Monthly Archives: February 2008

Explaining the Bank of England’s High Interest Rates

Posted on February 7, 2008 by Felix

In its front-page curtain-raiser for the Bank of England’s rate cut today, the WSJ prints a chart with the headline "Banking Bubble?". It shows that the financial sector now accounts for more than a fifth of all jobs in the … Continue reading →

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The NYT Moves to Hammer-Price Reporting

Posted on February 7, 2008 by Felix

The doyenne of art-auction reporters is Carol Vogel of the NYT: she sets the benchmark. And, it seems, the benchmark has changed, which makes for some weird comparisons as the changeover occurs. Here she is today, with a piece headlined … Continue reading →

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Blogonomics: Prizes for Finance Bloggers

Posted on February 7, 2008 by Felix

Eddy Elfenbein has a very good idea, which fits quite neatly into my worries about everybody but the bloggers themselves making money from finance blogs. The presenters at the Money:Tech conference are unanimous that there’s alpha to be found in … Continue reading →

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Tech Salary Datapoint of the Day

Posted on February 7, 2008 by Felix

Jeff Bewkes is cutting back: Time Warner, seeking to cut costs and streamline operations, plans to split off AOL’s Internet access business from its Web site and online advertising business and cut 100 jobs at its corporate unit, the company’s … Continue reading →

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Warren Buffett can Still Borrow Money

Posted on February 7, 2008 by Felix

Wojtek Dabrowski reports that Warren Buffett is reasonably sanguine: "I wouldn’t quite call it a credit crunch. Funds are available," Buffett said during a question and answer session at a business event. "Money is available, and it’s really quite cheap … Continue reading →

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Monolines: Resigned to Downgrades

Posted on February 7, 2008 by Felix

The WSJ puts an uncommonly-forthright forward-looking headline on its monoline story today: "Rescue Plans Won’t Prevent Downgrades". And it’s right. If the monolines’ plans for shoring up their capital bases come to fruition, they’re still likely to suffer the loss … Continue reading →

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Extra Credit, Thursday Edition

Posted on February 7, 2008 by Felix

You have failed me for the last time, Auction Rate Municipals! Accrued Interest explains that it’s all a storm in a teacup really. Societe Generale – behavioral economics at work The Strait of Messina: The Epicurean Dealmaker explains big stock-market … Continue reading →

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Blogonomics: Aligning the Interests of Publishers and Aggregators

Posted on February 6, 2008 by Felix

One of the main themes of the Money:Tech conference is the way in which companies and investors can search and aggregate and mine blog information in order to help generate the elusive alpha. There was even a slide in John … Continue reading →

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Best Idea of 2007: Shorting Mortgages

Posted on February 6, 2008 by Felix

Thanks to the top-secret FT Alphaville RSS feed, I saw today that Sam Jones has revealed to the world Trader Daily’s top trades of 2007. There’s a "Trade of the Year", which unsurprisingly involves shorting mortgages, and then there are … Continue reading →

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FT Alphaville’s Secret RSS Feed Revealed

Posted on February 6, 2008 by Felix

FT Alphaville has a full RSS feed! It’s top-secret, and available only to Market Movers readers; it can be found here. My plan for world domination is coming along nicely: the only last holdout now is the NYT. Sorkin, get … Continue reading →

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Waiting for Wall Street’s Headcount to Fall

Posted on February 6, 2008 by Felix

One of the main reasons I so easily won my Wall Street bonus bet with Jesse Eisinger was that Wall Street’s headcount rose so dramatically over the course of 2007. But surely that reversed course in the second half of … Continue reading →

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The Power of Bloomberg

Posted on February 6, 2008 by Felix

An interesting conversation this morning: Paul Kedrosky, an ideas blogger who speaks stock-market, trying to talk to Jim Cramer about ideas, but getting answers overwhelmingly about stocks. Cramer’s not stupid: he said right at the beginning that his "perspective is … Continue reading →

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Skewed Incentives in Banking and Loans

Posted on February 6, 2008 by Felix

I’m blogging today from the Money:Tech conference at the Waldorf, which means that news blogging is likely to be light today. But I would like to point you to a couple of news stories I did see this morning. First … Continue reading →

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Extra Credit, Wednesday Edition

Posted on February 6, 2008 by Felix

More on the Stimulus Package: Larry Summers sells a stimulus package, one phone call at a time. Why the US has really gone broke: "The economic disaster that is military Keynesianism". Foreclosures come to the Hamptons The Birthday Party: Since … Continue reading →

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Bankruptcy: No Obstacle to Private-Equity Profits

Posted on February 5, 2008 by Felix

Megan Barnett has not one but two excellent articles on Portfolio.com today. This morning she checked in on the Citadel IPO story, concluding that for all the buzz, it still ain’t gonna happen. This afternoon, she tells the story of … Continue reading →

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Criticizing Greenspan’s Rate Hikes

Posted on February 5, 2008 by Felix

We all know the thesis that the subprime crisis is Alan Greenspan’s fault for cutting interest rates way too much and fuelling an unsustainable mortgage-credit bubble. But now Michael Mandel comes along with the flipside argument: that the subprime crisis … Continue reading →

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Systemic Breakdowns: Still Possible

Posted on February 5, 2008 by Felix

I should mention that although systemic breakdowns are rare these days, they’re not impossible, and I’m thankful to Nouriel Roubini for explaining over the course of 3,461 words today just how a global financial meltdown might happen. If you’re in … Continue reading →

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Systemic Breakdowns: Still Relatively Rare

Posted on February 5, 2008 by Felix

Rick Bookstaber has stopped blogging, so does Jim Surowiecki feek a need to fill the gap? Here he is channelling Bookstaber in the pages of the New Yorker: The situation illustrates a fundamental paradox of today’s financial system: it’s bigger … Continue reading →

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How to Beat the Market with Mutual Funds

Posted on February 5, 2008 by Felix

Cam Hui seems to have found a simple and low-risk way of outperforming the S&P 500 by 6% a year. If you want to try this at home – and I wouldn’t recommend it – here’s what you do: At … Continue reading →

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The Wisdom of Crowds, God Edition

Posted on February 5, 2008 by Felix

In which we learn, er, nothing really: (Via Kirtland)

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American Express Scales Back

Posted on February 5, 2008 by Felix

If American Express is struggling with past-due loans, why shouldn’t it be struggling with performing loans too? Last year our company spent almost $1 million with American Express, an average of over $81,000.00 per month. We paid the full balance … Continue reading →

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Microsoft, Meet the Bond Market

Posted on February 5, 2008 by Felix

Kate Haywood has some early speculation today on the subject of Microsoft’s bond spreads. Microsoft has never had any bonds – it doesn’t even have a credit rating – but its CFO has said, in the wake of the Yahoo … Continue reading →

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Goldman Gets Downgraded

Posted on February 5, 2008 by Felix

Has Goldman Sachs run out of special sauce? According to Meredith Whitney of Oppenheimer, yes:. In 2008, she says, "Goldman Sachs will probably deliver results that will not be substantially better than its peers," and as a result she’s downgraded … Continue reading →

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Getting Used to Stock Market Volatility

Posted on February 5, 2008 by Felix

Are you shocked or worried that the stock market is down 2% this morning? If you are, then maybe the best thing is that you stop looking at what the stock market does on an intraday basis. We’ve left the … Continue reading →

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Exxon Mobil Datapoint of the Day

Posted on February 5, 2008 by Felix

Mark Perry: Exxon Mobil pays as much in taxes ($27 billion) annually as the entire bottom 50% of individual taxpayers, which is 65,000,000 people. Or, to put it another way, you could abolish all taxes for the bottom 50% of … Continue reading →

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