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
So I spent some time in the USA and Canada hunting for anything that moved. The rest of you were enjoying low interest rates, high dividend yields and panic buying. Equities are moving upwards and general economies are moving downwards. Nice correlation.
The post G20 conspiracy of ensuring bull markets continues a pace and we learn that the infamous G20 non-rioting in London that lead to the death of someone who got in the way of a part time policeman's large stick was filmed by a hedgie. I didn't know that and I checked my film footage. It was alas not me but I am pleased it was an American hedgie. That means there were 2 of us there, defying the baying mobs. Talking of Americans, my love for America is what has kept me going in the last few years but that has been severly challenged and the affair is over.
One reason is I was fed sugar and fat drenched pancakes at all opportunities. No wonder obesity is a problem and will kill off Obama's health care dreams. He may want to reduce the age that yanks can get health care but he will have to put in weight quotas too. So if you have a BMI under 21 and are under 21 years old, Healthcare is free. For the rest, it is an insurance lottery. No wonder ER, House, Grays, Scrubs are so popular: it is a way your average Yank can see all illnesses in action and understand how to treat them just incase they have to carry out some remedial action on the kitchen table to cure Aunt Betty's ingrowing toe nail. Upshot? Go long Healthcare.
But my main gripe is that America is full of children. Kidults. They are demanding, seek attention and only ever see their faces when staring down a large well. there is a noticeable lack of community and togetherness and the blame culture is really unpleasant. It is always someone else's fault and not theirs. Upshot? Go long Subway.
However, the good thing was seeing vegetables being grown on front lawns. And old Subaru's being very popular. And some nice looking Ford SUVs. Upshot? Go long Ford.
It was also noticeable that many bridges and roads are being rebuilt and Obama's Keynesian plan is actually in action. Upshot? Short Obama.
In today's news we don't look at America, but look at the EU Directive and its cost implications, why funds are flocking to Malta to enjoy the EU comfort blanket (actually we don't) and some stuff like ...
BOB DIAMOND: THE £50M BANKER WITH A TASTE FOR GOLF AND BONUSES
"I wake up every day with a smile on my face. My job is about helping people." So said Bob Diamond, describing his love of his job at a Barclays results presentation before the financial world changed forever.
He was doing precious little smiling at this year's event earlier this week, glowering at Her Majesty's Press during what rapidly turned into an ill-tempered affair, particularly when the subject of bankers' bonuses cropped up.
Fintag says
I like Booby Geezer but he said some crass things yesterday. He is the new banking Ogre, the new Dick Fuld.
'WORST MONETARY GROWTH IN A DECADE': BANK OF ENGLAND
As the Bank of England's Monetary policy Committee prepares to announce its decision on extending its £125bn programme of "quantitative easing" at noon tomorrow, the Bank's own latest figures reveal how slow "QE" has been in feeding through.
Monetary growth in the second quarter of this year was just 3.1 per cent compared with the same period last year, the weakest expansion in a decade. However, the more up-to-date figures suggest a gently rising trend, with growth, on an annualised basis, reaching 3.7 per cent at the end of June, up from 3.3 per cent at the end of March. The Bank's figures on lending to the mainstream financial sector and the real economy - that is by stripping out the various special purpose vehicles set up by banks - also show a mildly hopeful picture. Lending rose by 2.7 per cent on the same basis in the second quarter, that is up on the 1.9 per cent recorded previously, and a contraction of 2.9 per cent in the last months of 2008. So called "M4 excluding intermediate Other Financial Companies" is closely watched by Bank officials, especially the less volatile quarterly numbers.
Fintag says Why do we want Leverage back? It got us into this mess? Why cant we grow more slowly and prudently like in the old days? Debt is evil.
independent says " Northern Rock on the rack - and we're paying "
U.S. personal incomes tumbled 1.3 percent in June, more than forecast and the biggest drop in four years, signaling that consumer spending will take time to recover.
The decline partly reflected the unwinding of one-time transfer payments from the Obama administration's stimulus plan, which boosted incomes 1.3 percent in May, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. Spending rose 0.4 percent in June as prices climbed. Adjusted for inflation, purchases fell 0.1 percent, the report showed.
Fintag says A country in decline. [Editor: That was rather pathetic]
SEC TO BAN FLASH TRADES OF U.S. STOCKS, SCHUMER SAYS
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will seek to ban flash trades that give some brokerages an advance look at orders, Senator Charles Schumer said, citing a conversation with SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro.
Schapiro assured Schumer in a phone call yesterday that the agency plans to ban the practice, according to a statement from his office. In a separate release, Schapiro said she has asked her staff to draft rules that “quickly eliminate the inequity” that flash orders cause.
Fintag says Goldman Sachs. Front Running. Voldemort.
This will be my last blog post, at least for the foreseeable future.
I have accepted a new job, one that will require a certain level of discretion. I am excited by its challenges: 'Balanced and sustainable” growth is something that I believe in. But suspending this blog is still hard.
I started blogging almost five years ago, back when blogging felt new and the barriers to entry were much lower. I was also lucky: first Nouriel Roubini and RGE and then the CFR were willing to pay me to, at least in part, write a niche blog on global imbalances and global capital flows. The CFR in general - and Richard Haass and Sebastian Mallaby in particular - took a risk (a calculated risk?) that I could maintain a blog with open comments that could live up to the standards of the Council on Foreign Relations.
I started writing a blog almost by default. There wasn't an obvious source of demand for the kind of work that I wanted to do. My interests were too grounded in current events to fit well with academia, especially as I neither am a true economist nor a true political scientist. And I was too interested in policy issues to match, consistently, the interests of the market — especially as I am a bit better at seeing risks than opportunities. No private bank keeps a specialist on the TIC data on their payroll.
Plus writing a blog gave me the freedom to write what I wanted when I wanted - and on occasion to work from where I wanted to work.
Fintag says One day it will be me too ...for I am not immortal ...but I love my ego being stroked so it will be a long tome before I hang up my blogging blog.
Footage of him striking Tomlinson on 1 April, filmed by a New York hedge fund manager and released by the Guardian six days after the death, has now been submitted in a file to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
It was part of a file submitted to prosecutors by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which announced today it had completed what has been one if its largest ever criminal investigations.
Fintag says No wonder my footage never got aired. The day was extremely dull if I recall.
FTSE 100 companies are running a combined pension deficit of £96bn, the largest ever recorded, a leading firm of consulting actuaries will reveal today.
The collapse in stock markets means that the shortfall is more than twice the £41bn recorded a year ago, Lane Clark & Peacock's (LCP) will say.
The financial crisis has also spelled doom for pension schemes at some of the largest firms in the country, with just three FTSE 100 companies - Cadbury, Diageo and Tesco - disclosing that they still run a defined benefit pension scheme.
Fintag says Oh well, the EU Directive will help them out.
The trade body warned that the cost of leverage restrictions, increased compliance costs and the impact of being restricted to European funds would hit investor returns in hedge funds and private equity by an estimated 2.5pc. It is thought that the €5 trillion European pension fund industry has nearly €1 trillion allocated to alternative investments at the moment
Andrew Baker, CEO of AIMA, said: "This is an estimated figure but it shows the potentially enormous impact that the directive could have on Europe's pension funds and in the longer term, Europe's pensioners.
Bank of America's decision to agree a $33m (€22.9m) settlement with the US regulator for "misleading" investors over its purchase of Merrill Lynch last year, has led to calls in the blogosphere for the resignation of the bank's chief executive Ken Lewis. Here, Financial News rounds up a selection of reaction from around the Web.
Fintag says So I have to subscribe to be able to see which blogs (and these are free) are included?
CAN HF RETURN AUTOCORRELATION ACTUALLY PREDICT HOW EASY IT WILL BE TO EVENTUALLY REDEEM?
If one word could sum up the multi-dimensional train wreck we've seen in financial markets over the past few years, it might be liquidity. Illiquidity-driven death spirals have affected individual hedge funds, liquidity “mismatches” have hurt funds of funds and university endowments, which had long benefited from an “illiquidity premium” recently came crashing back to earth (see this recent Vanity Fair article for a great example).
Several experts have contemplated the value of liquidity on the pages. Some have even suggested that hedge funds owe much of their “alpha” returns to illiquidity, not skill.
Fintag says I read this a couple of times. Is it me or is this a load of nonsense?
4 comments
damiendamien said ...
Bobbys not wearing an Austin Reed suit. Button on his left/our right is undone as if to subtly say 'why yes, this suit is tailor made and thus has working buttons on the sleeves'. What an absolute
05 Aug 09 - 08:11 gmt
anonymous said ...
no-one gives a crap about finbar anymore...y-day's man drowning under a sea of redemptions.
05 Aug 09 - 10:57 gmt
Munch the Greatest said ...
Hear Ye, Hear Ye!
We are in the eye of the storm!
Dankie
Munch
05 Aug 09 - 14:10 gmt
howard said ...
@anonymous- ur a worthless puscatore - i've never seen this few comments though.
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