Wednesday, March 31, 2010
PREPARATION H?
“We are recommending a new top trade,” Dominic Wilson, an economist at Goldman Sachs in New York, wrote in a report e- mailed yesterday. “We sense that Chinese equities have fallen off investors’ radars somewhat, positioning is light, and sentiment is, at best, skeptical, making us all the more keen to get involved.”
WB7: Need some help evaluating this call? Search China+Bubble on Google. You will get 40,900,000 page links on the subject.
INHERIT THE BULL
HUMPTY BANKER
It might have been written a hundred times, easily, on that enormous face. Humpty Banker was sitting with his legs crossed, like a Turkish Derivatives Trader, on the top of a high wall — such a narrow one that Alice quite wondered how he could keep his balance — and, as his eyes were steadily fixed in the direction of a pile of greenbacks, and he didn't take the least notice of her, she thought he must be a stuffed figure after all.
`And how eggactly like a rotten 2Big2Fail systemic egg he is!' she said aloud, standing with her hands ready to catch him, for she was every moment expecting him to fail.
`It's VERY provoking,' Humpty Banker said after a long silence, looking away from Alice as he spoke, `to be called 2Big2Fail — VERY!'
`I said you LOOKED like a rotten 2Big2Fail egg, Sir,' Alice gently explained. `And some eggs are very rotten, you know, she added, hoping to turn her remark into a sort of a compliment.
`Some people,' said Humpty Banker, looking away from her as usual, `have no more common sense than a quant!'
Alice didn't know what to say to this: it wasn't at all like conversation, she thought, as he never said anything to HER; in fact, his last remark was evidently addressed to a United States Senator standing on the back of the wall — so she stood and softly repeated to herself:
'Humpty Banker sat on a wall.
Humpty Banker was just too great to fail.
All the Fed's Bankers including the Chairman
Were sure to let Humpty do it again.'
[Adapted from Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll)
On 13 Bankers
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
DOWNTOWN MANHATTAN ANYONE?
BLOOMBERG--Downtown Manhattan, where demand for office space began to surge three years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, is about to lose its spot as the best- performing U.S. market.
Vacancies may exceed 14 percent of the area’s 87 million square feet by late 2011, empty space that’s equivalent to four Empire State Buildings and the highest rate since 1997, according to property broker Cushman & Wakefield Inc. That doesn’t include the 4.4 million square feet of offices in two towers now under construction at the World Trade Center site. Those are scheduled for completion in 2013.
WB7: Filling that space will be doubly challenging since this pace of computer automation in the securities trading industry is roughly following Moore's Law and the trend in investment banking is heavily skewed towards growth in the emerging markets, particularly Asia. Wonder which empty towers will fill faster Shanghai or lower Manhattan?
TOYOTA AND NASA
WSJ--The Obama administration has asked the National Academy of Sciences to undertake a broad study of the use of computer technology in cars, responding to concerns prompted by the Toyota Motor Corp. safety recalls.
The academy, which acts as an adviser to the government, will look at all car manufacturers during the 15-month study. The group will examine the potential for computer glitches and interference from electromagnetic signals to cause a vehicle to accelerate beyond the driver's control, among other issues, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said.
The administration has also arranged for scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to study the Toyota recalls specifically, including whether electromagnetic signals, and not faulty gas pedals or floor mats, may have caused sudden acceleration of Toyota vehicles.
WB7: Just remember which blog had an aeronautical engineer opine on Toyota's problems first...
Link: here and here.
The academy, which acts as an adviser to the government, will look at all car manufacturers during the 15-month study. The group will examine the potential for computer glitches and interference from electromagnetic signals to cause a vehicle to accelerate beyond the driver's control, among other issues, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said.
The administration has also arranged for scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to study the Toyota recalls specifically, including whether electromagnetic signals, and not faulty gas pedals or floor mats, may have caused sudden acceleration of Toyota vehicles.
WB7: Just remember which blog had an aeronautical engineer opine on Toyota's problems first...
Link: here and here.
Monday, March 29, 2010
REPUTATIONAL DISCOUNT
WASHINGTON POST--The Treasury Department announced Monday that it had selected Morgan Stanley to handle the sale of its massive stake in Citigroup, spurning an offer from Goldman Sachs, which was willing to do the job at virtually no cost to the federal government.
Some government officials had concerns about giving such a prominent deal to Goldman Sachs because the firm has come under fire from lawmakers and the news media for its role in the financial crisis, according to a government source. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, and Goldman Sachs declined to comment.
Some government officials had concerns about giving such a prominent deal to Goldman Sachs because the firm has come under fire from lawmakers and the news media for its role in the financial crisis, according to a government source. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, and Goldman Sachs declined to comment.
More here: Fox news.
CALIFORNIA SWAPS
BLOOMBERG--California’s treasurer asked six investment banks that underwrite the state’s bonds to explain why they also market credit-default swaps on them, saying such contracts may cost taxpayers by exaggerating credit risk.
Treasurer Bill Lockyer asked JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays Plc, Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley to detail the extent to which they market the insurance contracts and to explain how trading in them affects the interest cost on the state’s general-obligation bonds, according to letters he released today.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
DOING BUSINESS IN CHINA SYNDROME
Read more here.
TODAY'S QUOTE
"I believe the current speed of communication combined with the proliferation of electronically correlated markets have created a unrealized/unproven medium for gov/banks to simulate a healthy market via trading trickery regardless of where true market fundamentals lie."
Sell Put
Go to the Baseball link on the right.
Sell Put
Go to the Baseball link on the right.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
OUT OF MY BRAIN IN L'ANIMA
OUT OF MY BRAIN IN L'ANIMA
(The Who, The 5:15)
WilliamBanzai7
Why should they care?
Why should they care?
Shades of City greed
Inexplicably knowing
The market coppers are sniffing
Eau-de-s-leuthing
The trades are seductive
Secretive exiting
Pretty FSA boys digging
Dodgy bankstas dogging and boning.
Magically score
On a quiet Square Mile street corner
Front running defenestration
In our minds and our toes
Quietly surreptitious orders
M-m-my generation
Uppers and downers
Either way you trade the quid flows.
Insider outsider
Leave us alone.
Insider outsider
This is our home.
Insider outsider
Where have I been?
Out of my brain in L'Anima
Out of my brain in L'Anima.
On a banksta raft on the Thames
Slowly sinking.
On the back of hedge fund glory
Holy $hitting.
Distressfully sorry
Market apple scrumping.
Born to the trading screen war
Bonus day punching.
Saville row drag
In an Old Bailey court room
Greatly outrageous
In my John Lobb shoes
Tightly undone
They know what they're showing
Sadly ecstatic
That this City hero is yesterday's news.
Insider outsider
Leave us alone.
Insider outsider
This is our home.
Insider outsider
Where have I been?
Out of my brain in L'Anima
Out of my brain in L'Anima.
Why should they care?
Why should they care?
L'Anima
The Great City Crackdown
How To Talk To Power
Google, China, restraint of trade, the future of cloud computing, knocking down power grids: read about it all here.
Friday, March 26, 2010
ENDLESS DUMB
Thursday, March 25, 2010
THUNDERBAIL
TRIBECA COYOTE UGLIES
BANZAI7 NEWS--The NYPD corralled one of the wily coyotes that have been running wild across lower Manhattan.
Early reports are that police tranquilized the coyote Thursday morning near West Street in TriBeCa.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
GOP-ZILLA vs HEALTH KONG
BANZAI7 NEWS--Republicans on Tuesday rolled out all of the obstructionist tactics they promised as the Senate kicked off its final health care showdown, beginning 20 hours of debate on the reconciliation bill meant to amend the comprehensive legislation signed into law on Tuesday. GOP tactics to stall the measure included introducing headline-grabbing amendments to the bill (like a proposal to institutionalisze stupidity and another proposal to outlaw IQ scores above 60).
TODAY'S QUOTE
''This is exactly the kind of shenanigans that went on at Enron.''--Sam Buell, a former Enron Prosecutor
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
NEXT ACT--FINANCIAL REFORM
BANZAI7 NEWS---Democrats advanced legislation to rewrite financial rules without Republican support as part of a broader strategy by the Obama administration to pressure the GOP to vote on the regulatory overhaul.
The 13-10 vote in the Senate Banking Committee comes as Republicans and business groups rethink their strategy about how to shape or derail the financial bill, which they argue would reduce credit and potentially cost U.S. jobs.
WB7: Why listen to the Bankstas who, as a result of the subprime Katrina of their own design and implementation (a) aren't lending and (b) destroyed millions of American jobs?
The 13-10 vote in the Senate Banking Committee comes as Republicans and business groups rethink their strategy about how to shape or derail the financial bill, which they argue would reduce credit and potentially cost U.S. jobs.
WB7: Why listen to the Bankstas who, as a result of the subprime Katrina of their own design and implementation (a) aren't lending and (b) destroyed millions of American jobs?
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