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Author Archives: Felix
Litigation Datapoint of the Day
In the case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce Princeton and the Robertsons, the judge, Neil Shuster, has so far ruled only that Princeton should return the sum total of $62,500. So far, reports the WSJ’s John Hechinger, "the Robertsons have spent … Continue reading
Posted in law
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Regulatory Bureaucracy Datapoint of the Day
Yet another example of a government agency refusing to admit defeat: the FTC still hasn’t given up trying to block the Whole Foods acquisition of Wild Oats, even now the deal is done! Interestingly, the chairman of the FTC thinks … Continue reading
Posted in M&A
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Counterfeiting: Much Less Prevalent Than You Think
The OECD counterfeiting report is now public, and only 18 months or so behind schedule! As you might recall, there was some pushback from OECD member states when they realized the report would peg global counterfeiting activity at only $200 … Continue reading
Posted in intellectual property
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Merrill’s Board Turns on O’Neal
Who told the NYT’s Jenny Anderson about Stan O’Neal’s abortive attempt to float a merger with Wachovia? She sources her scoop to "people close to the beleaguered Wall Street firm," which is not very helpful, but it seems clear that … Continue reading
Posted in banking, defenestrations
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Extra Credit, Friday Edition
Fed Plans to Increase Transparency, from Greg Ip. Mark Thoma provides background. 6th Grade Econ Question of the Day: Yes, they try to teach economics to 6th-graders. And yes, they do a very bad job of it. The economics of … Continue reading
Posted in remainders
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The Globalization of Goldman Sachs
The New York Post tells us today that 57% of Goldman Sachs’s 299 new managing directors work outside the US. But how does that compare to the present cohort? I asked Goldman if they could give me the goegraphical breakdown … Continue reading
Posted in banking
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Buiter Blogging at FT.com (If You Can Find Him)
Last week, Lance Knobel noted that you can’t find the FT’s blogs at blogs.ft.com: that’s the home of just one blog, Martin Wolf’s economists’ forum. Instead, the official FT blogs page is www.ft.com/comment/blogs, which points to eight different blogs including … Continue reading
Posted in Media
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Solly, 1987: Hero or Villain?
Traders never pay much attention to strategists, and are generally much the richer for it.
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Posted in banking
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Lily Tomlin, Market Strategist
Tim Price sums up the state of contemporary investment banking in two quotes: “I’ve had all the fun I can stand in investment banking” – Ken Lewis, (current) chief executive, Bank of America. “Things are going to get a lot … Continue reading
Posted in banking
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The Carried-Interest Debate Returns
The WSJ’s Sarah Lueck seems to say today that the idea of taxing carried interest – forcing private-equity honchos and hedge-fund managers to pay income tax on their income – is back. Two new taxes targeted at hedge-fund managers are … Continue reading
Posted in fiscal and monetary policy
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The Google PageRank Massacre
Google is now a major – arguably the major – force driving news sites. As a result, sites’ PageRank is utterly crucial for any business model. Right now, Google seems to be slashing the PageRank of a lot of blogs, … Continue reading
Posted in Media, technology
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Microsoft: Still No Facebook Insider
What is Microsoft meant to do with its 1.6% stake in Facebook? While it’s easy to get excited about the implied $15 billion valuation for the the social-networking company and start talking about Mark Zuckerberg’s multi-billionaire status, the fact is … Continue reading
Posted in technology
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Calculating Housing Losses
The NYT today fronts a big state-of-the-meltdown story, keyed off Merrill Lynch’s losses yesterday. It doesn’t quite come out and say that we’re going to have a recession (David Wessel does that, in the WSJ), but it doesn’t shy from … Continue reading
Posted in housing
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Extra Credit, Thursday Edition
Richard Prince is "tacky" and "trashy". What, you think that’s a bad thing? How to Cool the Globe: Sprinkle tiny particles in the upper atmosphere! We should turn the clocks forward, not back: John Kay likes his daylight. A Storied … Continue reading
Posted in remainders
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How Egregious was Countrywide’s Option ARM Lending?
The WSJ asked UBS to prepare an analysis of bonds backed by Countrywide option ARMs, and has a big story about the results today. It’s not entirely clear what information was available to UBS that wasn’t available to the WSJ, … Continue reading
Posted in housing
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The Electability of Al Gore
According to the most recent trades on InTrade, the chance of Al Gore running for president is 11%, the chance of his receiving the Democratic nomination is 6.4%, and the chance of his winning the presidency is 5.7%. Which means … Continue reading
Posted in Politics, prediction markets
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The Yuan that I Want
Jim Rogers has been bullish on China for years, and indeed now has a new book out entitled "A Bull in China: Investing Profitably in the World’s Greatest Market". So it’s hardly surprising that he sees the country’s currency rising. … Continue reading
Posted in foreign exchange
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Subprime Datapoint of the Day
Some subprime loans are selling for 3-6 cents on the dollar.
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Posted in housing
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China Approves of Cap-and-Trade
The strongest argument against a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions (or its cousin, the carbon tax) is that emissions wouldn’t actually fall; they’d just be exported to China. To some extent that’s already happening, but the trend of heavy industry … Continue reading
Posted in climate change
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The End of the Merrill Myth
There is absolutely no silver lining to the $8.4 billion in writedowns that Merrill Lynch announced today. Merrill is being hit from all sides: sell-side analysts, on the conference call; journalists; ratings agencies; and, of course, the stock market. Dana … Continue reading
When US Brands go Global
The Breaking Views column in today’s WSJ comes up with a startling figure: Tommy Hilfiger (the brand, not the person) is now worth $2.5 billion – even as the value of its US franchise continues to steadily decline. UK private-equity … Continue reading
Posted in fashion, private equity
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Econoblogs: The RSS Ranking
Chris Masse emails with a good point, apropos Tyler Cowen’s blogonomics talk: that if you’re going to measure blog popularity, there are many ways of doing so. Aaron Schiff uses Technorati rankings; Brian Gongol uses public traffic logs; Alexa uses … Continue reading
Posted in blogonomics
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Extra Credit, Wednesday Edition
Brazil’s Bovespa stock exchange could raise $3.67 billion in its IPO, on a valuation of as much as $9 billion. It costs $9.99 per minute to talk to a human at mortgage servicer HFC. The BIS’s Nout Wellink makes a … Continue reading
Posted in remainders
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Blogonomics 301 With Tyler Cowen
Tyler Cowen may or may not be the greatest economist in the world, but he’s certainly the best economist in the world to be talking on the subject of the economics of blogs in general, and of academic – and … Continue reading
Posted in blogonomics
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The Need for Conflict in Business Journalism
Jack Flack reveals an open secret in the journalism community: Business journalism sells best when it apes sports journalism, particularly in framing clear conflicts that elevate the mundane into something more compelling. That’s particularly true of business television. CNBC struggled … Continue reading
Posted in Media
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