Author Archives: Felix

There was much press a couple of days ago when Trader Monthly announced that the top five earners on its top traders listing all brought home more than $1 billion last year. (Of course, “brought home” is a really stupid … Continue reading →

Last year, Vonage founder Jeffrey Citron wanted to take his company public. The problem was, he’d been indicted for securites fraud back in 2003, in a case surrounding his previous company, Datek Securities. So he needed someone else to be … Continue reading →

If you read my entry from last night, you’ll know I went to a discussion on climate change at Columbia yesterday, which was kicked off with a presentation from the man himself, Sir Nicholas Stern of the Stern Review on … Continue reading →

Let me stick my neck out on the future direction of housing prices in the US. I think that we’re in the middle of a mildly chaotic move from a pretty flat price distribution to one which looks much more … Continue reading →

There are few stories as popular as the ones ogling the multimillion-dollar paychecks of the business and finance honchos who eat at swanky New York eateries such as Balthazar and Telepan. I wonder what those masters of the universe would … Continue reading →

The lead headline on CNNMoney.com right now is “Home prices headed for historic drop”: we’re told this will be “the first annual decline in nearly 40 years of tracking.” The headline comes in response to news from the National Association … Continue reading →

Ooh, this is juicy! The FT’s Alphaville blog has come out and declared that one of Bloomberg’s biggest stories today is a hoax. The story, headlined “Gold Fields May Receive Bid From Pastorini-Led Group,” is very long, very detailed, and … Continue reading →

Bloomberg’s Doron Levin gets off a nice one-liner at Kirk Kerkorian today, and his bid for Chrysler — which, as you’ll recall, is contingent on the United Auto Workers taking on a huge chunk of Chrysler’s liabilities and risk. The … Continue reading →

To read all the press about the Citigroup layoff plan of late, it seems there are two main planks: first, fire about 17,000 people. Then take another 10,000 jobs or so, and move them out of New York to cheaper … Continue reading →

David Leonhardt’s Economix column has finally been promoted from the front of the Business section to the main front page! Congratulations to him. And the subject matter is dear to my own heart: rent vs buy calculations. In fact, by … Continue reading →

Add Michael Bloomberg to the billion-dollar-a-year club. DealBook reports that Fortune’s Carol Loomis has had an inside look at the books, and found 2006 profits of $1.5 billion on revenues of $4.7 billion. Given that Bloomberg personally owns more than … Continue reading →

One reason why energy traders can make $2 billion in a year is that energy prices are crazy, crazy things — they often behave more like hotel rooms than like normal assets like stocks or bonds or 2-bedroom apartments. Back … Continue reading →