Author Archives: Felix

Stock Traders and the Attention-Driven Economy

Posted on May 15, 2007 by Felix

In the era of YouTube, there’s more clamor for peoples’ attention than ever before. And in the era of the Great Moderation, stocks just aren’t as exciting as they used to be. So people move on to the next thing, especially since the big money is being made in prop trading and private equity and lots of other places which are utterly off-limits to individual investors.
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Questions for Economic Advisers

Posted on May 15, 2007 by Felix

Harvard’s Greg Mankiw, an economic adviser to Mitt
Romney, notes
on his blog that Berkeley’s Christina Romer and David
Romer are economic advisers to Barack Obama; Stanford’s
Michael Boskin is advising Rudy Giuliani;
and Boston University’s Larry Kotlikoff is advising Mike
Gravel.
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The Bloomberg-Livingstone love-in

Posted on May 15, 2007 by Felix

There was quite a love-in this afternoon between "Red" Ken
Livingstone, one of England’s most popular left-wingers, and billionaire
Mike Bloomberg
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Thomson-Reuters vs NewsCorp-Dow Jones

Posted on May 15, 2007 by Felix

Murdoch’s overall approach to his media properties is undoubtedly much more interventionist than the Bancrofts would ever be, which makes his proposed acquisition much more problematic than the relatively easy tie-up between Thomson and Reuters.
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How Cities Can Help Save the Planet

Posted on May 15, 2007 by Felix

This morning’s proceedings at the New
York Climate Summit were a good way to start the day: full of hope and optimism.
Rather than getting frustrated at the seeming inability of the world’s national
governments to do anything about climate change, the assembled mayors and other
municipal officials seemed convinced that, collectively, they were willing and
able to take on a large part of the challenge themselves.
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Wolfowitz Damned by Bank Board

Posted on May 15, 2007 by Felix

There seems no way now that this whole thing isn’t going to become very ugly. The worst possible outcome, really, for the World Bank – unless it somehow results in a new president from a developing nation.
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One Question for Rupert Murdoch

Posted on May 14, 2007 by Felix

Do Fox News, or the New York Post, or the Sun, have editorial independence
or integrity?
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Posted in Media, publishing | 1 Comment

New York Property Datapoints of the Day

Posted on May 14, 2007 by Felix

The average New York City apartment has gone
up 23% in the past year
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The Epicurean Dealmaker

Posted on May 14, 2007 by Felix

A great new blog.
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Can Mortgage-Backed Bonds be Restructured?

Posted on May 14, 2007 by Felix

Amidst all the noise and hype surrounding the subprime mortgage market, there’s
one thing which hasn’t got a lot of press. (USA
Today, astonishingly, seems to be ahead of the curve here.) If loans have
been pooled, tranched, retranched, and sold to hundreds of investors and CDOs
and the like, what happens when the loans goes bad? How much leeway do loan
servicers have to modify loans which are owned by a disparate set of bondholders?
And what kind of mechanism exists for bondholders or ratings agencies to approve
servicers helping out homeowners in distress?
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Murdoch Takes Another Shot at Wooing Bancrofts

Posted on May 14, 2007 by Felix

Dow Jones stock was trading below $52 today before news of Murdoch’s letter came out. Maybe what Murdoch really needs is a credible threat of withdrawing his offer. The problem, of course, is that nobody would believe it.
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Wolfowitz 0-1 Bloggers

Posted on May 14, 2007 by Felix

Wolfowitz gossip hits the blogs, and even the Washington Post.
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Market Inefficiencies, CDO Edition

Posted on May 14, 2007 by Felix

Investment banks are making a fortune when they trade exotic instruments such as CDO equity tranches. And that the buy-side can and should be a lot more aggressive and a lot less trusting when it gets bids which seem far too low.
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Another Art Fund is Founded: How Long Until it Founders?

Posted on May 14, 2007 by Felix

Chris Carlson has decided he’s had enough of prop trading,
and so he’s moving into the art world instead, setting up an art
hedge fund. Apparently it’s already "raised" £10 million,
although I suspect that a very large chunk of that belongs to one C. Carlson.
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What is Ben Stein Smoking?

Posted on May 14, 2007 by Felix

Poor Brad DeLong has been beating
himself up by reading Ben Stein again. I do have sympathy
with him: I was happily reading the newspaper myself yesterday, sipping on an
excellent cappuccino from Tarallucci
e Vino, when the Stein
column loomed up in front of me like some kind of car crash I couldn’t turn
away from.
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The World Bank and Corruption

Posted on May 14, 2007 by Felix

A lot of people seem to think that although Paul Wolfowitz must go, it’s a
pity that the Bank’s anti-corruption initiative might be weakened at the same
time. I think the opposite is true: that without Wolfowitz’s moralizing about
corruption, the Bank can actually be more effective on the issue.
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Unions Cheer Private Equity Takeover of Chrysler

Posted on May 14, 2007 by Felix

What’s with this new-found love affair between the auto unions and private
equity? The main auto unions in the US, Germany and Canada all can’t seem to
say enough good things about the $7.4 billion deal wherein Cerberus
is buying Chrysler.
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Paulson hangs Wolfowitz out to dry

Posted on May 12, 2007 by Felix

Hank Paulson isn’t
going to summit with G8 bigwigs. Kimmitt will go, and probably not say much.
But – and this is important – Paul Wolfowitz will
turn up. What can it all signify? I think Paulson may look at his no-show as
tantamount to hanging Wolfowitz out to dry.
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Investment Professionals Stumped by “Portable Alpha”

Posted on May 11, 2007 by Felix

A survey of
investment professionals at the 2006 National Strategic Investment Dialogue
came up with some depressing results: only 60% of them could define what "leverage"
is, and less than half could define "portable alpha".
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Mystery Russian Billions Update

Posted on May 11, 2007 by Felix

It’s obviously Mysterious Russian Billions day today. Not only do we have the
shady Oleg Deripaska paying $1.54
billion for a 15% stake in Magna, a Canadian auto supplier, but we also
have the even shadier Prana, whatever or whoever that might
be, paying $3.9
billion for a shabby 22-story building in Moscow and a few other assets
of dubious value.
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When the Carbon Tax and Cap-and-Trade Kiss and Make Up

Posted on May 11, 2007 by Felix

Progress against a challenge as vast as global warming will require us to use all the tools available to us: direct regulation (tougher fuel economy standards for cars, requirements on utilities to generate more of their electricity from renewable sources); economic carrots and sticks (a carbon tax that helps fund tax breaks for investment in greater energy efficiency and alternative energy sources); a cap-and-trade system that sets a hard limit on emissions; federal procurement that nurtures clean new technologies; and steps beyond all of these that we can’t yet imagine.
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Event Risk and Fat Tails in Hedge Funds

Posted on May 11, 2007 by Felix

All
About Alpha has made noble attempt to paint hedge funds as not particularly
risky, and "fat tails" as not particularly worrisome. But it misses
the main point, I think.
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Wolfowitz: Deals No Longer On The Table

Posted on May 11, 2007 by Felix

The Europeans are incredibly reluctant to force a board vote on Wolfowitz. They don’t want to anagonize their allies, the Americans, and they don’t want to damage the Bank more than it has been damaged already. But the intransigence being shown by both Wolfowitz and the Bush administration is forcing their hand.
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New York Traffic Pricing, Not Very Bright Ideas Department

Posted on May 11, 2007 by Felix

Congestion charges should be expensive.
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The Payday Loan Debate

Posted on May 11, 2007 by Felix

There’s a short
but sweet debate over at Business Week today between two prominent econobloggers,
Nouriel Roubini and Tyler Cowen. The question
is whether the US government should place greater restrictions on car sellers,
pay-day lenders, and tax preparers who offer the working poor cash or credit
with high fees and interest rates. Roubini says yes, it should. Cowen says no,
it shouldn’t. Roubini is right.
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