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
Trading the markets involves no emotion. It requires looking at all risks and finding ways to hedge them or more importantly making money from them. Having political views is fine but these must not cloud one's judgement so when we see Obama trying to fix something that is so fundamentally broken, like Wall Street, one must cry internally.
Thanks to Bernanke and co, we have bigger banks, banks that cannot fail and banks that are more arrogant than ever. Oligopolies are hard to regulate and here we have the worst situation of all - a pseudo socialist trying to discipline a bunch of children who have been given Daddy's unlimited credit card.
I am not here with solutions, just criticisms. All I want is the banks to be brought down to size, huge capital requirements to be imposed and trading limits imposed. It won't happen though which is a shame but I have a solution - see below.
Brown is the new black So we all found out on Friday how to pretend to guess the lottery numbers. Magician. Illusionist and fortune teller Derren Brown spilled his secrets and fooled us all. Well there is no need to fool you lot [Editor: You are the fool] but my secret is out and the top of that infamous W (and I don't mean the hotel chain where the cool chic decor wears thin when the room is the size of rabbit hutch) will be here at the weekend. The 19th will be a day to remember and so hedging my bets the Friday and Monday will be the start of the great decline.
My rational is based on the yield curve, debt payment and the number of up and coming placements and offerings coming up as well as the facts cost cutting doesn't equate to increased revenues and because Ben Bernanke told me in a dream. Of course this is only part of the story and my R, S and C# models are alerting me to rebalancing my portfolios.
Talking of decline, have you noticed that Bob Diamond's favorite shirt outlet are now selling shirts with button cuffs. How exciting is this? Most of us have been wearing buttons for the past 2 years given only insurance brokers wear double cuffs with one sided cuff links (a great no no from the style police).
Not that the ladies out there give a hoot and this is where the problem lies. Trading is macho and rather unpleasant. My feminine nature only gets an outing when I am in bars and restaurants chatting up people who don't speak English. But that is for another time. I slept a lot at the weekend and fantasy and reality are somewhat blurred.
Many protesters carried placards highly demeaning to a sitting president, as its organisers sought to invoke the spirit of the Boston Tea Party that sparked the Revolutionary War. Some even likened Mr Obama to Hitler, referring to debunked claims that his health reform plans include “death panels” that will order the euthanasia of elderly patients.
Others carried posters portraying Mr Obama as the Joker from the Batman films bearing the slogan “Socialism”. Some held placards declaring “Bury Obama care with Kennedy”, referring to Senator Edward Kennedy, a veteran champion of health reform, who now lies in Arlington cemetery.In recent weeks, because of concerns about spending and the deficit, a growing number of independents and moderate Democrats who were crucial to Mr Obama's victory last year have begun to desert him, polls show.
Fintag says Wasn't he clever eh? How did he do it? Perhaps he is really Derren Brown in disguise. According to my charts the USA is bankrupt but maybe I need to be hypnotised too.
washington post says " Obama Turns Efforts To Financial Changes "
marketwatch says " 3 more bank failures bring 2009 total to 92 "
financial times says " Why we've not got the ideal Fed boss "
With Harvard University's endowment taking 27.3 percent tumble in its latest fiscal year, largely because of problems with its private equity and hedge fund portfolios, the endowment's chief, Jane Mendillo, is making a move to bring more of the money back in-house, the Boston Globe columnist Steven Syre writes.
However, as Ms. Mendillo tries to curb risk reverse by putting a larger percentage of the money in the hands of Harvard's own managers, she may once again stir up controversy about the endowment's rich compensation practices, Mr. Syre writes.
Fintag says If you take a careful look at the Ivy league's endowment portfolios, real estate features quite heavily. The managers have a tendency to buy property around the university to keep the homes of the academics high. Is this a good idea? There seems to be a real conflict here and so if you are at Harvard living in a dorm with no heating that hasn't been cleaned for 6 months, take a closer look at what the guardians of the endowment are up to and protest about it. Think 1969.
They're a foul group of narcissistic scoundrels who have raped the present and future economies of the world, rigged the markets by exploiting what-amounts-to-software-glitches to extract as much cash as possible from a stock market corrupted by those same people without ever building or manufacturing or creating anything of real value to society, jammed it's money-sucking blood funnel into not only the markets but into Congress, the Senate, the Presidency, the Justice Department, newspapers, every talking head on teevee and it's mechanical robo-claw/feeding tube into the Treasury and Federal Reserve as well, thereby perverting democracy and destroying the lives and bank accounts of millions of Americans and trillions of dollars of fictional wealth by their irresponsible leveraging of puffed-up financial voodoo instruments ,leeching off the government teat in what can only be described as Ayn Rand's wet dream of a free market company gone berserk yet powerful enough to corrupt the system in it's favor to bleed every living thing in sight dry?
Fintag says That seems rather harsh. Goldman hires the best looking trading floor girls [Editor: Steady] in the investment banking world. I know this as I nearly married one. And then I woke up.
Exactly 1 year ago we all saw this analysis and Goldman got away scott free. How did they do it? Are they too Derren Brown in disguise?
The global market for derivatives rebounded to $426 trillion in the second quarter as risk appetite returned, but the system remains unstable and prone to crises, according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). The BIS said in its quarterly report that total turnover of derivatives rose 16pc, mostly due to a surge in futures and options contracts on three-month interest rates.
Stephen Cecchetti, the bank's chief economist, said over-the-counter markets for derivatives are still opaque and pose "major systemic risks" for the financial system. The danger is that regulators will again fail to see that big institutions have taken far more exposure than they can handle in shock conditions, repeating the errors that allowed the giant US insurer AIG to write nearly "half a trillion dollars" of unhedged insurance through credit default swaps.
Fintag says As I was saying last week, the CDS market is bigger than 1 year ago.
financial news says " Banks face new risk management threat "
After years of selling cheap goods to debt-fuelled Western consumers, China now has $2 trillion dollars of foreign exchange reserves. That's 2,000 billion - a reserve haul no less 25 times bigger than that of the UK. In a world of systemic instability, reserves mean power. Reserves mean you can defend your currency, stabilise your banking system and boost your economy without resorting to yet more borrowing - or, worse still, the printing press.
More than half of China's reserves are denominated in dollars. So when the dollar falls, China loses serious money. When you're talking about a dollar-reserve number involving 12 zeros, even a modest weakening of the greenback sees China's wealth takes a mighty hit.
Fintag says Having just watched the last episode of Mad Men on BluRay where they are all terrified of an impending nuclear war, this sort of headline must be the 21st Century equivalent.
My solution is thus: I have set up my own bank. It is a simple vehicle that owns one asset - a key to a vault. In this vault I house some gold. This is insured by a government owned Insurance company. There is cctv so you can see it on the internet at all times [Editor: That must be interesting] and I shall hand out Fintag IOUs. The bank is called the Bank of Fintag.
I have checked with the FSA and SEC to see if I need a banking license and it appears not. So I have created my own regulator called the FSA - Fintag Safety Association. It will have no powers except be housed in a huge office with top quality paintings.
China announced dumping and subsidy probes of chicken and auto products from the U.S., two days after President Barack Obama imposed tariffs on tires from the Asian nation.
Chinese industries complain that they're being hurt by “unfair trade practices,” the nation's Ministry of Commerce said on its Web site yesterday. The dumping investigation relates to poultry alone, a spokesman said in Beijing today. The ministry didn't specify the value of imports of the products.
Fintag says Fight, fight, fight. Obama just loves the power protectionism gives him. But does he really want to play dirty with the US dollar lovin' Chinese?
independent says " London retail sales tumble to cast doubt on the sector's recovery curve "
HEDGE FUND AND PRIVATE EQUITY LEADERS PROTEST AGAINST EU CLAMPDOWN
David Campbell Bannerman, an MEP and deputy leader of UKIP, said that he would be voting against the directive and called on Mr Rasmussen to confirm that it was his ambition to “downsize” and “damage” the City of London.
An unrepentant Mr Rasmussen said that it was “too much” to argue that hedge funds and private equity were blameless, but added: “I'm not here to inspire your fear. I'm going for a strong position of competitiveness as my point of departure. You can't obtain that true competitiveness without transparency and a level playing field for all players.”
However, he said that the European Parliament would agree to carry out an “impact assessment”, to look at areas, such as that covering UK investment trusts, where funds would be unfairly caught up in the directive's net, although he said that there would be “no watering down” of the directive.
For Barclays and Nomura, the collapse of Lehman Brothers was the opportunity of the lifetime -- a chance to grab a seat at banking's top table as Wall Street's giants fell.
A year after their high-speed takeovers, Britain's Barclays is confident it is on course to fulfill long-held ambitions now it has a foothold in U.S. equity and mergers and acquisitions markets, and Lehman has already boosted its bottom line.
Fintag says A good excuse to put up an old picture of me lining up at the creditors' meeting last year (and I am still waiting for my assets ...):
8 comments
Munch is a tool said ...
First
14 Sep 09 - 07:17 gmt
damiendamien said ...
The Bank of Fintag business model is the same a goldmoney.com
14 Sep 09 - 09:09 gmt
Alpha60 said ...
How did GS survive last year ?? For Derren Brown read Hank Paulson
14 Sep 09 - 10:14 gmt
anonymous said ...
Is that RH on the left?
14 Sep 09 - 11:09 gmt
Munch the Greatest said ...
FIRST???
{clutching head, staring at flickering screen through sea of red, sucking down water}
Huh?
14 Sep 09 - 11:58 gmt
Richardlogo said ...
I didn't bother to see Derren Brown's lottery pick illusion but when the magician/illusionist controls the location of the performance/trick then of course anything is possible (it sounded like the usual hyped up TV lameness)
I note though that he covers my fav speciality topic 'Remote Viewing' in his show of the 25th Sept so will go round to a friend's place to view
bermuda.googlepages.com/index
14 Sep 09 - 19:04 gmt
Top Dog said ...
Down we go ...
14 Sep 09 - 20:01 gmt
anonymous said ...
I can't trade knowing how rigged the system is by GS. I can't trade not knowing where Obama is going to put his finger in what sector pie and screw up profit potential. I could trade gold and currencies - which I do. Anything else is equal to a Maddoff/Enron scheme.
Prepare for Obama to lecture the banks and then do nothing. Watch for Wells Fargo to go under - rumored.
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