General Market News
One thing that is certain when it comes to the stock market - things change daily. This section will keep you up to date of the latest happenings on Wall Street, and how it might end up affecting Main Street.
It's a Great Time to Be An Employee of Goldman Sachs
According to a recent article on Bloomberg.com (link below), Goldman Sachs has set aside an astonishing $16.7 billion dollars for "compensation and benefits" for the first three quarters of 2009.
...
James "Jim" Simons To Retire from Renaissance Technologies
The Wall Street Journal (link below) is reporting that James "Jim" Simons will be retiring as CEO of Renaissance Technologies at the beginning of 2010.
In a letter to investors that was sent out t...
Citigroup Dumps Phibro (and Andrew J. Hall)
Citigroup unloaded a major headache on Friday when they agreed to sell their Phibro trading unit to Occidental Petroleum for a reported $250 million dollars.
Was Phibro some sort of a money-losing...
Saudi Arabia, Japan Among Countries Denying Knowledge of "Secret" Oil Deal
An article was published on The Independent (link below) earlier today that sent shock waves throughout the financial world.
The article, which was titled "The End of the Dollar Spells the Rise of...
Banking Executive Uses "Borrowed" Foreclosed Mansion to Live, Throw Parties
According to an article on Yahoo! Finance (link below), a high-ranking executive at Wells Fargo & Co. temporarily moved into a foreclosed Malibu beach house worth $12 million dollars, using it to thro...
Geithner Gets Grilled
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner recently agreed to participate in an interview format called the "Digg Dialogg".
"Digg Dialogg" is a partnership between the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and Digg.c...
AIG's New CEO, Robert H. Benmosche, To Receive $7 Million a Year In Compensation
Bloomberg (clip below) is reporting that the new CEO of AIG (American International Group) will receive $7 million dollars per year as part of his compensation package.
Robert H. Benmosche will rep...
Goldman Sachs CEO to Employees: No Big Purchases Please
The New York Post reported earlier today that Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, advised his employees to "avoid making big-ticket, high-profile purchases".
Goldman Sachs set aside billions...
Andrew J. Hall: Where's My $100 Million?
An interesting showdown is shaping up between the head of a lucrative trading unit at Citigroup and the US government.
Multiple reports have Andrew J. Hall, head of Citigroup's lucrative "Phibro" e...
Warren Buffett Up $2.6 Billion Dollars on Goldman Sachs Investment
Remember when everyone was laughing at Warren Buffett's five billion dollar investment in Goldman Sachs?
Remember, just a few short months ago, when people were openly questioning whether Warren Bu...
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General Motors Briefly Trades at $1
General Motors (GM) briefly traded at the $1 mark earlier today before recovering and trading higher.
This was yet another sad event for General Motors, a company that used to be one of the most re...
April U-3 Unemployment Rate Comes in at 8.9%; U-6 Rate at 15.8%
The markets are rallying this morning after the April unemployment numbers were "better than expected".
Market watchers were cheering the fact that the pace of job losses seems to be slowing, as "o...
Optimism Abound As Markets Tick Higher
Is the recession over?
Many investors certainly seem to think so, as the markets have been on an absolute tear over the past couple of months.
The S&P 500 has turned positive in 2009. The Dow Jo...
Warren Buffett Speaks
The spotlight was on Warren Buffett this weekend as the much-revered investor spoke at the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting.
Many people were interested as to what Buffett would have t...
Credit Card Interest Rates Continue To Trend Higher
It's not your imagination, and it's not just you.
Credit card interest rates are, for the most part, trending higher across the board.
This comes despite the fact that interest rates in general ...
More Bank Stress Test Leaks
Bloomberg.com is reporting tonight that "at least" six of the 19 largest U.S. banks will require additional capital, based on the "preliminary results" of the government stress tests.
Is it just me...
Jim Cramer vs Nouriel Roubini
Just a few short weeks after Jon Stewart spindled Jim Cramer on the "Daily Show", Nouriel Roubini has also taken aim at the host of "Mad Money with Jim Cramer", calling him a "buffoon".
Roubini, wh...
Elizabeth Warren Throws Down The Gauntlet
Elizabeth Warren is set to release a report later this week that will call for some drastic measures to be taken in the continued battle to prevent the financial system from collapsing.
Elizabeth W...
$17.2 Trillion Dollars In Total US National Debt By 2019 Under President Obama's Budget Plan?
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently released a "preliminary analysis of the President's budget", and the outlook is not pretty.
The CBO reviewed the "A New Era of Responsibility: Renewin...
Salaries Could Be Going Up at Bank of America
In an attempt to deflect public criticism but still retain key employees, Bank of America is reportedly considering raising salaries as a way of "rewarding people in its investment-banking unit".
B...
Richard Bernstein and David Rosenberg Both Leaving Bank of America
Two of Bank of America's most respected strategists have announced their plans to leave the firm later this year.
Richard Bernstein, who is currently the chief investment strategist for Merrill Lyn...
Next Bull Market May "Hinge" On The "Net Generation"? Uh Oh
Tobias Levkovich, a Citigroup Inc. equity strategist, recently opined that the next bull market in U.S. stocks may very well hinge on the "Net Generation", which consists of Americans born between 197...
AIG Bonus-Gate Continues To Heat Up
A political tsunami was unleashed against Barack Obama and the Democrats this past weekend when it was revealed that AIG had paid out approximately $165 million dollars in bonuses to employees of AIG'...
TheStreet.com CEO Thomas Clarke Hits The Eject Button
Thomas Clarke, the CEO of TheStreet.com, evacuated the company on Friday, mere hours after Jim Cramer's disastrous appearance on the "Daily Show" with Jon Stewart.
Jim Cramer, who co-founded Thestr...
Dow, Rohm & Haas Merger
Deal: Dow (DOW) To Acquire Rohm & Haas (ROH) for $78 per share, plus 99 cent per share "ticking" fee
Purpose of Deal: Dow sought to broaden "its product offerings ...
Ben Bernanke: "Reasonable Prospect That The Current Recession Will End in 2009"
The markets, in desperate need of some good news, finally found some on Tuesday.
The major market indexes roared higher on Tuesday due to some hopeful comments from the Federal Reserve Chairman, Be...
S&P 500 Within Striking Distance of Its November Lows
The markets continued to tumble on Tuesday, as the Nasdaq, Dow and S&P 500 all closed down over 3%
After a brief bear market rally, the major North American market indexes are face-to-face with the...
Goldman Sachs to Clients: Bet Against The S&P 500
According to Bloomberg.com (link below), Goldman Sachs is advising its clients to bet against the S&P 500 using a "bear put spread".
A "bear put spread" is an options strategy in which a trader wil...
Would You Support a Financial Transactions Tax?
Bob Herbert wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times yesterday titled "Where the Money Is".
In the piece, Herbert talks about a "good idea" that was floated by economist Dean Baker.
Baker, who...
Will The "Money on the Sidelines" Ever Return?
Stock market bulls (they are few and far between these days) don't have much in the way of a persuasive argument these days.
For every reason bulls have to get excited about the stock market, bears...
Tunisia Was The Best Performing Stock Market in 2008
2008 was an absolutely horrific year for the global markets, and it should come as no surprise that the vast majority of major market indexes were down in 2008.
In fact, of all of the stock markets...
Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain: I'd Like $10 Million Dollars, Please
John Thain, CEO of Merrill Lynch, has requested a $10 million dollar bonus from the Merrill Lynch compensation committee, the Wall Street Journal is reporting.
The compensation committee and the en...
UBS AG Analyst David Bianco Makes "Bold" Prediction for S&P 500 Next Year
Could the S&P 500 actually trade 53% higher next year?
David Bianco, a 33 year-old analyst at UBS AG, thinks so.
Bianco said on Wednesday that the S&P 500 "may" rally to 1,300 by the end of 2009...
BVI Global Fund Ltd (of Tudor Investment Corp) Temporarily Suspends Withdrawals
Tudor Investment Corp. will be temporarily be suspending investor withdrawals in its mammoth $10 billion dollar BVI Global Fund Ltd. as the company seeks investor approval to split the fund into two s...
Carl Icahn Boosts Stake in Yahoo! to 5.5%
I'm not afraid to admit that I am fascinated by the Yahoo! story right now.
Here is a company that spurned the aggressive advances of Yahoo! only a few months ago, only to watch their business (and...
Barton Biggs - "We Are In For the Mother of All Bear Market Rallies"
A little background on Barton Biggs before we start. He currently runs Traxis Partners, which is a hedge fund that is based in New York City. Before that, Biggs was the "chief global strategist" at Mo...
Citigroup Is Going To Have A Hard Time Finding a Buyer
In case you haven't heard - Citigroup is on the brink of collapsing.
Citigroup, the massive financial conglomerate that employs hundreds of thousands of people, is currently discussing its "options...
What's Wrong with Berkshire Hathaway?
There are a few things that I'm used to.
The Cubs not winning the World Series. Rain on my days off. Berkshire Hathaway being a steady ship in a sea of volatility.
Something strange is happening...
101 of All S&P 500 Stocks Now Trading for Less than $10 Per Share
Want to know just how bad things are right now?
I came across some interesting data earlier today that illustrates just how historically weak the major market indexes are right now.
Most people ...
Mark Cuban Is Sued by the SEC
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a civil suit today in a federal court in Dallas, alleging that Mark Cuban made illegal insider trades 4 years ago in a company called Mamma.com.
M...
Top Goldman Sachs Executives, Including CEO Lloyd Blankfein, Will Not Receive Bonuses This Year
There are going to be no Christmas presents under the tree this year for Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and six other top executives at the company (just kidding).
Blankfein and the six other ex...
Best Buy: "Most Difficult Climate We've Ever Seen"
Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson sounded a warning earlier this morning that sent the shares of Best Buy (and many other retailers) plummeting to the Earth - "this is the most difficult climate we've ever s...
Deutsche Bank Drops the Hammer on General Motors: "Shares are Worthless"
Deutsche Bank analyst Rod Lache added to General Motor's misery on Monday morning by proclaiming that the common shares in the company are worthless. He reduced his rating to a sell and declared that ...
Platinum Grove Asset Management LP, Another Myron Scholes Hedge Fund, Is Struggling As Well
Myron Scholes - if you follow the world of hedge funds, then that name should ring a bell.
Scholes, who won a Nobel Prize in economics, was a founding partner in the now infamous LTCM fund. LTCM fa...
Jerry Yang to Microsoft: Buy Us. Please?
Is Jerry Yang the most unpopular CEO of a publicly traded technology company right now?
Probably.
Jerry Yang and company famously rebuffed Microsoft and Steve Ballmer earlier this year. Microsof...
Tight Credit, Low Consumer Confidence and High Gas Prices Conspiring to Destroy the US Auto Industry
General Motors and Ford just released their October sales numbers, and the data wasn't pretty.
October sales for General Motors tanked 45% from October of last year, an incredibly violent drop that...
HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index Down 19.6% YTD
The HFRX (Hedge Fund Research, Inc) Global Hedge Fund Index was down 19.6% for the year as of October 30th, 2008 (link below), confirming fears that the losses sustained by the global hedge fund indus...
Where Is the Stock Market Headed in November?
One of the most volatile months in the history of the stock market is now over. October of 2008 will go down in history as one of the worst months ever for not only the US stock market, but the global...
The Mother of All Short Squeezes: Volkswagen
Volkswagen (briefly) became the most valuable company in the world on Tuesday, surging ahead of the likes of Exxon Mobil Corp., General Electric, Microsoft and others.
Volkswagen closed at 210.39 e...
Can the Citadel Investment Group Survive?
This prolonged (and violent) market downturn has called into question the long-term viability of many hedge funds. Manny Roman, co-chief executive of GLG Partners, recently stated that he believes tha...
A Tale of Two Companies: McDonald's vs Starbucks
I remember reading about McDonald's and Starbucks "going to war" not that long ago. McDonald's was going to start serving gourmet coffee in an attempt to lure some of the Starbucks client base, while ...
Hedge Fund Industry Posts Worst Month Since At Least 2000
A recent article in Bloomberg (link below) pointed out that the hedge fund industry posted its worst month in September since at least 2000. The article pointed to the Eurekahedge Hedge Fund Index as ...
Christian Siva-Jothy Ignores Downturn in Hedge Fund Industry as His SemperMacro Fund Posts Large Gain in September
This is a tough time for many hedge fund managers, but not Christian Siva-Jothy.
Siva-Jothy's $440 million dollar SemperMacro fund posted an eye-popping 12.3% return in September, according to t...
Warren Buffett Is Enthusiastically Bullish on US Equities
I've come to expect a few things from Warren Buffett. Fantastic annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letters. Incredibly consistent returns. Cautiousness when it comes to investing in equities. Even ...
Andrew Lahde Flips Wall Street The Bird, Rides Off Into Sunset
Andrew Lahde released a letter to his shareholders this week that has everyone in the hedge fund industry talking.
Andrew Lahde runs (or used to run) Lahde Capital Management, a small hedge fund...
The Stock Market Crash of 1987 (Black Monday) Revisited
The North American stock exchanges have weathered a number of fierce storms during their lifetimes. You had the Great Depression. You had 9/11. You had the 1973 oil crisis and resulting dramatic spike...
Wall Street 2: "Money Never Sleeps" Reportedly on the Way
20th Century Fox has reportedly given the green-light to a sequel to the 1987 cult classic "Wall Street." The studio has obviously picked up on the fact that the general public is currently intensely ...
Some Notable Hedge Fund Heavyweights, Including Steven Cohen of SAC Capital Advisors, Liquidated Many of Their Positions in Recent Days
Many people figured that last week's bloodbath was helped along by many hedge funds liquidating equity positions due to redemption demands. An article out on WSJ.com tonight (link below) explains that...
Historic Stock Market Volatility Leads to One of the Biggest One-Day Rallies in Wall Street History
The major North American market indexes posted some of their biggest one-day gains ever on Monday as optimism returned to the markets and stocks roared higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared ...
Goldman Sachs Turns Bearish On Oil, Calls For Year-End Price of $70 A Barrel
Goldman Sachs, a long-term oil bull, has turned bearish on oil and other commodities, at least for the short-term. Their commodity markets research team, led by Jeffrey Currie, has published a report ...
FOX Business Network (FBN) Going After Jim Cramer Hard During Market Meltdown
Fox Business Network (FBN) is attempting to use the recent market meltdown to convert CNBC viewers to their network. They have launched an extremely aggressive marketing campaign in recent weeks that ...
Will Morgan Stanley / MUFG (Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group) Deal Go Through as Planned?
The Morgan Stanley / MUFG deal was the talk of the trading floor on Friday. On September 29th, MUFG agreed to buy a large 21% stake in Morgan Stanley. The deal called for a $3 billion dollar purchase ...
2008 Is On the Verge of Becoming the Worst Year Ever for the Nasdaq Composite
The Nasdaq was founded in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers. Over the past 10-15 years, the Nasdaq has become arguably the most-watched stock exchange in the world, due to its inc...
The Worst Years in the History of the Dow Jones Industrial Average
2008 is certainly shaping up to be a horrendous year for the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). The credit markets have seized up, banks aren't lending to each other and consumers are starting to dr...
Aggressive Interest Rate Cut by Australia's Central Bank Likely Start of Coordinated Global Rate Cuts
Wondering why Asian markets are rallying tonight after the DJIA and Nasdaq were slaughtered on Monday?
Australia's Central Bank cut its benchmark interest rate by one full percentage point tonig...
Neel Kashkari, 35 Year Old Advisor To Henry Paulson, To Oversee $700 Billion Dollar Bailout Program
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, 35 year-old Neel Kashkari is being tapped by Henry Paulson to "oversee the $700 billion dollar program to buy distressed assets from financial insti...
What Now for the Financial Markets?
It's Friday evening. The $700 billion dollar bailout (actually, it's more than that, but whatever) has now been passed by both the Senate and the House of Representatives and signed into law by Presid...
The Stock Market Plunge on Monday Changed Many People's Minds About the Bailout
As Washington toiled to come together to create a workable $700 billion dollar bailout bill this past weekend, many Americans voiced their firm opposition to the plan. Many people questioned "why they...
Five of the Biggest One-Day Drops in the History of the Nasdaq
Like any other exchange in the world, the Nasdaq has seen its share of incredible highs and depressing lows. At this moment in time, investor confidence may be the lowest it has ever been for a very l...
The Church of England Attacks Short-Sellers and Debt Traders
It's just not a fun time to be a short-seller right now. Financial markets worldwide are imploding, and more and more people are pointing their fingers of blame at one source: short-sellers. In the ey...
Why Is IBM On the Prohibited Short Sale List?
On September 24th, 2008, a number of companies (twelve in total) were added to the list of NYSE companies that are on the banned short sale list. These companies included H&R Block, Credicorp, Arbor R...
Warren Buffett Scores Sweetheart Goldman Sachs Deal
Warren Buffett continued his buying rampage on Tuesday by securing himself and the rest of the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders a sweetheart deal with Goldman Sachs.
The deal will see Warre...
Ragingbull.com Relaunches In Midst of Crippling Market Meltdown
Ragingbull.com, an online stock market community that was launched during the dot com boom of the late 1990s, announced today that they had relaunched. The site set out a mass email today, extolling t...
Proposed Federal Bailout Numbers: Nearly $2 Trillion Dollars and Counting
We are living in extraordinary times right now. College students will be studying the events from 2008 in economics classes 20-30 years from now. Some people don't understand the sheer magnitude of wh...
SEC To Temporarily Ban ALL Short-Selling?!?!
There is an article out on WSJ.com tonight (link below) with the title "SEC Plans to Temporarily Ban Short-Selling." I read and re-read the article, and my eyes still can't believe what they are readi...
Warren Buffett Putting Berkshire Hathaway Money to Work In Face of Crumbling Market
Warren Buffett has long been lamenting the lack of attractive investment opportunities in the overheated US markets. Buffett was forced to travel overseas to look for places to invest Berkshire Hathaw...
Financial Sector Has Lost Well Over a Trillion Dollars In Market Capitalization Since October of 2007
I was scrolling through TechCrunch and noticed an article on their site titled "The Mess on Wall Street: Four Trillion Dollars Down the Drain." The article linked to a New York Times graphic that illu...
The SEC Drops the Hammer on Naked Short Selling
The SEC announced today that they took "coordinated actions to strengthen investor protections" against naked short-selling. These new regulations (well, not really new) will apply ...
Government To Provide Secured Loan to AIG and Take an 80 Percent Stake in the Company
Another day, another government bailout.
Reports are circulating that the Federal Reserve will be providing an $85 BILLION dollar bridge loan (that's billion) to AIG and will also be taking an 80% ...
The Stock Market Goes Into Complete Meltdown Mode on Monday
Investors didn't react favorably (obviously) to news out over the weekend that Lehman Brothers was going to be filing for bankruptcy. Not only that, but Merrill Lynch agreed to be bought out by Bank o...
Merrill Lynch Agrees to Buyout From Bank of America; The Financial Landscape Continues to Abruptly Change
What a weekend! Lehman Brothers is on the brink of a disastrous bankruptcy; American International Group is likely going to undertake major asset sales in order to keep the company solvent; and now Me...
Lehman Brothers on the Verge of Bankruptcy
Who would have ever thought that Lehman Brothers would be on the verge of declaring bankruptcy?
This is looking like a very real possibility on Sunday night, as an emergency meeting between Federal...
RK Capital Management LLP Down As Much as 30% in August
According to an article that was recently published on Bloomberg (link below), RK Capital Management's various funds fell as much as 30% in August, mainly due to a rapid drop in the price of aluminum ...
How Pissed Off Are Yahoo Shareholders Right Now?
Yahoo shareholders are surely looking on in disbelief as their investment plummets on an almost-daily basis. Thursday was more of the same, as Yahoo traded down another 5.38% to close the session at $...
Hedge Fund Capital Inflows Have Slowed to a Trickle in 2008
Is the bloom finally coming off of the hedge fund rose?
According to Wall Street & Technology (link below), capital inflows for hedge funds were a measly $16.4 billion dollars in the first quarter...
Atticus Capital Has Lost Over Five Billion Dollars in 2008
According to various sources (Forbes, Reuters and others), activist hedge fund Atticus Capital has dropped over five billion dollars so far in 2008. The company was reported to be controlling over $20...
Another Friday, Another Bank Failure; FDIC May Borrow Money from U.S. Treasury
Another Friday, another bank failure in the United States.
This time it was Integrity Bancshares Inc. of Alpharetta, Georgia. This marks the 10th bank failure of the year so far.
Nasdaq Delistings Way Up in 2008
The major stock exchanges (such as the Nasdaq and NYSE) are encountering weakness from all sides in 2008. Not only has the IPO market slowed considerably (many companies are sagely waiting until the m...
Altor Equity Partners Closes Three Billion Dollar Altor Fund III
Despite "turbulent fundraising markets", Altor Equity Partners have successfully closed their third fund, Altor Fund III, according to a press release dated August 22nd. The company was looking to rai...
Tudor Investment Tensor Fund Up Nineteen Percent YTD
Tudor Investment's Tensor Fund is currently up almost 19% YTD according to an article in the New York Post (which was subsequently confirmed by the company as being accurate). The Tensor Fund, run by ...
Harbinger Capital Partners Funds Raises Stake in Cablevision
Things are about to get a bit more interesting for Cablevision and its management - it was revealed on Friday that Harbinger Capital Partners Funds had upped its stake in the company from 4.9 to 8.1%....
Andor Capital Management LLC Shutting Its Doors
It's the end of an era as Andor Capital Management LLC has announced that it will be closing its doors in October.
According to a recent WSJ article titled "Andor Closin...
BP Capital Drops in July
BP Capital, the hedge fund run by famed investor T. Boone Pickens, suffered a 35% drop in the commodity half of its fund in July, according to a recent report in the New York Post. The article goes on...
JPMorgan Chase & Co's Thomas Lee: Stocks Will Rise "Much Higher" by End of 2008
Thomas Lee, the chief equity strategist at JP Morgan Chase & Co., has gone on record twice in the past couple of months, saying that he believes that the S&P 500 will trade "much hi...
George Bush to Ken Wilson: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Needs Your Help
"Is there a Goldman Sachs employee in the house?"
The Wall Street Journal (link below) recently reported that Ken Wilson (chairman of the Goldman Sachs Financial Institut...
Banks to the SEC - We'd Like Some Protection From Short-Sellers Too
Did the SEC really expect anything different?
Recently (in case you have been living under a rock), the SEC announced that they would be implemen...
SEC To (Temporarily) Halt Naked Short Selling on Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and Seventeen Brokers
Ok, this is too funny.
The SEC announced today that short-sellers would have to "pre-borrow" stock in order to bet against the price of Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and b...
Chinese Hedge Fund Manager Shells Out $2.1 Million for Lunch Date with Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett is without a doubt the best investor that ever lived.
But are his words of wisdom worth $2.1 million dollars? Zhao Danyang thinks so.
Buffett, as he does every ye...
Goldman Sachs Clearly Knows What It is Doing
So on May 5th, Goldman Sachs came out with a recommendation that investors should add to "U.S. financial and consumer stocks".
At the time, the company increased their weighting on financial compan...
Warren Buffett: "US Already in a Recession"
In an interview published in Germany's Der Spiegel weekly on Sunday, Warren Buffett sought to douse any Memorial Day holiday cheer by proclaiming that the United States was "already in a recession". <...
Arjun Murti - The Man Behind the "Super Spike"
Arjun N. Murti has made a number of headlines over the past few years after making a couple of bold predictions regarding the price of oil.
He first made headlines ba...
Champion Air Goes Out of Business Just In Time for the NBA Finals
Big deal right? Yet another airline goes under.
If you are a sports fan, and most importantly a fan of the NBA, then it is a big deal.
Goldman Sachs: Possibility of $150-$200 Per Barrel of Oil "Increasingly Likely" Over Next 6-24 Months
A group of Goldman Sachs analysts, led by Arjun Murti, released a report today saying that there was a good chance that oil would touch $150-$200 per barrel in the next "6-24" months.
Google Rises to the Heavens After Posting Strong Q1 2008 Earnings
There was a great deal of hand-wringing before Google announced its Q1 2008 earnings on Thursday afternoon. Would the sagging world economy have a significantly negative impact on the search engine be...
$10 Per Share for Bear Stearns?
Multiple news outlets tonight are reporting that JP Morgan Chase Co. is in talks to increase its offer for Bear Stearns from $2 per share up to $10 per share.
Apparently JP Morgan figures that the ...
Wall Street Job Market Falling Apart
Given the turmoil in the financial services market, now is not a good time to be a newly-graduated MBA holder, looking for a job on Wall Street.
With many hedge funds going belly-up and the bottom ...
Endeavor Capital Loses 27% In One Day
According to the Financial Times, Endeavor Capital, a three billion dollar London-based hedge fund, lost more than a quarter of its value in one day. This drubbing occurred on Monday, the same day tha...
V (Visa) IPO Prices; Set To Open For Trading on Wednesday
The hotly-anticipated V (Visa) IPO has priced tonight at $44 per share, and will open for trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday morning.
Visa is going public in the midst of some pret...
Barton Biggs of Traxis Partners LLC Predicts 1,000 Point Uptick in the Dow
These are certainly interesting times on Wall Street right now.
On Friday, Bear Stearns nearly collapsed after a liquidity crisis. To say that Wall Street, and the rest of America, is jittery would...
Paulson and Co. Continues Their Red-Hot Run
If you thought that Paulson and Co. was destined for a let-down after 2007's massive year, then John Paulson would like to tell you that you are wrong so far.
Paulson and Co. hit it out of the park...
Carlyle Capital Corporation Gets Pounded After Failing to Meet Margin Calls
Carlyle Capital Corporation touched off a wave of selling on Thursday, especially in mortgage real estate investment trusts, after the company failed to meet some of its margin calls and received a de...
Focus Capital is the Latest Hedge Fund Casualty
Focus Capital, a one billion dollar hedge fund (or at least, it used to be a one billion dollar hedge fund) based out of New York, announced that it was going to be liquidating its portfolio and shutt...
Is Thornburg Mortgage In Danger of Falling into Bankruptcy?
It certainly hasn't been a good couple of weeks for Thornburg Mortgage.
Their stock, trading at almost $12 just a few short weeks ago, continued to plummet on Monday after the company announced tha...
Blue River Asset Management Avoids Collapse By Raising $100 Million in New Capital
Hedge fund firm Blue River Asset Management managed to avoid the fates of several other prominent hedge funds (as in, total collapse) by raising $100 million in new capital from existing and new inves...
Phil Goldstein of Bulldog Investors Fund Challenging SEC on Hedge Fund Advertising Laws
Phil Goldstein of the Bulldog Investors Fund is preparing to take on the SEC over the coming weeks over the SEC's stance regarding hedge funds soliciting money from the public (or not being able to, a...
One Man's Pain is Another Man's Gain; Pimco Looking to Swoop in and Buy Mortgage and Municipal Debt
Over the past week or so, we've heard of three different situations in which companies have had to dump high-quality assets such as municipal bonds and mortgage loans because of forced margin calls.
...
Peloton Partners LLP Asset Seizures A Sign of Things to Come for Hedge Funds?
Yesterday we told you that Peloton Partners had decided to shut down their "ABS Master Fund", a fund that had bet against the subprime credit market and had made over 87% for its shareholders last yea...
Peloton Partners LLP To Shut Down ABS Fund; Halts Redemptions for Multi-Strategy Fund
Another day, another hedge fund casualty.
Today, the Wall Street Journal and Reuters both announced that Peloton Partners LLP would be closing its $2 billion dollar ABS fund and temporarily halting...
Visa Files for IPO; Will Be Largest US Initial Public Offering Ever
Markets in turmoil? Who cares?
Visa filed proposed terms on Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission to raise as much as $18.76 billion dollars in an initial public offering.
The compa...
Warren Buffett Increasing His Exposure to US and International Equities?
What's that line that Warren Buffett has?
"Be fearful when people are greedy and be greedy when people are fearful?"
It would seem that Buffett has started to move into "greedy" mode as it was r...
Insider Buying Signaling a Major Bottom in the Market?
According to Bloomberg, CEO's, directors and other senior officials are buying more shares in their companies than they are selling for the first time since 1995. The importance of this fact is that t...
A Microsoft / Yahoo Merger Would Only Mean Good Things for the Search Engine Industry Over Time
Google, which normally plays it fairly close to the vest, went absolutely wild this past weekend, striking out at the proposed Microsoft / Yahoo merger.
Google pointed out that the deal would be an...
Will There Be a Bidding War For Yahoo Now?
Microsoft fired a shot heard around the world late last week when they announced that they had plans to acquire Yahoo via hostile takeover for around $31 per share.
Microsoft had reportedly finally...
Will a Three Percent Fed Funds Rate Help to Revive the Housing Market in the United States?
With the housing market plummeting and many Americans watching their net worths evaporating before their eyes, the Federal Reserve has undertaken an aggressive campaign to lower interest rates. First,...
The Impact of Microsoft's Bid for Yahoo
What a double whammy of news for the search engine world.
First, Google announced after the bell on Thursday that its Q4 2007 earnings missed analyst expectations. Google missed analyst earnings ex...
Can Google Possibly Maintain Its Earnings Growth And Continue To Post Better Than Expected Earnings Reports Every Quarter?
With Google reporting their Q4 2007 earnings tonight, you have to start to wonder when the Google rocketship will start to slow up.
Remember the days when people were openly wondering if anyone wou...
Societe Generale "Victim" of Major Fraud
Societe Generale, France's second largest bank, has apparently fallen victim to the single large fraud in history ever to be perpetuated by one single trader. In the mid 1990's, Nick Leeson of Barings...
Sensex Crash | The Sensex is Crashing
Indian stock analysts and economists tried to sooth the growing fears of Indian and international investors as the Sensex plummeted on Monday and Tuesday. World markets were torpedoed on Monday and Tu...
Lower Valuations + Weak American Dollar + Desperation = Foreign Buying Bonanza of American Companies
I remember back to the late 1990's when the US dollar was a pillar of strength. I remember hearing about the speculations and conspiracy theories that the US government was keeping their dollar strong...
Alan Greenspan Working as an Advisor for Paulson & Co? That's Just Wrong
Of all of the thousands of hedge funds that Alan Greenspan could have taken an advisory position with, he had to choose Paulson & Co., the hedge fund that made billions and billions of dollars in 2007...
Paulson Credit Opportunities Fund - How the Fund Had Such an Explosive Year in 2007
In 2007, according to Bloomberg, the Paulson Credit Opportunities Fund returned almost 600%, finishing up the year with a staggering gain of 589.9%. The Paulson Credit Opportunities Fund II, a slightl...
Ten of the Top Performing Hedge Funds of 2007
In 2007, news of poorly performing hedge funds seemed to dominate the financial headlines. There was the Global Alpha fund, which dropped 38%; there was the Global Equity Opportunities Fund, which dro...
Is the Credit Card Industry Next to Feel the Pinch?
A few years ago, there were plenty of easy ways to raise money to support your lifestyle, especially if you were a homeowner.
You could buy a house and then flip it a year later for a nice big prof...
Google, Microsoft and Yahoo Settle with Department of Justice for "Promoting Online Gambling"
The Department of Justice yesterday announced that Google, Microsoft and Yahoo had all agreed to settle and pay $31.5 million dollars in fines to resolve claims that they had been promoting "illegal g...
Berkshire Hathaway Hits $150,000 for the First Time
Believe it or not, people actually have the audacity to try and say that Warren Buffett's results aren't impressive.
"What is his annual return?" they will say, "My portfolio had a gain of 120% las...
Not All Hedge Funds Have Had Rough Years
You may think when you open up the Wall Street Journal or the business section of your local paper that all hedge funds have had a terrible year. That's just not true. Like with anything else, chaos f...
"Mystery Trader" Makes Huge Bet on DJ Eurostoxx 50 September Puts
There was quite a lot of rumbling on Monday about an "anonymous investor" that had made a very bold play on the DJ Eurostoxx 50 index, which is an index of Europe's top 50 stocks.
The investor boug...
Could Countrywide Financial (CFC) Possibly Go Bankrupt?
Bankruptcy is a possible scenario for Countrywide Financial Merrill Lynch said on Wednesday, sending the stock tumbling almost 13% to close at $21.29.
This news came as a surprise to many people, w...
KKR IPO Needs to Be Postponed
I feel like Dr. Obvious for even saying this, but KKR really needs to stop kidding themselves when it comes to their IPO, and announce publicly that they will be delaying their IPO. I feel bad for peo...
Och-Ziff Capital Management Group Moves Closer to Going Public
Och-Ziff moved closer to becoming a publicly traded company on Tuesday, as they filed an Amendment to their S-1. Och-Ziff is a notable company to keep an eye on, as they will be a publicly traded hedg...
Is the Repeal of the Short Sale Tick Test Rule Behind This Market Volatility?
I was reading through the Wall Street Journal this morning, and an article caught my eye that made me laugh. I just knew that this was coming, but I didn't expect some traders to grumble about it so q...
Goldman Sachs Global Equity Fund Gets 3 Billion Dollar Bailout
Goldman Sachs on Monday announced that they would be sinking $2 billion dollars of their own money into the deeply troubled Global Equity Opportunities Fund, after the fund reported a 28% decline just...
LEND / Lone Star Merger - Everyone Got It Wrong
Numerous hedge funds got it wrong, as they piled into LEND on Friday, causing the stock to run up over 45% on heavy trading.
Cramer got it wrong. He said " Remember, the
Tykhe Capital: Some Funds Down as Much as 31% Month to Date
Sorry to pile on the bad news, but it's bad out there in quant land.
Tykhe Capital, which runs a number of statistical arbitrage and quantitative long/short funds, has reported that as of August 9t...
Liquidation of Quant Hedge Fund Positions Behind Market Fluctuations?
This has not been a good year to run a quant hedge fund.
One after another, these "market neutral" hedge funds are getting taken apart, with most of the carnage coming this summer after the subprim...
Jim Cramer Goes Bananas on CNBC
Jim Cramer is passionate about the market. He's passionate about the economy. And now he is extra passionate about the housing market in the USA, which is currently in the process of falling apart.
...
Insider Trading Is Running Rampant on Wall Street
TXU. Dow Jones. Acxiom. Aquantive. HCA. First Data.
What do these companies have in common?
All of these companies were acquired by other companies, and in every single case, the stocks experience...
SEC To End the Short Sale Tick Test Rule
Short-sellers everywhere are rejoicing tonight.
The SEC has announced that effective July 6th, 2007, traders will be able to short any security on an up, down or zero tick. Previo...
Terry Semel Out; What Now for Yahoo?
A few weeks ago, I was speaking with a friend about Yahoo! This is a company with so much potential, but they just seem like a rudderless ship, floating nowhere as Google continues to increase thei...
The US Government Deals Yet Another Blow to the Online Gambling Industry; Neteller Blows Up
Well, Neteller didn't actually blow up. But if you were using your Neteller account to fund your online poker account and you are living in the US, then you are now out of luck and MUST find anothe...
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