Author Archives: Felix

Chart of the Day: Fed Funds

Who says that the Fed hasn’t cut the Fed funds rate between meetings?
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Posted in charts, fiscal and monetary policy | Comments Off on Chart of the Day: Fed Funds

Goldman’s Hedge-Fund Sweetener Revealed

We bloggers like to speculate, and on Monday I hazarded
a guess
that the don’t-call-it-a-rescue injection of liquidity into Goldman
Sachs’s Global Equity Opportunities hedge fund would reward investors with lower
fees than would normally be available to them.
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Posted in hedge funds | Comments Off on Goldman’s Hedge-Fund Sweetener Revealed

Stocks: The Long View

David Leonhardt looks
at p/e ratios
today – but not the p/e ratios we know and love, where
the denominator is this year’s (or last year’s, or next year’s) earnings.
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They’re Both Green, As Well

The new issue of Portfolio
is now online!
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Posted in development | Comments Off on They’re Both Green, As Well

When Cheap Bonds Look Attractive

Henny Sender gets a
little bit ahead of herself
in the WSJ today, although she does pick up
on something important: that as the price of debt falls, it’s starting to become
more attractive, on a relative-value basis, than equity.
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Posted in bonds and loans | Comments Off on When Cheap Bonds Look Attractive

Keeping Dow Movements in Perspective

Kudos to the NYT and WSJ this morning, in the wake of another 200-point drop in the Dow yesterday.
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The $5,000 iPhone Bill

The bill is $5,086.66. For one month’s phone usage.
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Posted in technology | Comments Off on The $5,000 iPhone Bill

Private Equity: The Bankruptcies Begin

Just how smart is Stephen Feinberg, the principal of Cerberus
Capital? Portfolio’s Daniel Roth tells
us
:
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How Tight Are Mortgage Underwriting Standards, Really?

The WSJ’s Jonathan Karp wants to tell us "How
the Mortgage Bar Keeps Moving Higher
", in the words of his headline.
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Posted in housing | Comments Off on How Tight Are Mortgage Underwriting Standards, Really?

Tuesday Links Yearn for Liquidity

Sometimes a blogger finds himself with a vast number of tabs open in his web browser, some of which are getting decidedly stale.
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Posted in remainders | Comments Off on Tuesday Links Yearn for Liquidity

Cramer’s Meltdown Spills Into Print

There’s a school of thought that Jim Cramer just plays a screaming
nutcase on
TV
, that in reality he’s actually quite smart and knows his onions.
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Posted in housing, Media | Comments Off on Cramer’s Meltdown Spills Into Print

One Question for David Viniar

What, exactly, was it that saw a 25 standard deviation move?
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Posted in banking, hedge funds | Comments Off on One Question for David Viniar

New York City Gets Federal Congestion Pricing Funds

Great news today: despite the city missing the application deadline, the federal
government has awarded
New York City $354 million
for its congestion pricing plan.
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Posted in cities | Comments Off on New York City Gets Federal Congestion Pricing Funds

Dissecting Hedge Funds

Blessed with the genius of hindsight, Veryan Allen has decreed
that "the recent stat arb problems were almost inevitable".
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Revisiting Green Dimes

Last month I wrote about junk-mail reduction company Green
Dimes
, calling
it
a VC-backed for-profit philanthropy. I met with the CEO, Pankaj
Shah
, on Saturday, and he was hesitant to go that far: his company
was "socially responsible," he said, but he wouldn’t necessarily call
it a philanthropy.
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Posted in climate change | Comments Off on Revisiting Green Dimes

The Travails of Johnson & Johnson

If there was one corner of the debt market immune from present credit woes, one would imagine it to be the market in unsecured, “natural” AAA-rated securities.
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Posted in bonds and loans | 2 Comments

Why a Goldman Sachs Hedge Fund Investment Might Look Attractive

Commenter tinbox has an
interesting take
on the news that Goldman Sachs is injecting liquidity into
its own hedge funds:
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Posted in hedge funds | Comments Off on Why a Goldman Sachs Hedge Fund Investment Might Look Attractive

Chart of the Day: West African Trucking Obstacles

Charles Kenny points me to a study
of the obstacles to trucking on West African roads, which includes this wonderful
chart.
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Counterparty Risk in the CDS Market

Yves Smith is worried
about counterparty risk
in the credit default swap (CDS) market.
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Posted in derivatives | Comments Off on Counterparty Risk in the CDS Market

Floating Art for Rich Rubes

Are you worth a few million bucks? Do you live near the ocean in a large and
ostentatious house with a lot of walls? Do you not know much about art but you
know what you like? Then welcome aboard the Grande Luxe!
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Posted in art | Comments Off on Floating Art for Rich Rubes

Mortgages go Messianic

It seems that Patrick Flood, the former CEO of
Christian mortgage lender HomeBanc, has a fully fledged Messianic
Complex
.
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Posted in housing | Comments Off on Mortgages go Messianic

Conflicts of Interest at the Ratings Agencies

The problems come when a ratings agency, after having worked closely with an issuer for a long time, gets lazy about asking tough questions.
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Posted in bonds and loans | Comments Off on Conflicts of Interest at the Ratings Agencies

AQR Also Hopes To Put More Money Into Quant Funds

Bess Levin of Dealbreaker has
the letter
that AQR principal Cliff Asness sent to investors worried about losses in his
quant-based hedge funds.
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Mark-to-Market vs Mark-to-Model in the Insurance Industry

When insurance companies have been in their business for decades or longer, while the open market in such things is very young, does it really make sense for insurance companies to use market valuations rather than their in-house models?
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Posted in insurance | Comments Off on Mark-to-Market vs Mark-to-Model in the Insurance Industry

Nice Work If You Can Get It

Half a mil a year to answer phone calls.
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Posted in private equity | Comments Off on Nice Work If You Can Get It