28JAN09:
Q1-09 DOW: 8900
Q2-09 DOW: 7250
Q3-09 DOW: 5810
Q4-09 DOW: 3960
CITI NATIONALIZED
OBAMA GETS SICK 27AUG09:
Mini Crash 21SEP09 Predicted correctly:
Bailout=Bonuses
Demise of Bear Stearns
Demise of Lehman Bros.
Demise of AIG
Subprime would cause problems
Date of 2007 crash
CRAs were to blame
G20 riots were a party
Northern Rock run
Northern Rock Nationalization
HBOS and RBS demise
UBS really was Useless
Something has been getting to me. No longer do I feel comfortable telling people I work in finance or driving around in a car that is clean (James my driver went last year). There is tension in the air and having been told at the weekend all City workers should walk around in pairs and dress like students is alarming. The G20 is in town and the hate brigade are following too.
The turn has been sudden. My in exile chum who worked at AIG FP has had face surgery and is employed as a gardener. But he is frightened and is demanding to be put on a witness protection type program.
Yes, financiers are to blame for the mess but then the consumers more so. If a person maximises their credit card limit and greedily buys property with borrowed money, then they are culpable too. What has happened to collective responsibility? Now its all about blame.
The polititians are struggling to cope with something they don't understand. I see the Boring One is being referred to just as that, a Jimmy Carter teleprompter script reading muppet who is way out of his depth. Imagine deciding to speak during the American Idol time slot. This is something out of Stalin's Russia.
Anyway, today we have lots of bashing. AIG mostly. And even more bullying. So today's theme is the bully.
Société Générale bowed to political and public pressure over executive pay on Sunday as it cancelled a plan to award discounted stock options to four directors, including Daniel Bouton, non-executive chairman, and Frédéric Oudéa, chief executive.
In a letter to be sent to employees on Monday, the bank admits that its plan to award 150,000 options to Mr Oudéa and 70,000 to Mr Bouton had sparked “strong indignation” among the public and “incomprehension” from its own clients and staff.
Fintag says The Bully wins.
FSA DITCHES INTERNAL REVIEW OF ITS 'EFFECTIVENESS'
The Financial Services Authority has cancelled the annual review of its own effectiveness, despite criticisms of its failure to prevent the near collapse of banks including HBOS and Bradford & Bingley.
The decision was taken at a board meeting chaired by Lord Turner, who last week presented his review of banking regulation, including reforms of the FSA.
The effectiveness of the board and its main committees have been reviewed every year. External consultants are employed every three years while an in-house assessment is conducted in other years. Most reviews have found deficiencies in the regulator's working or the quality of board decisions.
Fintag says The FSA won't bother because it knows it got an F for failure. It has bullied itself into submission.
Is the current downturn merely a severe slump, or are we facing a second coming of the Great Depression? That's the question everyone is asking these days. But Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates and manager of what is now the world's biggest hedge fund, has been preparing to answer it for eight years.
In 2001 he had his investment team build a "depression gauge" into the firm's computer system, line by line in the code, to adjust the portfolio's strategy and risk profile if the economy ever entered a massive deleveraging period - the kind of multiyear process that ricocheted through the world economy in the 1930s and that has eviscerated markets periodically through the ages.
Fintag says Not a good idea to be featured in Fortune. But then again, Bridgewater is just a large supercomputer so if anyone wants to bully it, blame Microsoft for allowing it to have the tools to make money.
Struggling retailers face a multimillion-pound rental payment on Wednesday that could lead to a fresh wave of administrations in the sector unless they are able to secure last-minute rescue deals.
JJB Sports, the ailing sportswear retailer, and Jessops, the debt-laden camera retailer, both face a crucial week of discussions with their banks. Other retailers under pressure include Allied Carpets, the flooring specialist, and Robert Dyas, the hardware chain, though both have defied gravity for several years, said restructuring experts.
On Wednesday, many sickly retailers have to fork out huge sums to pay their rent for the next three months, despite facing a string of other financial ailments, such as breaches of banking covenants, the withdrawal of credit insurance and falling profit margins. A large number of retailers have already managed to secure a move to monthly rental payments, but some landlords have refused to offer stores this concession.
Fintag says Bullying landlords. It is shocking the number of boarded up shops in the UK.
EURO CURRENCY OF CHOICE AS FED EASING DEVALUES DOLLAR
Less than a month after lambasting European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet for failing to keep up with Ben S. Bernanke's efforts to stem the recession, foreign-exchange traders are glad he's behind the curve.
The 16-nation currency strengthened 7.5 percent versus the dollar since February, after tumbling 9.3 percent in the first two months of the year. JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc. are advising investors to buy euros.
Fintag says Jumping from one fire into another. The bully of quality is struggling too. [Editor: Uh?]
SFO MAY INVESTIGATE WEAVERING CAPITAL'S FAILED FLAGSHIP FUND
A spokesman for the SFO said it is "seeking an early meeting" with PricewaterhouseCoopers, which was appointed liquidator to Weavering's biggest fund on Thursday night. The Macro Fixed Income Fund, which is based in the Cayman Islands and specialises in fixed-income investments, suspended redemptions earlier this month.
Matthew Wilde, partner and head of PwC's hedge fund restructuring team, said since early November 2008, the fund received redemption requests exceeding $223m (£154m) but could only afford to meet $90m of these. He added the fund was recently valued at $506m but had "no reasonable prospect of paying its debts and no option but to request that liquidators be appointed".
It's over — we're officially, royally fcuked. No empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step too far. It happened when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was forced to admit that he was once again going to have to stuff billions of taxpayer dollars into a dying insurance giant called AIG, itself a profound symbol of our national decline — a corporation that got rich insuring the concrete and steel of American industry in the country's heyday, only to destroy itself chasing phantom fortunes at the Wall Street card tables, like a dissolute nobleman gambling away the family estate in the waning days of the British Empire.
Fintag says Even the pop journalists are bullying to have a say on the world's ills.
WALL ST WEEK AHEAD: INVESTORS BANKING ON TOXIC PLAN
Wall Street's attempt to recover further from 12-year lows faces its biggest test yet this week in the Treasury's long-delayed bank rescue plan.
But skeptics abound after reports this weekend revealed a plan coupling old approaches with several new twists.
Concerns about the lack of investor interest last week in the government's new fund aimed at reviving consumer and small- business lending, called the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), rippled through the U.S. stock market, sending major indexes down about 2 percent on Friday.
"I don't think the market will jump up and down on this (new plan)," Chip Hanlon, president of Delta Global Advisors Inc, in Huntington Beach, California, said on Sunday.
Fintag says Ideas, ideas and more ideas. Nice.
SEGREGATED ACCOUNTS "BEST WAY FOR INVESTORS TO ACCESS HEDGE FUNDS"
International Asset Management has published a paper exploring the advantages and disadvantages of the different options open to investors who want to access the hedge fund space.
The access options open to investors, other than investing directly in hedge funds, are: purchasing units in commingled fund of hedge funds; setting up a series of managed accounts managed by hedge fund managers; investing in hedge funds across a number of managed accounts via platforms; and investing in hedge funds via a segregated account.
Fintag says So we are to be bullied into virtual pools of SMA. It seems so.
Take-up of new offices in the City of London has fallen to its lowest for more than 20 years as the slowdown in the economy has reined in financial services businesses from expanding and moving to new buildings.
There has been just 220,000 sq ft of new occupied space in the Square Mile since the beginning of the year, half the previous lowest office take-up during the last recession, when 500,000 sq ft was let in the third quarter of 1991.
Fintag says It doesn't take a bully to sus that one out. Count the cranes, the unfinished buildings and the people in dayglo waistcosts.
The bus pulled up at a quiet intersection on Saturday, just another chilly afternoon here in one of the wealthiest counties in America, where the median household income is $78,353 and where, a short walk up the street, an A.I.G executive lives.
A pastor whose sister-in-law is facing foreclosure, a recently laid off worker at a steel mill and a few of their colleagues walked up the residential street. A national and international press corps numbering about 50 hovered around them.
Fintag says On a completely different subject, have you noticed the sudden excitement in pictures of depression? There are lots of flickr groups springing up showing images that are truly shocking. So here are a couple to help pad this newsletter out. The first is the closure of Greenwich, CT rail station. The second is a business card that would incite violence if it were ever aired in public.
(Note that Banque AIG is in the same building as GLG. How did I miss that one ...)
The HFRX indices launched include: Energy/Basic Materials Index, Fundamental Growth Index, Fundamental Value Index, Quantitative Directional Index, Short Bias Index, Technology/Healthcare Index, EH: Multi-Strategy Index, Activist Index, Credit Arbitrage Index, Private Issue/Regulation D Index, Special Situations Index, ED: Multi-Strategy Index, Active Trading Index, Commodity Index, Currency Index, Discretionary Thematic Index, Systematic Diversified Index, Macro: Multi-Strategy Index, Fixed Income-Asset Backed Index, Fixed Income-Corporate Index, Fixed Income-Sovereign Index, Yield Alternative Index, RVA: Multi-Strategy Index, BRIC Index, Brazil Index, Russia Index, India Index, China Index, MENA Index, Multi-Emerging Markets Index, Total Emerging Market Index, Latin America Index, Multi-Region Index, North America Index, Northern Europe Index, Russia/Eastern Europe Index, Western/Pan Europe Index and Aggregate Index.
Fintag says Wow. The faster I run through the maze of pigeon holing, the bully of box holing is catching up fast. I mean, is anyone really interested in these?
BARACK OBAMA APPEALS TO THE 'GOOD GUYS' OF WALL STREET IN $1 TRILLION RESCUE
Barack Obama's Administration will announce its latest economic rescue plan today by offering private investors vast government-backed loans to buy as much as $1 trillion of toxic assets from America's stricken banks.
The scheme, designed to help unfreeze the flow of credit for consumers, will be an important credibility test for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who has cut an increasingly forlorn and embattled figure in recent weeks.
Fintag says TFG. What a loser. I tell you who should replace him and that is E Spitzer. Now he was a real bully with balls.
Members of the Senate will this week take up an even more wide-ranging proposal, which would impose a 70 per cent tax on bonuses paid by any firm taking more than $100m in government money, which runs to almost 500 banks. Half of the tax would be paid by employees and half by firms.
The White House has refused to say whether President Barack Obama would sign any tax Bill, but he repeatedly attacked AIG's bonuses last week and ordered the Treasury to pursue all legal means to get them back.
Industry lawyers are examining ways to mount a legal challenge if the Congressional tax proposals make it to law. Even some political supporters have worried aloud that the Bill could be unconstitutional if it is seen as unfairly targeting individuals for punishment, or if it is rushed through without due process.
Fintag says The end of the bonus. State Capitalism, the biggest bully of them all.
Here, have some fun and try and beat my score in this bully and the mob chases the Fed:
Yes! Whatever you're leaking leak it to an MP in addition to a journalist as if you get found out it help with your public interest angle. Bung it wikileaks too. If they're word docs make sure to removed any finger prints and convert to pdf. If you're ultra paranoid stick them on USB, go to internet cafe/use Tor, use hushmail etc or just print them out and post them anonymously.
23 Mar 09 - 09:34 gmt
damiendamien said ...
Also, anyone fancy turning up at the protests with a big sign saying "WHO IS JOHN GALT"
23 Mar 09 - 09:35 gmt
anonymous said ...
IAM - what a joke. Managed accounts only make sense if they have the scale to justiofy the extra fees, unless the investor is paying (so no economiies of scale). Wouldnt be required if funds of funds did their jobs and worked out what the fraudsters were doing. And, IAM has a CEO with a porn star name....
23 Mar 09 - 10:06 gmt
KONG said ...
Mark Mobius has called the market bottom, more likely to be a career killing call than a moment of genius I think.
23 Mar 09 - 11:02 gmt
Moron said ...
its getting very concerning to see these heavyweights all join the bottom bandwagon one after the other - mobius, bolton, kass!!!!.....what are they seeing??
23 Mar 09 - 11:06 gmt
BENnies said ...
@damiendamien The first prerequisite of protest is that we must acquire piercings and tattoos (I assume you don't have them). Also white man's dreadlocks and a dog on a string. After that we can discuss the details. Since they are touting it as 'middle class protest' I look forward to people from Home Counties in Doc Martens.
23 Mar 09 - 11:21 gmt
Anonymous Bull said ...
Pretty sure i saw a post from Moron on here last week proclaiming he is shorting the mkt. Everything is overbought start selling as the dow is heading to 6000. Lets see, the DJI is up nearly 200 points today alone, and the SPX up nearly 3% today. Rolling the dice doesn't work all the time eh?
23 Mar 09 - 11:35 gmt
Moron said ...
still expecting move to dow 6000, still shorting.....no change.......consistency has never been my weakness....pig headedness has:)))
23 Mar 09 - 11:37 gmt
Tradebot said ...
Time for a rally... recession fatigue. Dow to 9k. Buy buy buy!
23 Mar 09 - 11:57 gmt
Moron said ...
the world is saved....obama is a hero....stimulus is the magic potion.....and mrs obama grows wonderful vegetables in the white house.....buy, buy, buy:))))
23 Mar 09 - 12:01 gmt
anonymous said ...
@Moron how those shorts you took out last week going? Proving a touch costly...IG Index closed you out yet..lol
23 Mar 09 - 12:18 gmt
KONG said ...
@ Moron,
The sun is out so some managers have gone bullish. I anticipate another up week driven by Irish Fund Managers still sozzled from Saturday before the weather turns and the rot sets in.
There are definitely some bargains out there, but I'm still expecting them to get cheaper before I pile in.
23 Mar 09 - 12:25 gmt
Moron said ...
the way I look at it the entire system is bankrupt......companies have levered up and seen moves against them that wiped out their capital, individuals have pretty much done the same particularly with housing, entire countries are in the same boat.....and is the fed really the big gorrilla in the room who can come out and solve this problem by printing more money and adding even more debt to a system that is already crumbling under debt....I just don't get it!!!
23 Mar 09 - 12:30 gmt
anonymous said ...
Obama reminds me of Unhygienix, selling rotten fish, while his wife bacteria tends a vegetable patch.
23 Mar 09 - 12:38 gmt
Moron said ...
GLG's Lagrange in an interview in a Belgian newspaper as quoted on Bloomberg today......."Governments should charter banks to finance businesses and consumers who can't get funding from private lenders during the credit crisis"............hmmmmmm!!!
23 Mar 09 - 13:18 gmt
anonymous said ...
the only shorts that moron are the grey ones that he wears to his prep school.......
23 Mar 09 - 13:32 gmt
Mr. Bean said ...
I shorted Jade Goody
23 Mar 09 - 13:32 gmt
Moron said ...
very interesting market today....indices up big but loads of stocks down big as well.....and a few profit warnings......insanity!!!
23 Mar 09 - 15:26 gmt
suckmedry said ...
I just resigned myself. After checking how much I paid in taxes over the last 5 years, my social contribution over this period has paid for 25 civil servant positions. Enoug is enough. No more mister nice guy, no more taxes in this country. bye bye London.
23 Mar 09 - 15:59 gmt
dark mole said ...
lovely lovely day. thanks to Anakin Geithner, my GS stock is flying through the sky. Good job my son.
23 Mar 09 - 16:02 gmt
Anonymous Bull said ...
Moron and Jaa still patting each other on the back? Still dribbling..lol...I was being vilified here when i made my buy call about a month or so ago...but as the saying goes..." he who laughs last...."
23 Mar 09 - 16:09 gmt
Moron said ...
anon bull.....with all due respect mate....u must be kidding!!!!!....but since u r such an expert...whats ur call from here.....market up or down:))
23 Mar 09 - 16:14 gmt
Jaa said ...
err...i dont think so Anon bull, your call was early by around 12%..
23 Mar 09 - 16:42 gmt
Moron said ...
:)))))))))))))))
23 Mar 09 - 16:50 gmt
Jaa said ...
so whats your call...cowboy?
23 Mar 09 - 17:08 gmt
anonymous said ...
i am rich again wwwwwwwoooooooooooooope
23 Mar 09 - 17:10 gmt
Moron said ...
next stop dow 6000.....nutters at the fed aint gonna solve this problem....many of my shorts actually working today een though the indices are soaring.....don't believe the hype:))))
23 Mar 09 - 17:14 gmt
Jaa said ...
not u donkey but thanks, thats good to know, divergences abound apparently......i want to read what billy big bollox has got to say..
23 Mar 09 - 17:32 gmt
Moron said ...
billy big bollox is a fine example of the entitlement generation created over the last 25 years....never seen trouble...never seen pain.....since everyone is bearish he just gets up on the wrong side of the bed, traipses daintily into work and pronounces that it might just be cool to be bullish for a change.....muppet!!!!!
23 Mar 09 - 17:49 gmt
1Curzon said ...
Tenants of One Curzon: AIG FP, GLG, Moore Cap, UBS Private Banking What an address. GLG has the nicest offices there.
23 Mar 09 - 17:55 gmt
Jaa said ...
thats right. The point is, most investors are naturally bullish and as we can see now they are panicking about missing the start of the next "great bull market" ..oops.
23 Mar 09 - 18:08 gmt
MsR said ...
@17.55 must be fun chat when the smokers come outside..
23 Mar 09 - 18:24 gmt
Anonymous Bull said ...
lol....no need to be so bitter Moron and Jaa. I always stated this mkt was oversold when no one had any hope.
23 Mar 09 - 18:38 gmt
Anonymous Bull said ...
To be fair we try and maintain a balanced p/folio, so huge mkt moves either way don't massivly impact our P+L. Its just nice to be proven right. Jaa as u have so kindly asked for my view. Well here is billy big bolloxs view!!! Any breach and close of the SPX over 840 and DJI above 8350 would need to be made before any concrete conclusions could be made about this rally. But do remember me fondly when im proven right again!!
23 Mar 09 - 18:44 gmt
Moron said ...
low volume bear market rally mate.....dow 6000 next step...remember me when i am proven right:))))
23 Mar 09 - 18:49 gmt
Richardlogo said ...
hmmm, my money is on this being a 'Special Olympics' kinda rally, double & raise em 1 trillion
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