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Category Archives: banking
Lehman: Nobody Knows Anything
Do you want to know what on earth is going on with Lehman Brothers, and with the whole financial sector more generally? Here’s some advice: go outside. Take a walk. Get some fresh air. Because nobody knows anything. Today could … Continue reading
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The Upside of a Lehman Crash
Is "Lehman Crashing Again", in the words of Alea’s headline? The Lehman stock price reminds me of Zeno’s arrow: first it falls by half, and then by half again, and then by half again — and each time it’s "crashing". … Continue reading
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Can Lehman Default?
Could Lehman Brothers be the first major default of the credit crisis? Portfolio.com has video of me saying yes!
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Will Lehman or WaMu Default?
If there is going to be a big financial-sector default, who would it be? Justin Fox answers the question: The one everyone has been talking about is Washington Mutual, which is down another 25% so far this morning (Lehman stock … Continue reading
Posted in banking, bonds and loans
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Lehman: The Moral Hazard Unwind
Why should Lehman’s strategy right now be run by Tim Geithner? I’m not sure, but according to Robert Teitelman that’s effectively what’s happening. Right now Lehman is still too big to fail — but if the plan announced today goes … Continue reading
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No Good News at Lehman
There are 5,424 words in the Lehman Brothers press release today, but the general reaction in the markets seems to be that they’d much rather have action than words. An intent to sell a majority stake in Neuberger Berman? An … Continue reading
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Watching the Lehman Fireworks
I’m thinking it was maybe a good thing that I was off the grid for most of today; it meant I haven’t been able to get caught up in all the Lehman Brothers hysteria. Of course, there’s lots of speculation … Continue reading
Lehman’s Volatility
On Friday, before the Frannie bailout was announced, Lehman Brothers closed at $16.20 a share. On Monday morning, it opened at $17.62: a healthy pop. Within an hour of the open, however, it had sunk all the way down to … Continue reading
Too Many Shorts
CEOs often worry that if there are lots of shorts, that’s bad for their stock price. Meanwhile, the likes of John Hempton worry that a lot of short interest could be very good for the stock price. Me, I think … Continue reading
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How Jamie Dimon Manages Risk
Fortune’s Shawn Tully has a highly complimentary profile of Jamie Dimon which tries to explain exactly how he managed to dodge the subprime bullet: One red flag came from the mortgage servicing business, the branch that sends out statements, handles … Continue reading
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Why Citi Needs Rubin
What is it with all these Citi memos which are coming out? There was the Asia reshuffle, the Markets reshuffle, the axing of the executive committee, and now the investment bank expenses memo. The weird thing is that all of … Continue reading
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How Big are Subprime Losses?
According to Bloomberg we truly are all subprime now: Losses and writedowns on securities related to home loans to people with poor credit now exceed $504 billion at financial institutions. This may have started as a subprime crisis, but it’s … Continue reading
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UBS: Still Entrenched in the Art World
Count me in with Anthony Haden-Guest: for all their credit-related losses, the big private banks and wealth managers like UBS and Lehman Brothers are not going to ease up on their sponsorship of art-world events. Guest quotes a couple of … Continue reading
Posted in art, banking, private banking
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Rumor Sourcing of the Day
As Zubin will tell you, the WSJ has a favored locution when it cites anonymous sources: it likes to call them "people familiar with" the situation. The sourcing is so vague it can mean just about anything — essentially it’s … Continue reading
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Lehman: Still Awaiting Necessary Capital
The latest bright idea emanating from the office of Dick Fuld would seem to be a highly complex transaction involving warrants and call options and what have you. Take away the jargon, however, and the proposed deal seems quite simple: … Continue reading
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The Crazy Lehman Share Price
Lehman Brothers looks as though it’s going to sell its asset management arm, Neuberger Berman, for a sorely-needed $10 billion or so. That’s got to be good news for the stock, right? No: Lehman shares are down more than 10% … Continue reading
Annals of Deckchair Rearrangement, Citigroup Asia Edition
Tony Munroe of Reuters does his best today to report on the latest changes to the Citigroup Asia org chart, but it’s not an easy task — especially when the regional CEO, Ajay Banga, starts talking about bringing "the organizations … Continue reading
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A Brief History of Home Equity Loans
Louise Story has an excellent history of the home equity loan on the front page of today’s NYT. She talks a lot about the explosion in such products — outstandings rose a thousandfold, to $1 trillion, from the early 1980s … Continue reading
Posted in banking, housing, personal finance
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Who’s Buying Financials?
What adjective would you use to describe someone who kept on buying bank stocks even as they fell and fell and fell? I’m not sure if there’s a word in English for "someone who doesn’t learn from his mistakes", but … Continue reading
Pandit: Still Going in Circles
Gary Weiss profiles Vikram Pandit in this month’s magazine, and his conclusion seems spot-on: What Citigroup needs now is not a wannabe Sandy Weill but someone with the elusive qualities needed to revive the banking giant from its slump. Pandit’s … Continue reading
Posted in banking, leadership
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Quantitative Finance Soundbite of the Day
Paul Wilmott on the problems facing the world of quantitative finance: Banks and hedge funds employ mathematicians with no financial-market experience to build models that no one is testing scientifically for use in situations where they were not intended by … Continue reading
Posted in banking, hedge funds
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Why UBS’s Wealth Management Should Stand Alone
When I saw yesterday that UBS private-banking clients were expected to have withdrawn SFr5 billion from their accounts last quarter, I said the number seemed low to me. Amazingly, I was right: Rich clients at UBS’s wealth management units withdrew … Continue reading
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Bear Stearns Conspiracy Watch: Bloomberg Piles On
The latest journalist to start waxing conspiratorial about the collapse of Bear Stearns is Gary Matsumoto of Bloomberg. He’s looking at options trades which he reckons are very suspicious: In a gambit with such low odds of success that traders … Continue reading
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The Sad Anonymity of a Risk Professional
The anonymous confessions of a risk manager in this week’s Economist are well worth reading: The focus of our risk management was on the loan portfolio and classic market risk. Loans were illiquid and accounted for on an accrual basis … Continue reading
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