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Fannie Mae’s Weird Rally

Posted on May 6, 2008 by Felix

I’ve seen a lot of financial institutions see their stock soar on the day they release atrocious quarterly results, and in fact I had them in mind this morning when I kicked off a blog entry with the words "Fannie … Continue reading →

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Fannie Mae’s Earnings: Awful

Posted on May 6, 2008 by Felix

Fannie Mae’s stock is certain to tank today, and not necessarily for the obvious reason. Yes, its quarterly loss of $2.5 billion was much larger than expected. Yes, total shareholder equity evaporated at an even larger pace: it was was … Continue reading →

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Can Cities Transcend National Politics?

Posted on May 5, 2008 by Felix

On Thursday, I posted a blog entry about why local government was unrepresentative, uncreative, and dominated by national parties whose national policies are largely irrelevant on a local level. The same day (I was in la-la land and oblivious of … Continue reading →

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Why Local Government is Unrepresentative and Uncreative

Posted on May 1, 2008 by Felix

Many thanks to Harvard’s David Schleicher for letting me know about his wonderful new paper, "Why Is There No Partisan Competition in City Council Elections?". This isn’t (only) dry political science, it can also be read as a call for … Continue reading →

Posted in cities, Politics | 1 Comment

Why Some Countries Find it So Hard to Get Rich

Posted on April 30, 2008 by Felix

Nobel laureates are always a big draw at the Milken Conference, so it wasn’t much of a surprise that the room was full when Michael Spence moderated a panel on the relationship between growth and development featuring Myron Scholes. It … Continue reading →

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The Negative Correlation Between Wine Price and Quality

Posted on April 26, 2008 by Felix

Back in November I held a Pinot contest which concluded that there was really no correlation between price and quality – or if there was, it was negative. Of course, there was nothing really scientific about a drunken night in … Continue reading →

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Should CFOs be Economic Pundits?

Posted on April 24, 2008 by Felix

Kevin Kelleher, like me, listened to the Apple conference call yesterday. Both of us picked up on this exchange: Mike Abramsky – RBC Capital Markets And then final question, you haven’t said anything in your call about economic headwinds. It’s … Continue reading →

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How Economic Illiteracy Could Doom Gordon Brown

Posted on April 23, 2008 by Felix

Gordon Brown is arguably the most economically literate head of state in the world. Which is maybe why he felt comfortable tinkering with the UK’s income-tax system. But as John Kay says, Tax is always more complicated than you think … Continue reading →

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Walking Away Without a Foreclosure

Posted on April 4, 2008 by Felix

Remember youwalkaway.com? The idea there is that you stop making your mortgage payments but you can live in your house for 8 months or more before finally being evicted. Well now Barry Ritholtz has found a couple of articles, in … Continue reading →

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Sovereign Wealth Funds: Still Big

Posted on April 3, 2008 by Felix

Quite impressive, really, the effect that an unpublished research paper by an unknown analyst can have. After the WSJ’s Bob Davis got his hands on a leaked paper about sovereign wealth funds from the Milken Institute’s Christopher Balding, I expressed … Continue reading →

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Not Much Hope Now

Posted on April 2, 2008 by Felix

The NYT checks in to see how the much-vaunted Hope Now coalition of mortgage lenders is doing, and you probably won’t be surprised at the results: Kenneth Goodman, a homeowner in Fontana, Calif,. said he did not have a good … Continue reading →

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How to Make Money from Losing Money, UBS Edition

Posted on April 1, 2008 by Felix

UBS is the latest bank to see its share price rise in the wake of an absolutely enormous write-down. The $19 billion write-down announced today almost doubles the write-downs taken since the third quarter of 2007, and, in a move … Continue reading →

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Liveblogging the Bear Stearns Conference Call

Posted on March 14, 2008 by Felix

12:56: It’s over. They put on a brave face, and clearly tried to indicate that they’re profitable, they have high-quality collateral, and they’re looking out for shareholders. It didn’t seem to help the share price, though. 12:55: "This is a … Continue reading →

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Vikram Pandit Forced to Bail Out His Own Unit

Posted on March 11, 2008 by Felix

How great of an executive is Citigroup’s Vikram Pandit? Well, he’s good at making a lot of money: he sold his young hedge-fund shop, Old Lane Partners, to Citi for something north of $600 million. Old Lane was then incorporated … Continue reading →

Posted in banking | 1 Comment

How Lahde Capital Makes Money

Posted on March 6, 2008 by Felix

Sam Jones has Lahde Capital’s month-by-month performance results for 2007. The flagship real-estate fund, which has already been wound up, returned 870% over the course of the year, which implies that it went up in value by more than 77% … Continue reading →

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Auction-Rate Securities, RIP?

Posted on March 4, 2008 by Felix

Do auction-rate securities have a future? I’m not sure myself, so I put a couple of questions to Floyd Newton, a partner in King & Spalding’s finance practice. Floyd has a long history in the auction-rate market, and seems to … Continue reading →

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When Numbers are Hard to Read

Posted on February 27, 2008 by Felix

One of the more annoying quirks of New Yorker house style is this kind of thing: A few weeks ago, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released its figures for 2007. They showed that Americans had collectively amassed ten trillion one … Continue reading →

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When Trusted Advisors Have Their Clients Over a Barrel

Posted on February 27, 2008 by Felix

When times are good, investment bankers love to shower their clients with relationship guff. "We’re not just selling products," they say, "we’re building a relationship". They talk a lot about being a "trusted advisor," and the older ones might even … Continue reading →

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Why All Consumer Magazines Should be Free Online

Posted on February 22, 2008 by Felix

The Christopher Leinberger article in the Atlantic which I plugged at the beginning of last week is finally online. I moaned about such delays this morning, and got an email asking why exactly they’re so bad. I replied that Choire … Continue reading →

Posted in Media | 1 Comment

Middle-Class Kids do Very Well at Bad Schools

Posted on February 21, 2008 by Felix

Please let there be more research along these lines. Do kids who go to "good schools" (either schools in expensive school districts or private schools) do better, academically, than kids who go to underperforming schools in the inner city? Are … Continue reading →

Posted in education | 7 Comments

Pimco: Even Bigger Than You Thought

Posted on February 20, 2008 by Felix

Are you in the mood for 4,500 words on how Pimco is alleged to have illegally squeezed the Treasury market in 2005? Then run along to Bloomberg forthwith. The details of the lawsuit bore me, with the exception of the … Continue reading →

Posted in bonds and loans | 2 Comments

The Idiocy of Reporting Auction Hammer Prices

Posted on February 15, 2008 by Felix

First the NYT, now Bloomberg – what is going on with art auction reporting? Bloomberg’s headline on the (RED) auction today is just plain wrong: "Hirst Cabinet Fetches $6.2 Million for Bono AIDS Sale". The story quotes lots of information … Continue reading →

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Damien Hirst Datapoint of the Day

Posted on February 15, 2008 by Felix

At the (RED) auction last night, eight works by Damien Hirst were sold – if you include the one he gave to Banksy to deface. Between them, they sold for $20,955,000 – call it half of the $42,584,300 that the … Continue reading →

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How and Whether Cisco Helps Sub-Saharan Africa

Posted on February 14, 2008 by Felix

One of the biggest sponsors of the World Economic Forum at Davos this year was Cisco. That’s entirely natural: Cisco is huge and global and powerful, which is all you need in Davos. And Cisco does its part to make … Continue reading →

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Extra Credit, Thursday Edition

Posted on February 14, 2008 by Felix

Handicapping the VP Race Systemic risk rises: correlation hits new highs: Sam Jones is really good on this stuff. Apple Shares Rolling Downhill: "As of Feb. 12, Apple shares had dropped 36% since the beginning of the year. Research In … Continue reading →

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