovers that CNBC … Continue reading →

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The Best Subprime Reporting and Analysis, Cont.

Posted on November 14, 2007 by Felix

Tanta’s on fire today. First came this, in re a court case in Ohio, where she suspected that Deutsche Bank had gotten sloppy with some paperwork: When Wall Street analysts stand up and demand that companies beef up back rooms, … Continue reading →

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Why Advertisers Won’t Desert a Free WSJ.com

Posted on November 14, 2007 by Felix

In the wake of the latest news about WSJ.com going free, the old arguments against such a move have been emerging from people who think they’re smarter than Rupert Murdoch. They’re not. The main argument is summed up by Barry … Continue reading →

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Labor vs Capital in Baseball

Posted on November 14, 2007 by Felix

Is A-Rod seeking an "insane" amount of money? Not necessarily: In 2001, the first year of the first Rodriguez mega-contract, major-league players were getting 56% of their sport’s $3.5 billion in revenues. Yet this year, Jeff Passan notes on Yahoo … Continue reading →

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