TABLE OF CONTENTS
June 2007
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FRIDAY JUNE 29
The Trading Week: July 1- 6
In preparation for the new trading week, here is a quick look at the most important economic events that every currency trader should pay attention to.
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FRIDAY JUNE 29
Friday Levity: Milan’s `Hedge Fund Chic’
Brace yourself for the Italian designer’s answer to looking your Marshall’s best while somehow burning through more bucks than the Queen has teas.
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FRIDAY JUNE 29
My Best Trade: The `X’ Factor
How I played a purely technical edge to extract a solid six-figure profit from U.S. Steel, one of the oldest American companies still trading.
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FRIDAY JUNE 29
Subprime Class Warfare?
When one man’s foreclosure is another man’s gusher payday, bailing out homeowners becomes a lot trickier.
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FRIDAY JUNE 29
Trade-Deficit Fears Greatly Exaggerated
Or it looks like it, as impressive returns in U.S. overseas investments soften the blow of the climbing current-account debit.
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FRIDAY JUNE 29
Inflation Conflation: Bernanke Plays It Smart
Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve Chairman, and his cohorts see no need for a rush to judgment on the question of inflation.
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FRIDAY JUNE 29
New Masters Of The Universe?
Forget the power and the glory of the big investment banks on Wall Street and the highfalutin hedge funds. In the Wild West of the over-the-counter markets, all you got is your backroom basement broker – and guess what? He calls all the shots.
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FRIDAY JUNE 29
For Shame: Tale Of The Hong Kong Wongs
The SEC, which has accused a married couple (the Wongs from Hong Kong – great movie title, btw) of improperly buying Dow Jones stock based on inside information, will begin deposing witnesses next week, including a member of the Dow Jones board.
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THURSDAY JUNE 28
10 Grand Well Spent: Scent Of A Trader
Derek Jeter, Michael Jordan, Liz Taylor . . . and you! Enter the world of signature cologne, one heady whiff at a time. Just don’t inhale too deeply.
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THURSDAY JUNE 28
Bear’s Biggest Losers
For once, it’s not the little guys who are getting burned.
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THURSDAY JUNE 28
Fed: It Takes A Steady Hand
Rates likely won’t budge today, according to a survey of economists, as U.S. data have backed Bernanke’s case for leaving well enough alone.
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THURSDAY JUNE 28
Citigroup Absolved Of Insider Trading
That said, the bank benefited greatly from the case-bungling of an Australian regulator after it bet on shares of a company that it was helping another company buy.
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THURSDAY JUNE 28
More ‘Hedge Fund Hotel’ Flak For UBS
Massachusetts regulators step up accusations that the Swiss bank went too far by offering posh digs and lush perks to hedgies in exchange for future business.
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THURSDAY JUNE 28
London’s Caliber Fund Felled By Subprime Rout
Yet another fund has bellied-up in the wake of the subprime fallout, following a revelation earlier this week that a London fund run by Cheyne Capital lost $91 million for similar reasons.
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THURSDAY JUNE 28
JP Morgan’s New ‘Scraper A Little Too Bootylicious?
Apparently, so, according to just about everybody who’s seen plans for the monster bank’s, erm, highly cantilevered skyscraper that will make its home near the Ground Zero footprint. But traders can take pride: As we understand it, the major problem with the design stems from the building’s roomy trading floors.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 27
Who Knew?: The Boy In The Bubble
Whatever happened to that infamous teenage stock tout Jonathan Lebed? We’re glad you asked.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 27
Field Day For China’s Stock Pickers
Zhang Shibao covers 12 Chinese stocks and recommends investors buy all of them – even after they've all more than tripled on average in the course of the past year.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 27
Quite Possibly ICE-D
While the Senate is being urged to tighten rules governing over-the-counter energy trading on IntercontinentalExchange, or ICE, just how a market technically domiciled in London can be brought under U.S. purview – without freaking out every other international exchange – is another matter.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 27
But Can He Undo A Train Wreck?
The white knight dispatched to help Bear Stearns manage its $1.6 billion bailout of a limping hedge fund is none other than Thomas Marano, 45-year-old global head of its own mortgages and asset-backed securities team and, we hear, a real whiz with the Rubix cube.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 27
Bear In SEC Crosshairs
As Bear Stearns announces still more changes to its ever-coruscating plan to bail out (er, or not bail out) its ailing hedge funds, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox says about a dozen different probes are now under way to take a closer look at the types of collateralized loan and debt obligations that first got the bank into trouble.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 27
Yen Hits 10-Week High Vs Euro
The move comes as Japan’s Fin Min warns of the plenitude of dangers of one-way forex bets. On cue, investors have trimmed their holdings fueled by the carry trade.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 27
Amaranth: Straight From The Horse’s Mouth
Shane Lee, former trader at Amaranth and a right brave man, stands before the firing squad of the U.S. Senate to answer for the hedge fund’s implosion. Read on for his take.
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TUESDAY JUNE 26
The Greatest Race
By
Hilary Lewis
Triathlete trader Scott Redler has used the memory of his best friend to stay on track.
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TUESDAY JUNE 26
Pretty Boy: Tonic Ideal
A swingin’ London he-salon that caters to traders.
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TUESDAY JUNE 26
Nasdaq To LSE: Gotcha!
If Nasdaq succeeds in snapping up OMX – which is in talks to provide technology to a major LSE rival – Nasdaq may finally have the London stock exchange right where it wants it.
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TUESDAY JUNE 26
SEC Makes House Call
An influential House committee is set to hear testimony from all five commissioners of the SEC today for the first time in at least 10 years. And what do you suppose they will all be talking about? Three guesses and the first two don’t count.
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TUESDAY JUNE 26
GLG’s Coming-Out Party
What do you do when you’re just too big to grow anymore on your own? Europe's third-largest hedge fund manager knows: It plans to float its stock on the NYSE. And it predicts many more of its ilk will be doing the same.
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TUESDAY JUNE 26
Bear’s Woes Deepen
The Bear Stearns-engineered bailout of its own hedge funds is sucking the marrow out of its stock price. Or, as The Wall Street Journal lamely puts it, “Bear’s Stock Is Acting Like Its Name.” Well done, Bear. (And well done, WSJ – with that cheesy headline, it’s almost like Murdoch’s already taken you over.)
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TUESDAY JUNE 26
Hedge Funds: Lifting The Veil
Alas and alack, the unswerving campaign to reveal hedge fund managers as so many snakeoil salesmen never ends…
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MONDAY JUNE 25
Reads: Lowlifes In Pinstripes
A new fiction collection examines the seamy side of the Street.
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MONDAY JUNE 25
Emerging Markets Speedbump?
Just as swelling yields on Treasury securities are sparking concerns about U.S. stocks, there are worries that the charmed run in emerging markets is due for a hiatus.
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MONDAY JUNE 25
Hedgies’ Summer Break
So, what sort of summer vacation best defines you? Volcano surfing? Kalahari Desert-biking? Or something more low-key like renting an Icelandic ice house for two days with personal, on-site chef, for a cool $159,000?
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MONDAY JUNE 25
The Liquidity Conundrum
How’s a bank to price a highway, Van Gogh or CDO when it hardly ever trades? Can it just take a wild guess and then mark it down? As a matter of fact, many do.
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MONDAY JUNE 25
Bear Stearns: The Lone Grizzly?
Bear, which refused to throw in for the bailout of LTCM, now could be getting a taste of its own medicine.
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MONDAY JUNE 25
Inside Taylor’s Exit Stage Left
By
Teri Buhl
At JP Morgan, Beau Taylor was to the trading floor what James Brown was to the dance floor. So why did he pull up stakes?
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MONDAY JUNE 25
Unreceived Forward Pass
Ritchie Capital – whose founder is none other than ex-college football star A.R. Thane Ritchie – hustled two of its Irish hedge funds into bankruptcy protection last week. Since this seems to be part of a bad run of luck recently for Mr. Ritchie Rich, maybe he should just stick to kicking the calfskin.
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MONDAY JUNE 25
Amaranth: What Went Wrong
It’s official: The Senate has declared gaping holes in energy-trading oversight, massive bets taken by a small concentration of players in both listed and unlisted markets, and the likelihood of rampant hedgie gaming of a “broken” system.
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FRIDAY JUNE 22
Why Taylor Took Off
Details on Beau Taylor defection emerge. By Teri Buhl
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FRIDAY JUNE 22
The Trading Week: June 25 - 29
In preparation for the new trading week, here is a quick look at the most important economic events that every currency trader should pay attention to.
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FRIDAY JUNE 22
Friday Levity: The Golden Ass
There’s nothing nicer than roasting a guy who’s worth sooo much more than you, is there, Daniel Gross? If that’s your standard, though, we figure you’ll have a whole lot more writing to do before you lay down that poison pen.
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FRIDAY JUNE 22
My Charity: Housing Starts
Geneva Trading’s Gordon Hurley pours his sweat equity into building homes for El Salvador’s poor.
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FRIDAY JUNE 22
NYSE Euronext Horns In On LSE's Wooing
And the doe everyone is fighting over is the modest, yet oh-so-desirable, Borsa Italiana.
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FRIDAY JUNE 22
Return Of The Bon Vivant
Nelson Peltz of the watching-women-play-tennis-topless fame, is calling on Kraft to shed some driftwood after snapping up a 3% stake. (Operations he wants on the auction block include Post, maker of our favorite cereals, Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles.) Heartless.
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FRIDAY JUNE 22
Spanked By The French
Hedge funds GLG, UBS O’Connor, Meditor Capital and Ferox Capital, alongside Deutsche Bank, have been fined more than $8 million by France’s market regulator for what it deemed a bit of naughty behavior in the trading of Vivendi Universal securities.
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FRIDAY JUNE 22
Yen Carry Trade Intensifies
The yen has now dropped to a low versus the dollar that hasn’t been seen in four and a half years...and it looks like there’s no end in sight.
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FRIDAY JUNE 22
Bear's 11th-Hour Save?
What do you do when Merrill, JP Morgan and Lehman want no part of your subprime snafu? Take things into your own hands, piker. Even if that means taking on more crazy risk – which, come to think of it, is what got you into trouble in the first place.
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FRIDAY JUNE 22
Blackstone Bonanza
Step 1: Build a giant, profit-wielding firm. Step 2: Make sure it’s private, so you don’t have to report everything. Step 3: Change your mind and IPO it when you’re older and want to cash out – irrespective of whether sticking to the original model might have been wiser.
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THURSDAY JUNE 21
Buy This Island: Oh, Maia
Who wants to be a Brazillionaire?
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THURSDAY JUNE 21
Gekko Sequel Hits London
Apparently, the scriptwriter for the sequel to Wall Street (unfortunately, the movie is happening, as lame as that is) has been dispatched to London to prowl around for ideas. So if you happen to see him lost in Mayfair, be sure to buy him a brew and tell him one of your biggest whoppers.
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THURSDAY JUNE 21
LSE Gets Flirt On With Borsa Italiana
While we hear everyone has been getting it on with the Italian exchange, so far it’s kept its powder dry when it comes to the question of marriage. If LSE can seal the deal, the value of its empire of companies will top that of juggernaut NYSE Euronext – and afford it some leverage in any future merger talks with Nasdaq.
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THURSDAY JUNE 21
Fed’s Fixation: Inflation
Only it’s expected to shift its focus away from the near term to the long term. All of which means a boost in interest rates may not be availing anytime soon.
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THURSDAY JUNE 21
Everybody Wants Blackstone
It’s finally here: The much-jawboned-about B’stone float prices late today. And if advance interest is any indication, the private-equity firm may be in for a trading spike reminiscent of Nymex’s price doubling during the first minutes of its IPO last year.
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THURSDAY JUNE 21
Tough Sell
As Bear’s hedge funds hang by a thread, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank are quickly finding it’s a lot easier to buy collateral assets tied to the bank’s mortgage-backed debt than sell them.
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THURSDAY JUNE 21
Bear's Dilemma: The Truth Hurts
If Merrill Lynch manages to sell off its giant load of collateralized debt obligations (tied to two collapsing Bear Stearns hedge funds) that would mean Wall Street would finally have to face the real price of its shaky mortgage securities. And that discovery – which many expect will be painful – could trigger a very scary chain reaction.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 20
Doctor’s Orders: One Angry Man
Is your temper killing you? Do something about it, piker, before you become a statistic.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 20
Free Trade’s Downside
The OECD raises a red flag over the, uh, proletariat’s reaction to globalization, as the unwashed masses increasingly realize they are getting jacked.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 20
Fight, Fight: Brown Vs Weill
There’s nothing wrong with giving a stuffed shirt a good thwacking now and then. Feels good and takes the edge off. Even less so if you’ve elevated it to a high art, as has Thomas Brown of hedge fund Second Curve Capital. His latest target: Citi’s Sanford Weill.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 20
The Big Chill
The push to raise taxes on hedge funds doesn’t appear to be losing momentum, which could have a chilling effect on Wall Street. The latest convert to the tax-hike fold: The House’s top tax writer, Rep. Charles Rangel.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 20
Stalking Brian Hunter
Supposedly, blogger Greg Newton from NakedShorts is on the tail of ex-Amaranther Hunter, tracking him down at his new Calgary-based hedge fund, Solengo Capital. Whether Newton actually found him is open to debate, but the photo essay alone is worth a look-see.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 20
Bear Funds On Rocks?
Whether the funds will make it is only the minor issue here. Looming much larger is whether hedge fund managers, in the longer term, will find a better way to value their exotic instruments so they don’t blow up in their faces.
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TUESDAY JUNE 19
Buzz Words: $6,000 Hot Dog
Ho ho, you thought this was a story about a huge hot dog, huh? Nope, this is a vocab lesson, piker, and if you were really looking to read about giant dogs, we’re guessing that you need it: Pronounced siks thau-zend dä-ler hät-dog, this noun describes an ill-timed departure from the floor or screen. Read on for the etymology and usage.
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TUESDAY JUNE 19
Once Maligned, Now Benign
Not long ago, the Swiss Bank of International Settlements took a beating for its despicable funding of the Nazis. But these days, with reliable data about global markets harder to come by, major players are finding its ‘neutral sentinel’ role to be a crucial one.
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TUESDAY JUNE 19
Clock Is Ticking On Ailing Bear Fund
After an hours-long meeting with creditors, Bear may have cobbled together a way to contain its subprime troubles. Even so, the plan has yet to be finalized and the bank has just one more day to come up with a solution.
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TUESDAY JUNE 19
Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Others Saved By Supreme Court
In the wake of the 1990s tech bubble, many investors alleged collusion by investment banks and sought treble damages through antitrust complaints. This week, the high court threw out just such a suit, reinforcing its pattern of limiting the scope of antitrust laws.
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TUESDAY JUNE 19
Asian Contagion...Redux?
Ironically, the measures taken by Asian governments several years ago to avoid another financial malaise may have only sown the seeds of a reprise.
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TUESDAY JUNE 19
Insider Trading Gold Rush?
Signs of insider trading cropped up in the stock activity of HCA Inc., Freescale Semiconductor, Harrah's Entertainment Inc. and 57 other companies last year. With the SEC doing little to dissuade big players from fiddling around, it looks like this pattern could turn into a free-for-all in 2007.
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TUESDAY JUNE 19
Sacked London Traders Fight Back
London courts are brimming with nearly a dozen lawsuits spearheaded by six-figure executives who say they were fired for being whistleblowers – many of them traders. And they’re out for blood. And when we say blood, we mean pain. And when we say pain, we mean money.
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MONDAY JUNE 18
Coolest Trade Ever: Livermore’s Cotton
How Woodrow Wilson picked apart the boldest ag trade of all time.
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MONDAY JUNE 18
Not Fun Anymore: Ethanol IPOs
It’s not just the mind-numbing procession of them that’s giving investors a case of burnout – hedge funds such as Greenlight Capital and Third Point are getting stung too.
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MONDAY JUNE 18
At A Head: CME-ICE Fight Over CBOT
As CBOT prepares its shareholders for a merger vote, both CME and ICE are scrambling for an edge. And with both threatening to put more money on the table, it looks like they’re getting more desperate than is strictly wise.
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MONDAY JUNE 18
Yields: Reading The Tea Leaves
Pardon our French, but the interest-rate freakout over the past couple of weeks has prompted even us to do a little chin-stroking. Luckily, there’s been no shortage of analyses as to how it will all go down.
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MONDAY JUNE 18
Treasuries Find Their Inner Bear
Treasuries’ plunge has been unmatched since 2004. But the fallout isn’t expected to be as severe as in the last two bear markets of ’94 and ’99.
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MONDAY JUNE 18
The Other Shoe Drops
Just when you thought the worst of the subprime snafu was over, Moody’s is coming in with its dreaded rapier, slashing ratings on more than a hundred bonds backed by subprime loans – and it’s talking about downgrading nearly another 250.
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MONDAY JUNE 18
Yen Being Steered By...Housewives?
It turns out Japanese pensioners, businessmen and housewives are betting against the yen in their free time – and annihilating the forecasts of some of the world's biggest currency traders.
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FRIDAY JUNE 15
Friday Levity: The Daniel Loeb Letters
Speaking of Loeb, he apparently has an affinity for channeling H.L. Mencken. Here, the complete text of the catty exchange between him and a would-be employee that has to be seen to be believed.
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FRIDAY JUNE 15
Trader Monthly’s Survey Of World’s Top Beaches
Whether you trade there or play there, TraderDaily.com wants to see footage of your favorite idyllic hot spots.
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FRIDAY JUNE 15
Tunes: Their Generation
Revisiting the original rock festival, four decades on.
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FRIDAY JUNE 15
Treasuries Target Six-Week Decline
Bond investors are treading very lightly today, as Treasuries start off on the back foot in advance of a Consumer Price Index report expected to show an uptick.
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FRIDAY JUNE 15
NYMEX Tie-Up With NYSE?-CME?-Deutsche Boerse?
Hey, why not all of them? It can be a sort of ménage a quatre. Basically, the press has no idea which union may come to the fore – and NYMEX doesn’t, either – but that won’t deter the market’s Cassandras from wildly speculating.
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FRIDAY JUNE 15
CNBC’s Stock-Picking Fiasco
It’s amazing that a cable news network can’t even hold a little stockpicking contest for the unwashed masses without attracting all kinds of day traders of ill repute. Bizarrely enough, it looks like one of those infiltrators could be in line to win the million-dollar prize. You can’t make this stuff up.
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FRIDAY JUNE 15
Behind Bear’s Fund Woes
This may be only the beginning of similar subprime meltdowns among hedge funds. In a call with reporters, Goldman finance chief David Viniar admitted, "I don't think we've seen the bottom" of the subprime problems yet.
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FRIDAY JUNE 15
Loeb To Float Third Point Management
But the legendary Daniel Loeb will limit his fund’s IPO to London only. Scroll down further for more on our favorite crabby hedgie.
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FRIDAY JUNE 15
Hedge Funds Break For Europe’s Power Market
It’s all about predicting the ebb and flow of demand for power and gas. And a really good in with the weatherman.
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THURSDAY JUNE 14
TraderDaily.com's Survey of the World's Best Beaches
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THURSDAY JUNE 14
Cojones: Flight Risk
Air Force test pilot Brett Vance takes his F-16 up to God’s anteroom, then kills the engine. Certifiable tough guy — or just certifiable?
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THURSDAY JUNE 14
More Wagon-Circling By Tax Perverts
All we ask is why punish the genius hedge funds that found a way to make bucketloads of money under the current tax system? It’s called innovation, Congress. Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.
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THURSDAY JUNE 14
Goldman Vs Hedgie In E-mail Dust-Up
As far as barn-burning e-mails go, we think James Chanos of short-selling fund Kynikos Associates fell a bit short. (Seriously, James, think about writing something coherent next time before cc-ing all your pals at Goldman.) Still, on a hot, ennui-invoking June morning, we’ll take what we can get.
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THURSDAY JUNE 14
JP Morgan Signs Ground-Zero Lease
You know that huge, black-shrouded, asbestos-filled Deutsche Bank building that’s being dismantled brick by brick at Ground Zero? That’s where JP Morgan plans to erect a new 40-story edifice for its traders. Face masks not included.
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THURSDAY JUNE 14
Shareholder Activism: Perks And Pratfalls
On the one hand, we at Trader Daily are kind of tired of hearing about whether shareholder activism is good or bad. (For the record, insubordination rocks, so we’re all for it.) On the other hand, if Carl Icahn can drum up as much as $50 billion on the strength of his kvetching, then even we have to sit up and take notice.
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THURSDAY JUNE 14
Carry Trade: Looking Down The Barrel?
Goldman augurs that foreign-exchange volatility may be turning a corner, as interest rates point up. If that’s the case, the glory days of financing high-yielding currencies in countries with lower rates such as Japan may be coming to an end.
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THURSDAY JUNE 14
Bear Fund: $4 Billion In Bonds For Sale
Despite its virtuoso status as a debt-savvy dealmaker, Bear’s High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Fund (yeah, it’s a mouthful) may be in over its head this time with a fistful of bonds backed by subprime loans.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 13
Fashion: A Cut Above
You’re unique. Like a snowflake. They broke the mold and all that. So why would you settle for a suit straight off the rack? Behold the sartorial splendor that resulted when we paired two Wall Street traders with five of Manhattan’s top bespoke tailors.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 13
Art Shopping, Hedgie-Style
John Baldessari, Jeff Wall, Alighiero e Boetti, Sterling Ruby – if any of these names don’t strike a chord, that’s okay…But other hedge funders who aren’t cat-napping are swooping in on art by these luminaries before you do.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 13
US To China On Yuan: Yawn
As Congress shrieks for China to be formally accused of “manipulating” its currency, Treasury Secretary (ex-Goldman Sachser) Paulson plans to play it a little cooler.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 13
The Future Is…Diamonds?
Rough, or uncut, diamonds don’t trade on commodity exchanges. But New York-based Rapaport Group is looking to change that by launching the world’s first diamond futures contracts.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 13
ICE, ICE Baby...
IntercontinentalExchange is not backing off its bid to buy the CBOT, even as the Justice Department gives a green-light to its proposed combination with neighboring exchange the CME. As the ICE sweetens its bid, all hands on deck are preparing for war.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 13
Hedge Funds: Back To The Peanut Gallery
More comments are circulating – this time from the U.S. Treasury – about the “false illusions” and “false sense of confidence” hedge funds supposedly imbue in those country rubes fool enough to sink their cash into them. Of course, Treasury didn’t issue any specific warnings, because that would mean it couldn’t be so outstandingly vague.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 13
How Lehman Got Its Groove Back
Just 10 years ago, some traders stopped doing business with the monster bank...then held their breath for it to go under. But today, Lehman has proven to be the ultimate phoenix rising from the ashes. Its secret weapon? Diversification.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 13
US Bonds Shoot To Five-Year High
That market hobgoblin – inflation – is back with a vengeance, threatening to dampen the economy, which barely grew in the first quarter. Jury still out on how soon this may intensify the housing market’s doldrums and put a drag on the global buyout boom.
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TUESDAY JUNE 12
Canadian Bacon… Wrapped Shrimp
RBC Capital Markets launches the RBC Professional Trader Group, with some New York style.
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TUESDAY JUNE 12
FSA Toothless Against Insider Trading?
If one listens to the U.K. regulator’s side of things, it would seem so. While London increasingly moves to the center of the world financial stage, its ability to keep up with malfeasance is falling behind.
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TUESDAY JUNE 12
London Beats NY…And Chicago And Tokyo
London tops a list of 50 cities as the world's commerce center, beating New York, Tokyo and Chicago, according to a report from MasterCard Inc.
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TUESDAY JUNE 12
Hall of Fame: Street Brawler
Jimmy Cayne built Bear Stearns from the ground up with one key ingredient: Guts. We induct a Wall Street icon.
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TUESDAY JUNE 12
Frontini’s Next Act
The man who shook things up as the head of Fidelity’s Italian fund now has a new strategy as he takes the helm of the company’s European Aggressive Fund: Buy lots, sell lots more.
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TUESDAY JUNE 12
China: Is There Anyone Left For It To Tick Off?
Don’t get us wrong, we love their food. (In fact, we reckon the offices of Trader Monthly would shut down without a steady, life-giving supply of egg fried rice and lo mein.) But with a trade surplus on track to expand as much as 80% this year, China’s really pushing the envelope.
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TUESDAY JUNE 12
Hedgie Billionaire Lampert On Fundraising Tear
What do you get for a billionaire who has everything? Billions more – naturally. Eddie Lampert has tapped Goldman to raise an estimated $3 to $5 billion in additional capital for his eponymous ESL fund. When all is said and done, the fund could have more than $23 billion under management. With that kind of lumber, Eddie’s strategy better be good.
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MONDAY JUNE 11
Wherefore The `Epistolary Flair’?
While a wealth of hedge fund managers have eagerly jumped into the shareholder-activist arena, precious few have demonstrated any talent for penning the eloquently barbed letters that have had the force to successfully strong-arm reluctant executives into submission. Robert Chapman is one of them.
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MONDAY JUNE 11
Recommended Listening
Traders deal with the stress of their jobs in all kinds of ways: Taking up guitar, a bad drinking habit, or yoga. Still, others – such as Kaijie Gong, who spends his days trading the Chinese domestic stock market – write song lyrics to take the edge off. We here at Trader Daily haven’t actually heard this song, but we’re assuming it is a kind of unhappy ballad, since it reads sort of like a suicide note.
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MONDAY JUNE 11
Paradise Lost?
Climbing interest rates are threatening to take the bloom off the stock market’s rose. As a result, several pillars of the bull market appear to be increasingly in jeopardy, as stock market stalwarts exit the space in droves.
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MONDAY JUNE 11
China’s Trade Surplus Explodes
And already, the great and the good have commenced in screaming again for the Chinese government to lift its artificial controls to allow the yuan to rise. (As if China’s ever acted like it’s going to listen.)
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MONDAY JUNE 11
Atticus Drags Feet On ABN Bid
The New York hedge fund is putting the pressure on Barclays – in which it owns a stake – to cease and desist in its dogged pursuit of Dutch bank ABN Amro. This could give the RBS-led consortium yet another toehold in its own ABN bid.
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MONDAY JUNE 11
Trade Here: Best Trading Cities
From Amsterdam to Zurich, Beantown to Buenos Aires: presenting our inaugural ranking of the 50 greatest trading cities in the world.
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FRIDAY JUNE 08
Friday Levity: To Wack Or Not To Wack
That is the question. Why bet on plain-vanilla stocks or bonds today when you can log onto Bodog.com and place a wager on the life of Tony Soprano?
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FRIDAY JUNE 08
Gainful Haul: Allure Of The Unloved
Spurned stocks (such as railroads) have become the bread and butter of the Hodges Fund, run by the father- and-son investment team of Don and Craig Hodges. Now, their strategies are winning the acclaim of such market figureheads as Warren Buffett. Not bad for two hedgies with just $700 million.
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FRIDAY JUNE 08
Amaranth: Pension Funds Knew Risks
If whiny, yellow-bellied pension funds can’t take the heat, they should stay out of the kitchen – or so Amaranth says in a court filing defending itself against lawsuits.
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FRIDAY JUNE 08
The Great LBO Test
Low interest rates have paved the way for a historic borrowing boom that’s been the lifeblood of the M&A rampage. As rates show signs of heading toward higher ground, they could soon become the weak link.
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FRIDAY JUNE 08
Inside The Market’s Whuppin’
Some post-mortems are useful, especially when there’s still a debate about whether the Dow’s correction was an orderly or fear-driven one. We here at Trader Daily find “orderly correction” a bit of an oxymoron. But we digress.
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FRIDAY JUNE 08
Treasuries Target Year Low
On the heels of Treasuries’ bath-taking yesterday, European stocks have dropped for the fifth day on climbing bond yields. While the Fed isn’t expected to raise U.S. rates this year as the economy gets a bit of a second wind, it is expected to do so eventually – and in a way that will change much on the ground as we know it.
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THURSDAY JUNE 07
Changing Lanes
Wall Street looks at the movies for investments.
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THURSDAY JUNE 07
Head of Merrill Municipal Bond Team Moves to Hedge Fund
Kurt van Kuller, one of the market’s most experienced analysts, joins the New York-based hedge fund 1861 Capital Management.
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THURSDAY JUNE 07
Wheels: Porsche Vs. Plane
Just how fast is the 2007 Porsche 911 Turbo? We set it up in a 240-mile race against an equities trader and . . . a DC-9.
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THURSDAY JUNE 07
Maligned No More: Tech Bets
A look at why private-equity can’t seem to control itself around telecom or technology investments.
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THURSDAY JUNE 07
CBOT Blasts ICE Bid
The Chicago exchange is throwing all its weight behind the CME’s counterbid, actively raising questions about ICE’s technology. But since ICE absorbed all of NYBOT’s trades in rapid time earlier this year, it seems the onus is on CME-CBOT to explain exactly how ICE technology is lacking. For now, we here at Trader Daily are taking all this with a grain of salt.
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THURSDAY JUNE 07
Citigroup Coughs Up Millions, Brokers Suspended
A broker can be man’s best friend – or best foe.
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THURSDAY JUNE 07
Cashing In On The Fine Print
How one man’s plight to liquidate a baseball team could turn into the catalyst for some serious gains by hedge funds. Here’s their blueprint for squeezing extra profits from a stone.
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THURSDAY JUNE 07
It’s War: Hedgies Go Head-To-Head With Banks
Ever since the subprime market fell out of bed, hedge fund traders savvy enough to short securities backed by iffy mortgage loans in advance have been making a fabulous killing. But the house party now could be over, as investment banks like Bear throw a lifeline to struggling homeowners and borrowers by snapping up these shaky mortgages.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 06
Watch List: Maritimers
What good is owning a yacht if you don’t own a yachting watch? Seriously, you might as well just give the boat back.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 06
Got Terror Insurance?
How do you measure whether Americans feel safer from terrorism? The answer to such a question is only partly empirical.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 06
US Home Sales Backpedal, Again
April showers typically bring searing May home sales. But not this year, as lending practices get stricter and would-be home-buyers are left out in the cold.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 06
Tudor Shutters Small-Stock Fund
Even smart money managers are struggling to meet their targets in the small-cap arena. May we suggest real estate?
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 06
It’s Money, Baby
We all know that ultra-high net-worthers are still, for some reason, flocking to middling-return hedge funds like so many clueless lemmings (in addition to private-equity, though we admit we see that as being a pretty solid bet). But top private banks will tell you that the demand for real-estate investments is just as impressive.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 06
Foreign Investment In US Touches Six-Year High
To those channeling their money in from overseas, the lure of U.S. markets is still akin to the Odyssey’s sweet siren call. Of course, behind the scenes, there’s as much scuffling as ever over whether the strong, proud American really wants this.
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 06
Market Put on Notice
Interest rates across the globe may soon be bumped up with a vengeance – starting today with the ECB. Increasingly, it seems the cooling effects of globalization on inflation are subsiding, as global economic growth keeps right on popping and hissing. Central banks are on the case.
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TUESDAY JUNE 05
The Life: Shanghai Nights
After a decade of spectacular boom, China’s financial capital has been transformed into an empire of indulgence and excess. Behold our user-friendly guide to the Far East’s new Wild West.
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TUESDAY JUNE 05
US Poised For Quick Rebound?
When it comes to world economic growth, the glass is suddenly looking a lot more than half full. That could lay the foundation for a faster-than-expected turnaround in the U.S. economy while warding off forecasts of a slowdown in Germany and China.
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TUESDAY JUNE 05
In Murdoch-Bancroft Talks, Word Choice Key
Pushing the boundaries of vagueness in the way only members of the press are able, the Wall Street Journal-controlling Bancroft family and the media-acquisitive Rupert Murdoch both released statements describing their first face-to-face meeting Monday as “constructive.” That very likely means two of the four hours they spent behind closed doors yesterday was devoted to finding the right adverb for their powwow.
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TUESDAY JUNE 05
Euro Pops To Record High Vs Yen
It’s official: Almost everyone expects the European Central Bank to raise interest rates tomorrow – and that’s driving a scorching rally in the euro. Couple that with Japanese investors’ “yen” for putting their money to work overseas, and you have an inkling as to why the yen has been the worst performer of the 72 most actively traded currencies tracked by Bloomberg this quarter.
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TUESDAY JUNE 05
Unveiling Blackstone: A Windy Process
While the Blackstone prospectus has left some crucial areas blank (the gargantuan compensation of its top brass, for example) it’s sheer voluminousness is more redolent of a Russian novel than an IPO document. Bets on whether the SEC Web site will crash before it’s all over, anyone?
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TUESDAY JUNE 05
Teleco Traders, On Your Mark
TPG and Silver Lake have clinched a deal to buy Basking Ridge, N.J., telecom-equipment maker Avaya for roughly $8.2 billion, which – if all goes as usual – should light a fire under telecom stocks today.
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MONDAY JUNE 04
Liquidity: Clear Winners
These new super-premium vodkas may be, by definition, odorless and flavorless — but they still manage to taste exceptional.
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MONDAY JUNE 04
Highbridge Makes Private-Equity Leap
And the first order of business has been to poach ex-Goldman Sachser Scott Kapnick to raise as much as $2 billion for a buyout fund – hey, a buyout fund, who’d ‘a thunk?
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MONDAY JUNE 04
Going Public? Not Profitable? No Problem
Being in the red is no longer a deterrent to pursuing an IPO. This year already has seen the largest percentage of money-losing companies going public since the end of the dot-com boom. A glaring red flag if there ever was one.
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MONDAY JUNE 04
Options Traders Increasingly Signaling Fed Rate Hike
The grizzled soothsayers trading options on Federal Fund futures have assigned greater odds recently to the Fed’s raising short-term interest rates – possibly as soon as December. A month ago, no expectations of the kind existed.
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MONDAY JUNE 04
Murdoch-Bancroft Chitchat Nigh
News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch will finally get to have tea with members of the family controlling The Wall Street Journal today to discuss the paper’s possible sale. Expect this one to be about as relaxed and cordial as the U.S.-Iranian talks.
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MONDAY JUNE 04
On Fire, Then In Flames
