TABLE OF CONTENTS March 2008

Eric Bolling Joins FOX Business Network

NEW YORK-- http://www.businesswire.com --Independent trader Eric Bolling has joined FOX Business Network (FBN) as a contributor, announced Kevin Magee, Executive Vice President, FOX News. > read more

Market Volatility: You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet
By Ken Grant
Geez, folks, I hate to sound like a broken record, particularly when I have nothing to offer but another regurgitated blog bite about how sucky things are, but I feel that I should go on record to say that this is a VERY dangerous tape. The trends discussed in the last edition of the Left Tail Report are still by and large in place, which means that I don't see any hope for a sustained rally, until both: a) There is full disclosure of losses in the financial sector; and b) The market has squeezed every last bit of rate cutting out of the Federales that is humanly possible. > read more

Fed Cuts Key Interest Rate by 3/4 of a Point

The Federal Reserve reduced its benchmark interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point on Tuesday, to 2.25 percent, a cut that was less than investors had been hoping for even though it was one of the deepest in Fed history, reports The New York Times. > read more

JPMorgan Raises Bid for Bear to $10 a Share

JPMorgan Chase raised its offer for Bear Stearns, the beleaguered investment bank, to $10 a share Monday morning in an effort to pacify angry Bear shareholders. The sweetened offer of about $1 billion, reports The New York Times, is intended to win over stockholders who vowed to fight the original fire-sale deal, struck only a week ago at the behest of the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department. > read more

The Self-Takedown, Spitzer-Style

Eliot Spitzer, the oft-sanctimonious governor of New York, the man who has felled so many both on and off Wall Street has been felled by...himself. For those of you who dislike him, we suspect that even you have been shocked and awed by his statement yesterday and the depth of the salacious details marched out over the past 24 hours about his alleged double life (complete with accounts of haggling over store credits at an escort service and discussions between a prostitute and her boss over how the “client’s” prurient preferences included “things you might not think were safe”). Uh, huh. That said, this is one extremely sad story for the Spitzer family and Spitzer’s devout wife, a Baptist from North Carolina. How long before Fox News digs up the actual hooker who earned in excess of $4,000 for spending just over an hour servicing “Client 9” in the Mayflower’s now-infamous Room 871 the evening before Valentine’s Day? Time will only tell, but this story from the Times gives the full breadth of what transpired that fateful night. > read more

SWINGING THE AX: MERRILL TO LAY OFF MORE 10-15% IN BANKING, WHILE BRACING FOR MASSIVE WRITEDOWN
By Erica Copulsky
> read more

On Bear Hunting…And (Navel) Gazing Into The Abyss

Remember Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche? And his spiel about, “If you gaze too long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you”? Yeah, we don’t really either. But New York Democratic Senator Charles Schumer had this to say about abyss-gazing in The Wall Street Journal, which, predictably, hustled out a lead story today entitled (also predictably) “Inside The Demise of Bear Stearns.” We assume that the unseen exclamation points here are assumed. > read more

Coming To A Store Near You: Bear Stearns, The Book

As this “story” really has yet to conclude, it’s kind of creepy that big-time publisher Doubleday has already signed up a famed Wall Street writer to give an account of Bear’s felling in what’s laughably being billed as “a story of quest, love and moral retrospection.” Gag and double gag. And that’s not the worst of it, even. Check out the title. > read more

Dump Everything, Hell Is Here: JPM Buys Bear For A Song

There’s going to be some smoke in the city. And we’re not talking about Jimmy Cayne-type smoke, either. We’re talking about the kind of smoke that only comes from a fire sale – for a bank, or anyone, the ultimate insult. Here, the unabridged story of how Bear Stearns got itself into this mind-boggling mess and why it finally was forced to agree to sell itself to JPMorgan for – gulp – $2 a share in stock, or less (waaay less) than $300 million. What next? The Fed drops $30 billion on helping Bear with its less-liquid assets? As a matter of fact, yes. > read more

Unraveling The Curse Of Good Friday

Whether by coincidence or not, traders have always taken Good Friday off since the Panic of 1907. We assume you don’t remember that event, but take it from us, it was not pretty. Here, Bloomberg News takes a closer look at why traders have kept up the tradition of avoiding placing bets on this fateful day. > read more

Bear Trap?

The good news is, you just made a boatload of cash shorting Bear Stearns. The bad news is that SEC officials (none of whom make anywhere near what you do) think they smell something rotten in the state of Denmark. Here, the laundry list of the big hedge funds that pulled in the fattest hauls on the fallen Bear – and why some of them may soon find themselves in a reciprocal crosshairs. > read more

Loaded For Bear

Between Bear Stearns’s warring shareholders and bondholders and those looking to buy it (JPMorgan) and those looking to sell it (credit-default-swap mavericks) and those investigating trades on it (the SEC) and those who just want it to be over with already (the Fed) this is shaping up to be one showdown for the ages. The overarching question: Is it really reasonable to pay $2 a share for a monster bank that was trading at $65 just last week? A selection of thoughts from those market screamers screaming the loudest. > read more

Trader Exclusive: Centaurus And The Dead Man’s Curve?

The spread between March and April natural gas futures isn’t called the “widowmaker” for nothing: it is just as likely to make a trader wildly rich as it is to crush him. (And given the potential for huge profit as the shift from winter to spring breeds awesome volatility each year, the siren song of this dead man’s curve is often too much for any trader to resist. After all, if he wins, he gets a cut of the spoils – and if he loses, it’s another person’s money that is squandered.) So, did a trader at Centaurus really get pinched by the crack? Our moles say yes, but only to the tune of $200 to $300 million. Not a small amount, to be sure, but much smaller than the losses being touted by clueless market gossips. Here, a few of the Web postings that have cropped up on the subject. But don’t expect any Centaurus investors to be squealing – they are just as glad to have even landed a membership at one of the world’s most historically successful hedge funds. > read more

Spitzer’s Special Lady Friend

She left a broken home on the Jersey Shore at 17. She came to New York City to work the nightclubs as a rhythm and blues singer (who’d ‘a thunk?) Now, at 22, she is the unwitting star of the seamy drama that is the downfall of Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York. (And damn if this plantation-burning, bodice-ripper isn’t just the spitting image of his wife when she was in her 20s...) > read more

Big In Japan

He is not a Liverpool rock band from the 1970s. He’s not even worth that much money – yet. He is Tadashi Mukai, the trader who outperformed all other hedge funds of his ilk in Japan last year by taking a unique tack: researching analysts instead of companies. May we present the million-dollar man and his mint-making methods? > read more

It’s The Solvency, Stupid

No flood of ever-cheapening, yen-like U.S. money is about to fix the U.S. economy. But our beleaguered Fed chief Ben Bernanke doesn’t appear to be getting this memo. From the wilderness of the Web, the message from economic pundits (not us, but the real geeks who crunch numbers and pore over charts all day) is loud and clear: the avalanche of dollars is only helping investment firms and financial institutions hold onto bad investments longer. If the Fed is serious about touching off the Great Healing, it will need to heal its own ways. Some suggestions from those who are wiser than us. > read more

Hoping For Merrier Weather

John Meriwether of LTCM and “Liar’s Poker” fame has fallen again on hard times, as his largest hedge fund, a bond portfolio, sheds 28% if its value so far this year and a lesser fund drops 6% after lukewarm returns last year. While he’ll have to scramble to keep investors from bailing out by the Monday deadline, we suspect this 60-year-old former vice chairman of Salomon Brothers and one of the best-known traders on Wall Street has seen enough market mayhem over the years to weather this storm. That said, even he admits the risks are too high to embrace many of the amazing buying opportunities he’s now seeing. Click here for more pearls from the man whose bank account we wish had our name on it. > read more

‘How many Louis Vuittons Is That?’

Over a drink a few weeks back at one of our favorite hole-in-the-wall watering holes in downtown Manhattan (the Raccoon Lodge, 59 Warren Street) one of our favorite fans of this Web site, a tried-and-true commodities veteran who went to Princeton with none other than Donald Rumsfeld, leaned over and confided to us in very low tones, “Now that oil’s over $100, we are gonna’ start to see scams like you wouldn’t believe.” We did believe that. What we didn’t believe was that an oilman and his Louis Vuitton-loving daughter would get so easily busted by MTV show, `My Super Sweet 16.’ Now that is appalling. > read more

Hot Arb: Bear Stock Vs Bear Tchotchkes

As the fate of Bear Stearns hangs in the balance, decades’ worth of bank paraphernalia is flying off the shelves online. Exhibit A: That used Bear T-shirt someone’s been having his morning jog in for, like, a decade? It just sold on eBay for $151.76. (That equates 14 or 15 shares of the once august and hallowed Wall Street institution.) Here, pics and bids of the latest Bear swag to hit the auction block. Who knows, you could start a veritable stampede over the Bear junk stuff/junk stock arbitrage. Make your first bazillion. > read more

Can’t Fight Physics

And we are talking about market physics, here. While stocks racked up their biggest one-day gain in five years after the Federal Reserve sought to defibrillate the economy’s cardiac arrest, it looks like it’s going to take a lot more than a pecuniary shot in the arm to heal these credit woes. Here’s one argument why there’s probably nothing to do but let the chips fall where they may. > read more

Hedgies Fight Back

As things stand, the conventional wisdom is that no sooner will hedge funds be allowed to have Web sites and behave as proper businesses do than toothless grandma Nell from the country will lose the whole of her retirement savings by betting the house on interest-rate swaptions. Here’s what’s wrong with conventional wisdom, according to Phil Goldstein, the brassy hedge fund manager now suing the SEC. > read more

Treasurys Rise; Global Stocks, Futures Tank

At least one thing today isn’t circling the drain. How a leap in 10-year notes on top of gains in two- year securities that are driving yields toward their lowest point in five years is seen as having a ripple effect across the rest of the market. > read more

Tricked, Hoodwinked, Bamboozled

It takes a steady hand to part a massive investment bank from $350 million of funds. Or sometimes, just a couple of not-so-reputable contract staffers from a reputable, 150-year-old Tokyo trading house, a handful of dummy business cards, an imposter posing as a high-level executive and a meeting or two at company headquarters in an elaborate Ponzi scheme rivaling the biggest and boldest on Wall Street in recent memory. > read more

JPMorgan To Sweeten Bear’s Honeypot?

For all traders dabbling in bank stocks today, take note: While the rest of the world obliviously celebrated Easter, JPMorgan execs were sweating the detail of a certain Bear Stearns bid, which, first set at $2 a share, may now be quintupled to $10. Still, after several days of frenetic, secret, late-night dealings, the Fed is balking over approving a better offer. Why? Because, it’s already agreed to back $30 billion of Bear’s most toxic assets with taxpayer money. The big concern: Wither the public backlash? Bear stockholders’ response: Let them eat Easter eggs. So, just who’s tilting at windmills? > read more

‘Fed’ Up

Not since the dark days of Paul Volcker has the Federal Reserve considered slashing rates by this much. Despite recent predictions of a 50- or 75-basis-point cut, here’s why traders are now convinced that when the Federal Open Market Committee meets today in Washington, a cut by a full percentage point – or more – could very well be a gimme. > read more

Deconstructing The ‘Oldest Profession’

The FT’s chief business commentator, John Gapper, takes a closer look at the mechanics of the Emperors Club VIP prostitution ring that seemed to so please “Client 9” – and stumbles across some interesting revelations. > read more

So, You Think You’re A Contrarian, Big Man?

Remember that overplayed Alanis Morrissette song where everything was supposedly – erroneously – “ironic”? Well, you’re kind of like that with all your highfalutin, “contrarian” ideas. The fact of the matter is, there just aren’t too many orderly patterns in the chaos. Sorry. Just a lot of cruddy signal-to-noise ratios. But don’t take our word for it. > read more

Stockbroker Gets Eyeful

This strip-club-going New Yorker got a bit more than he bargained for while trying to kick back at the Hot Lap Dance Club after a long day at the office. We posit it’s more of a human demonstration of the old chestnut, `you get what you pay for.’ > read more

Carlyle: Bigger They Are, The Lighter They Fall?

The unspoken rule of the U.S. financial system and its regulatory regime is that the better-capitalized players should be given plenty of room to fail – if they want it – because they can dust themselves off and get back in the game a lot faster than, say, Auntie Nell from Black Shear, Georgia, who’s liable to squander her entire retirement savings on a flight-by-night forex scheme. But there are exceptions to every rule. > read more

Consumer Confidence Bellies Up?

Expectations that the Conference Board’s confidence index will slide to a five-year low today has left the Treasury market all fired up, driving a comeback in 10-year notes. At the same time, stocks spiked in Europe and Asia, signaling traders’ relief over Bear Stearns’s living to die another day. But are inflation upticks dead yet? Some are saying so. > read more

China: Going Off-Surplus?

How the U.S. economic slowdown is fast spilling over into China, infecting its multibillion-dollar trade surplus as the country’s imports ratchet up. While American lawmakers are still calling for trade sanctions, could the problem now be fixing itself? > read more

Rise Of The ‘Lost Decade’?

If you behaved just as the stock market right now, you’d be headed over to Club 54 after work today. Okay, but seriously, the ever-encyclopaedic E.S. Browning in The Wall Street Journal is saying that he sees signs of a slowdown that haven’t been witnessed since the 1970s. For instance, the stock market is trading exactly where it was nine years ago. Not scared yet? Keep reading. > read more

Public Vs Private

While bleeding-heart liberals may be tearing their hair out over Eliot Spitzer’s stunning fall from grace, imploring that this is a case of one man’s personal peccadilloes lamentably overshadowing an otherwise commendable public career – as if the two were wholly unrelated – John Fund from The Wall Street Journal gives the best explanation yet as to why this line of thinking can easily be reduced to a steaming mound of dromedary droppings. > read more

Burying The Enron Hatchet

Did a certain venerable Wall Street institution really help Enron traders deceive its investors? Let’s just say that with the credit crisis demanding 101% of everybody’s time and attention these days, paying $1.66 billion to make all the questions go away was not the worst idea in the world. > read more

Goldman: You’re Dismissed

According to The New York Post, this may be what Goldman plans to say to a not-so-insignificant portion of its work force. (But remember, this is the Post we are talking about here: generally not the shining beacon of accuracy; yet, its reporters do get poached by The Wall Street Journal, so we’re at sixes and sevens about what to think.) That said, given the current mood on Wall Street, there’s a lot of reason to believe that for many, this may be a not-so-good Friday. > read more

Stiff Upper Lip Check

From New York to Colorado to Amsterdam, hedge funds are cratering amid a flurry of redemptions. The latest victims include a $12 billion global macro fund whose investors are begging for their money back; an $870 million fund that’s blocking withdrawals (supposedly to prevent fire sales of the stocks they hold of small companies); and a muni bond fund that’s hanging by a thread after losses of 80%. Here, the list of casualties. > read more

Bone To Pick

JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon may have prevailed in the first round of the great Bear hunt, but he’s going to have to fight a lot harder to keep everyone else on Wall Street from picking the meat off these bones. From contending with U.K.-born billionaire investor Joseph Lewis (the largest – and, we are guessing, the most nonplussed – of the Bear Stearns shareholders) to retaining the felled bank’s most talented staff, he’s truly got his work cut out for him. Good thing he thought to bring that multibillion-dollar war chest… > read more

Kiss That Sweet Salary Goodbye?

First structured credit takes a beating. Now it’s payment structures. Looks like global bank association the Institute of International Finance is on the case, intimating that perhaps now is the time for a new code on bank salaries and bonuses, as if it really wants to do that. And yes, that means slashing the pay of traders. (We find it telling that one of the principal bank executives behind this chitchat – Deutsche Bank’s Josef Ackermann – also is rumored to be in the market for a new, invite-only Ferrari Scuderia. For shame.) > read more

Women…Finance…Pole Dancing – Any Questions?

By day, Victoria Gibbs works in the world of finance. By night, she puts on hot pants and high heels, climbs a pole and swings upside down. How many women are finding a new way of letting off steam after putting in long hours at the office. > read more

Man, Oh, Man

Man Group, the world's largest publicly traded hedge fund manager, says it expects annual earnings to exceed analysts' estimates, backed by rising performance fees. One of its biggest performers? AHL, a $3 billion fund co-founded by David Harding, who appears in our blowout Trader 100 issue about to hit newsstands, in a massive, not-to-be-missed Q&A. > read more

Dollar Hits 12-Year Low

And, as it so happens, it has also dropped below 100 yen for the first time since 1995. Which leaves it roughly at parity with the Swiss franc. And further pounded by the British pound. Which is sad. But instead of wallowing in our grief, we are going to take another tack. We want to show you what a dollar can still buy. Or, in this case, 100 yen. > read more

‘Strong Dollar’ Talk Rings Hollow

If the dollar is so hell-bent on outdoing its 12-year low, scored this week, then a lot of people are gonna’ have something to say about it. Certainly not U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who says he backs a strong dollar but then won’t take reporters’ questions. But, you know, other folks – such as the kindly economists and forex analysts from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley who have dutifully begun sounding the alarm over a possible G-7 intervention. And also the nations stupefied in mortal pain as once-ravenous American consumers stop indiscriminately buying their stuff. Why, even Toyota Motor Corp. President Katsuaki Watanabe, in the spirit of putting in two cents, had this to say… > read more

Kerviel: Latest Curve Ball

We don’t mean to sound like pessimists here, but if anyone is capable of telling the truth, won’t they please start doing it? We especially liked the part in the following piece about how Jerome Kerviel's manager on Societe Generale’s Delta One trading desk missed an e-mail from Eurex stating that Kerviel had purchased 6,000 futures contracts in two hours. Mon dieu and sacre bleu!) > read more

BlackRock Tapped By Bear, Fed

For what started out as a modest bond shop, Lawrence Fink’s firm is doing pretty darn well: in the past year it’s caught the eye of not only Citigroup, JPMorgan, Bank of America and the U.S. Treasury Department, but, more recently, Bear Stearns and the Fed, which have given it $30 billion to manage on top of its already formidable $1.4 trillion AUM. > read more

Sweat On The Panic Button?

When the Federal Reserve overlooked its own rules to bail out Wall Street in recent days, was this an indication of cold, hard, calculating stoicism in the face of imminent danger…Or just so many skittish Ivory Tower victims flying off the handle? > read more

Recession Signs Mount

Why economists suspect that the index of U.S. leading economic indicators, set for release today, fell for a fifth month in February, flashing the dreaded warning signal that a recession has begun. > read more

Hail To The Chief

Bravo, Ben Bernanke, you Fed chief you. You flouted Wall Street’s expectations (economists at Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Bear Stearns, all) slashing rates by less than expected and yet still came out swinging with the biggest stock-market rally in five years. A word on why Ben is ON it like Eliot Spitzer’s on...uh, nothing. Bad analogy. > read more

Oil, Gold Come Crashing Down

Strategic commodities are wilting, as the dollar regains some of its buoyancy amid hopes that the Fed’s latest measures will inject a bit of froth back into the market. While the following story posits that commodities were just suffering from a slight case of being overbought, we are hearing lots of chatter from our traders that a crush of hedge funds, struggling to not implode, are selling off these pricier assets just to meet margins. Either way, here’s the daily lowdown on where things stand. > read more

Kerviel Unjailed – If Not Unveiled

Société Générale’s most infamous trader, Jérôme Kerviel, has finally been freed from prison, having successfully overcome objections by prosecutors that he might take infernal liberties in contacting possible accomplices or tampering with evidence or fleeing France to parts unknown (despite having no passport). A look at what’s next in what is likely to be a wearisome and protracted charade. > read more

Things You Can Buy For $2 (Other Than Bear)

We don’t know for 100% sure if it’s true that the building housing Bear Stearns is worth three times the bank’s total equity (as the following contends). But we do know that also-ran social networking site Bebo sold for $850 million just before Bear did. And that that is sad. > read more

Dollar, Meet The Toilet

We know you two are already well-acquainted, but we have a feeling you are about to get a lot closer. Here, the breakdown ahead of this morning’s consumer spending report with a view toward what traders are expecting next from Benny and The Hacksaws. > read more

Liquidity Alert: What Gives, Bear Stearns?

We would be lying if we claimed Wall Street was having a great day even before the Spitzer kibitzer. Rumors were already flying that potential liquidity bottlenecks could now be plaguing Bear Stearns. While the bank denies there’s any problem, it seems that credit indices are widening sharply as the cost of protecting bank bonds against default reach record levels. Time to prepare for more shock waves? > read more

Spitzer, Debriefed

And, by that, we mean literally. > read more

Everyone’s An Addict

Let us put this very simply: America may be addicted to oil, but the Middle East (and specifically the oil cartel effectively controlled by Saudi Arabia) is addicted to our addiction. We like the black wet stuff. They like the dry green stuff. It’s an unsexy quid pro quo that binds us. So, there was never any doubt that Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries would never, ever, EVER increase oil output. That would mean fewer barrels at $104 a pop for them, and with the dollar tumbling, that price ain’t what it used to be. All OPEC can possibly do, no matter how much our president begs, is not slash how much oil they’re already pouring onto the market. But, as this story clearly illustrates, even that is not guaranteed. > read more

Zimbabwenomics, Part II

”Zimbabwe continues to get it,” the worshipful Long or Short Capital points out today. “When facing simple, but large, macro problems, this country shines like no other.” What you can learn from a country capable of producing a millionaire from a single U.S. dollar. > read more

JPMorgan’s Bonus Play

JPM’s CEO Jamie Dimon is a smart man. And in his many travels, he’s picked up on some distinct subtleties in the dealings of men that have allowed him to persuade them to do exactly what he wants. Chief among them: money talks. > read more

Recession Obsession Deepens

The majority of economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal now agree: the U.S. has probably slipped into a recession. Read on for their musings, their forecasts and how, very aggravatingly, the definition of recession has once again come into question. > read more

In This Corner…

In the increasingly turbulent world of global commodities, there’s rising tension these days between market speculators and regulators. But history is generally on the side of only one of them. And there’s no mystery here who’s been traditionally too hot to stay in this kitchen. > read more

Crude Awakenings

Everyone from top-name bank analysts to media empires to even T. Boone Pickens now has egg on their faces from months of insisting that the price of oil is not so much rising as madly telegraphing its imminent crash. (In response to one article in a major Condé Nast publication on the so-called coming oil kerfuffle, a reader writes: “Great article! This is the perfect time to buy your dream SUV or RV…While you’re at it, pick one up for each of your kids – they’re priced to sell because of all this worry about the oil supply being finite.”) O.K. Point taken. Now for the new plan… > read more

Another Day, Another Emergency Fed Meeting

In the Federal Reserve’s first weekend emergency action in nearly three decades, it green-lighted giving banks and investment firms a new weapon in the fight against financial bedlam: it slashed its so-called discount rate and became a lender of last resort to the largest dealers of U.S. government bonds. But where does that leave the Fed? And, more importantly, its balance sheet? > read more

Countrywide

There’s nothing better than making a boatload on your winning vision. Unless, maybe, you’re making another boatload of cash on its demise. How former Countrywide Financial president Stanford Kurland plans to do just that by launching an investment firm with Laurence Fink’s BlackRock Inc. and Boston’s Highfields Capital Management. > read more

BNP-SocGen Merger Chatter Resumes

Though Société Générale has made it abundantly clear it has ample access to a good deal more than the $8.4 billion it’s drawing from a shares issue (potentially offsetting its Kerviel-induced trading losses) it may be too late for the bank. BNP, it seems, has serious designs on sister Soc and won’t be dissuaded by any capital-raising efforts. Here, a French newspaper lets leak how soon the rival bank may make a bid. > read more

CME To Buy Nymex For $9.4 Billion

Providing a bright spot in what is already shaping up to be another grim week, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange agreed to buy the world’s top oil market for nearly 40 times what JPMorgan is paying for Bear Stearns (just in case you were wondering). But will nettlesome regulators, not to mention disgruntled Nymex shareholders, stand in the way of this transaction? > read more

Dollar’s Gains Self-Destruct

This time it’s serious. The dollar swooned against the euro today, stamping out most of its recent gains, as traders brace for the worst housing-market ruination in a quarter of a century. A look at what’s up next for credit markets as investor worries grow. > read more

Watch Those Bang-Up Dinners

Those calories will getcha’. And according to the latest research, they won’t just ruin your girlish figure – they’ll also increase your chances of suffering from dementia later on in life. Something to keep in mind for you traders planning to stay knee-deep in swaptions until your dying breath. (Remember, dementia + swaptions = bad news.) Read on to find out whether it’s time to reconsider disentangling that ever-expanding belt from the Bubby’s tablecloth. > read more

Fired? Maybe It’s Time To Let That In-House Designer Go…

And you really don’t need a gardener when you live in Manhattan, do you? For the one shrub? Really, it’s not that serious. Obviously, you can’t fire the butler – who answers their own front door anymore? And, while it will hurt, the damask valences and Swarovski planters will have to wait. An insider’s look at how New York’s various champagne dealers and personal wotsis have been utterly orphaned by Wall Street’s outbreak of pink slips. Both a cautionary tale and a good read. > read more

‘Dollar Weakness’ Now An Oxymoron

Could it get any bleaker? The crush of inflationary pressures around the globe is forcing central banks that call the shots on everything from the yuan to the dong (yes, that’s right, the dong, piker) to let their foreign currencies strengthen. Three guesses and the first two don’t count what that will mean for the limping greenback. > read more

Even Curiouser

Police have nabbed another Societe Generale employee in connection with the Kerviel Kerfuffle... Mysteriously, the suspect’s name, which once graced the so-called rogue trader’s Facebook page, has been released several times online in the last 24 hours. And then duly erased. > read more

And You Thought Being A Trader Meant Going To Hell…

Not so for Michael Farmer, co-founder of hedge fund Red Kite Metals. A man of low-vol returns he is not, but he does happen to be an outspoken born-again Christian who indisputably has the touch when it comes to riding the commodities bull. Here, how several times he’s won big, lost big and, like Lazarus, still come back from the dead. > read more

Going Platinum

A lot is going platinum these days, colloquially speaking: crude oil, wheat, gold – and, oh yeah, platinum. Here, the breakdown of what the soaring price of key commodities reveals about the fate of the U.S. economy, energy policy and our godawful dollar. > read more

MF Global: Drinking The Poison?

Top futures broker MF lay at the center of a market pummeling that kicked off the week, spilling over into the stock of Interactive Brokers, FC Stone Group, Penson Worldwide, GFI Group and others. “The fear within this sector is that these types of companies have been caught with a huge pile of something toxic that will implode, which will then force them to take a huge loss,” writes Andrew Horowitz in his Disciplined Investor blog (his company takes positions in this sector). So, is there anything to all the rumors whizzing around? > read more

Go Diesel

Oil is hovering at $109 a barrel. And you know what that means: Time to ramp up on the refined products – particularly this one, which is still seen as having plenty of room for gains. Read on for a rundown on how to place your bets. > read more

Goldman: Prosperity To Austerity?

No sooner did Goldman, the world's biggest securities firm by market value, report its sharpest profit drop since 1999 (weathering $2 billion of writedowns on loans and mortgages as revenue from investment banking and trading slid) than the rumors began to swirl…But is it really plausible an institution still doling out multimillion-dollar bonuses to its top rainmakers would cut free water and soda to its employees? (There’s even a question as to whether the G-men ever got free soda.) We need more than this, exhibit A. > read more

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Brace yourself for some crazy markets today. Stocks are tanking. Corporate bonds are tanking. The dollar is tanking. Key interest rates will soon be tanking (again). And labor data about to be released is expected to show the jobless rate in the U.S. rising in February to a two-year high while payrolls likely climbed only at a quarter of last year's pace – which, considering last year, isn’t saying much. Want more? We’ll give you more. > read more

Dimon: All Too Human?

See that’s just the thing about saying you’ll pay $2 a share for Bear Stearns and then, after a period of brief reflection (and verbal lynchings by Bear shareholders) showing just the tiniest bit of weakness about quintupling the bid. As two Michigan pension funds take legal action to fight even the sweetened offer, here are a few reasons why JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon might want to stop doing things out of the kindness of his heart and go back to doing what he does best: take no prisoners. > read more

Taiwan: Place Yor Bets

Jim Rogers has a yen for Taiwan. A look at how the famed “investment biker” and co-founder of the Quantum Hedge Fund with George Soros got to be all hot and bothered over China’s so-called breakaway province. > read more

Goldman Renders Unto Caesar

And since Goldman is ostensibly Caesar, what we’re really trying to say here is that it’s rendering unto itself...In this case, to the tune of close to $2 billion, or 90% of the amount it sank into its failing hedge funds last summer. The bank isn’t the only one pulling out, though. There’s also a certain U.S. billionaire investor now headed for the door. > read more

Icahn: You Can Stick Your Board Seats

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. Being an activist investor rocks. Read on for all the skinny on how the august and hallowed Carl Icahn is turning the screws on his latest conquest. > read more

As Wall Street Crumples, Traders Doing Just Fine, Thanks

Why today’s financial chaos and mayhem are – as late millionairess Leona Helmsley might have put it – only for the “little people.” > read more

Biggest New Fund Of 2008?

Turns out those rumors of the death of new hedge fund money have been greatly exaggerated. > read more

SocGen Has A Good Day

And a very good day it is. Demand for new shares issued by Société Générale has amounted to almost twice the $8.4 billion it had sought, the bank said today. But what story about the state of SocGen’s finances would be complete without an update on its so-called rogue trader, Jérôme Kerviel? None that we can think of… > read more

File Under No #@$%, Sherlock

“This is a good economic transaction for JPMorgan shareholders,” said Michael Cavanaugh, launching the conference call heard round the world (and for which investors received just an hour’s notice) last night. For those of you who missed all the juicy details – or just enjoy feeling like a fly on the wall when it comes to once-inconceivable, market-altering events – here’s your cheat sheet of the highlights and the reactions. > read more

Bear Scare

What happens if your house is burning down – and there’s nothing worth taking with you? That’s the crux of investor worries over Bear Stearns, which, it is theorized, may be forced to seize collateral from Carlyle in the form of mortgage-backed securities (for lack of anything else to take) and not be able to sell it, leaving it hamstrung by fresh losses. A word on the bank’s options in putting this fire out. > read more

Silda’s Secret

How is it that insatiable husbands somehow always end up with stoical wives? An under-the-hood look at the long history of successful ladies who, for some reason, stand by their men – even when those men happen to be lying, cheating, publicly humiliating sneaks. > read more

Kindergarten-Copping The Credit Crunch

A credit crisis arises when many more promises are made than can possibly be kept and disputes emerge about how and to whom promises will be broken. Here, the argument for why it’s less a matter of SIVs than ABCs. > read more

Nymex-CME: Sealing The Deal?

As early as next week, we may see the juggernaut CME – despite private protests from Nymex shareholders and a crush of banks – buy the world’s biggest oil market, creating a financial, agricultural and industrial trading behemoth that defies imagination and brings it one step closer to world domination. > read more

Banks Hot For Hedgie Clones

Taking a page from a procession of other global banks, Credit Suisse is ripping the lid off a plan to muscle in on the nascent, but (potentially) highly lucrative, hedge fund-replication industry. If that sounds a tad antiseptic, it is. But when it comes to easy profits, beggars can’t be choosers. > read more

(Good) Friday Levity: Hit The Clown

With all the head-scratching these days over just how the subprime meltdown managed to move from Wall Street to Main Street, we’ve noticed the timely resurrection of this – the deposition of mortgage company CEO Aron Wider, whose dropping of the F-bomb during his grilling rivaled that of the script of Goodfellas (and, incidentally, showed just how awesome the people are running the mortgage market). Here, some of the more widely published highlights of his exceedingly blue transcript. > read more

Legends Of The Fall

Commodity prices are marching to new highs almost every day, but get ready: the “big fall” is coming soon, writes David Roche, president of Independent Strategy, a London-based investment consultancy, in Tuesday’s FT. Yep, we’ve heard it all before. > read more

Citi: The Final Move?

Completing what is being branded as Citigroup’s last shakeup after a series of reshufflings, CEO Vikram Pandit has tapped a longtime right-hand man to lead the company’s investment-banking division. But will this exec be able to overcome charges by underlings of being abrasive, noncommunicative and even partially responsible for Citi’s hedge fund hiccups? > read more

The Citi Shuffle

We never were much for the “co-head of whatever” trend anyway. We’re much bigger fans of unspoiled tyranny. And with that, may we present the latest Citi shuffling (reshuffling? shuffling in extremis?) effort: the removal of its co-heads of global equity finance and prime brokerage in favour of the leadership of one man. > read more

Blood On The Water

Looks like ex-Cerberus exec John Stomber’s Carlyle Capital has now run afoul a passel of margins calls and default notices, according to a news release it dropped very, very early this morning, noting that while its lenders were liquidating some of its mortgage securities the “additional margin calls and increased collateral requirements could quickly deplete its liquidity and impair its capital.” Did these guys not get the memo last August about the perils of overleveraging? > read more

Introducing...The Forced Vacation

Jittery over allowing London traders to repeat any Kerviel-like behavior, here’s what U.K. watchdogs are cooking up to head off trading fraud at the pass. > read more

What Would John Galt Do?

Who says we should have laissez-faire capitalism in good times and government-led bailouts in bad ones? Why anarchy – with a hefty dose of personal accountability – could be the answer. > read more

Scoreboard: JP Morgan Biggest Winner, Goldman Biggest Loser

And what kind of scoreboard would that be? Why it’s the one tracking hedge fund assets, piker. Check out the latest standings of all the top banks here – plus, the rankings of your fave brand-name hedge funds. > read more

Dumb Looks Are Still Free

This is a cool, macro story out from Bloomberg today about how even as the Fed eases worries about a broader financial collapse, everyone from hedge fund Peloton Partners to a small-time businesswoman in Fairfax, VA, is getting crushed by the credit crisis – with a lot of annoying lip service to boot. > read more

Citi’s Humbling

The stock of Citigroup is less prized these days than that of Bank of America, JPMorgan and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index. Not long ago, it was the biggest U.S. bank by assets. What the Sam Hill happened? > read more

Watch List: Gold Standard

Taken your share of profits this year from the black-gold market? Then celebrate by strapping one of these hunks of red gold to your wrist. > read more

Liquidity Vs Solvency: The Explainer

For those of you still puzzled by all the market talk about the stark difference between the two, this is an easy – and entertaining – way of looking at it. > read more

Angel Investor

We always knew the capitalist portion of the criminal mind could be put to good use. We just never thought anyone would actually leave a high-paying job to prove it. How Catherine Rohr decided to ditch her job to do just that. > read more

Blue Sky: Aerial Assault

Looking to stage a hostile takeover of the friendly skies? Behold the 787 VIP, your very own war room…with wings. > read more

Dollar Hits Three-Year Low

Carry traders, brace yourselves: your not-so-precious yen is flipping the script, with dramatic result. As markets prepare for speculative debt losses to spread, the yen has jumped from above Y108 to around Y103 to the dollar. But what to say to currency strategists like JPMorgan’s Tohru Sasaki, who go so far as to say that the yen will reach Y98 by the end of the month? > read more

U.S. stocks rallied the most in five years as earnings from Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. allayed concern investment banks are collapsing and the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark rate. Lehman, the fourth-biggest securities firm, had its steepest advance ever and helped lead financial stocks to their biggest gain since 2000, Bloomberg.com reports. > read more

Buffett Beats Gates

While 2007 did not turn out well for many (er, that is to say just about anyone) it was a very good year for Warren Buffett, who watched his fortunes climb $10 billion to – oh, just trust us, here; a lot. Since Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim again nabbed the No. 2 spot, guess where that leaves ol’ Bill after a 13-year run in the top spot? > read more

The Economic Malaise That Dare Not Speak Its Name

Unless the person talking is Warren Buffett and someone from CNBC is pointing a camera at him. The Seer of Omaha definitely uttered the R-word yesterday, eliciting gasps across the nation, and making clear that, at least in his mind, there is no doubt anymore as to what is happening in the U.S. That said, the situation is nowhere near as frightful as a few others he might – and did – mention. > read more

No End To Dollar Tailspin?

The dollar fell for a sixth straight day against the yen and hovered at a record low against the euro, as traders boosted bets that the Federal Reserve will slash interest rates again this month – and by no small increment. > read more

House Rules: Leap Year Doesn’t Count

Remember last week’s Leap Year bloodbath that made half the market weep? It never happened. Yup, that’s right. Call it the magic of the Fed. > read more

Dismal Dollar

With the Fed conceding a recession is “possible” and the broader market expecting it to slash interest rates again this month, the U.S. dollar is receiving its worst pummeling in three years. So, how low can it go? > read more

OECD: Growth Slowing To A Crawl

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has cut its forecast for growth this year and now expects expansion of ``less than'' 2 percent in its member nations, says Secretary General Angel Gurria. Get your latest details; forewarned is forearmed. > read more

Inflation Moves Into Deep Sea

If the cost of filling the average tank of gas is now close to the price of taking a family of four hundred to see Hannah Montana 3-D, what could that mean for the outlying regions of the U.S.? For example, the ocean? > read more

Euro Makes Fresh Victim Of Dollar

The European currency soared to a new record high against the greenback on speculation that the European Central Bank will keep its key interest rate at its highest in more than six years, even as the Federal Reserve reduces borrowing costs. Read on for more on how today’s events are expected to play out. > read more

Brother, Could You Spare That Dime I Just Spared Ya?

Banks that lent money to hedge funds are asking for some of it back. A closer look at how the falling value of mortgage-backed bonds and other investments is prompting lenders to get a lot bolder, demanding borrowers put up more cash, assets and firstborn children. > read more

E*Trade: Time To Bail?

Citadel Investment Group, which coughed up $1.75 billion to fund a capital infusion for ETrade in exchange for a 20% stake, is getting mighty edgy as the company’s stock price sags. Enter new CEO Donald Layton, former vice chairman of J.P. Morgan Chase and hopefully, just the man to wheedle a fat buyout offer from brokerage rivals such as TD Ameritrade or Charles Schwab. There’s only one problem: neither potential suitor has any interest in ETrade’s roughly $12 billion of increasingly troubled home-equity loans. > read more

Credit Squeeze Yet To Peak?

That’s the consensus of hundreds of private and institutional investors, who in a recent survey predicted the credit crunch likely would continue to intensify well into the second half of this year – and possibly even further. > read more

Hedge Fund: ‘Suckered’ By Banks

As financial markets boiled over in recent years, some Wall Street players began selling insurance against the possibility of things going wrong, in what seemed like an attempt at prudence. It wasn't. > read more

Bernanke To Lenders: Save Yourselves

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, raising the level of urgency in dealing with the nation's housing crisis, called on lenders to aid struggling homeowners by reducing their principal to lessen the likelihood of foreclosure, and endorsed a bigger role for the federal government in the backing of such mortgages. But will any of it work? > read more

Fight The Flashbacks

Having bad dreams? Getting the night sweats? Breaking out in hives at the mere mention of so-called “rogue traders”? You are not alone. You may be suffering from post-traumatic stress due to that long-ago billion-dollar trading loss you racked up – or almost racked up – on your employer. Some tales from the real-life traders who know your pain and lived to die another day. > read more

Cash Stash

If emerging data are to be believed, the lumber being stuffed under the mattresses of Corporate America is on the rise, recently crossing the $600 billion mark, according to the S&P industrial index. But one question remains: when do these cash-rich companies plan to start sharing the wealth? > read more

Friday Levity: Don’t @$%& Where You Sewage Treat

When your interest-rate swaps are uninsured – and tied to sewer debt – things can get a little messy. > read more

‘Irrational Pessimism’?

Is the bond market now so lowly rated as to be underrated? Just ask Jim Reid and his crack team at Deutsche Bank, which every year makes a habit of publishing this influential analysis of credit markets that puts current yields and fundamentals in historical perspective. > read more

UBS Fire Sale?

The stock of Europe’s largest bank is taking a pummeling today, falling to a five-year low in Swiss trading on news from squealing rival banks that it may have liquidated up to $24 billion in mortgage-backed securities, may have to take a slew of additional write-downs, might not pay a dividend this year and – with all that – still be compelled to raise more capital. Here, a tally of the likely damage. > read more

Blowing Bubbles

A fantastic explainer from The New York Times this past weekend (in case you didn’t see it) reveals why even the top market mavens overlooked the housing bubble. That said, we would like to know why we should be any less convinced that people simply chose to not acknowledge or deal with inflated housing prices, rather than fail to notice them. > read more

Bonus Retreat: Buyer’s Market

Which luxury indulgences are most deserving of your bonus cash? We polled our readers, and the survey says these following items are the year’s top capital investments. > read more

Small Cap

Had a nice little Tuesday? Successfully moved a few credit default swaps? Hey, you’ve pocketed enough to buy yourself a jet. > read more

Sound Investments

As Freud might have said, sometimes a set of ginormous stereo speakers is just a set of ginormous stereo speakers. Or not. But in this case, it most definitely is. We think. > read more

Prime Cuts

The simmering steak and the celebratory trader: You cannot have one without the other. (What else would you consume to mark an historic market killing? A tofu salad and a Tab?) Here’s how to tackle both arenas in style. > read more

Back In The USSR!

We scoured Trader Monthly’s international “archives” to unearth this 1989 Soviet edition — and excerpted just a few of its many timeless insights. > read more

Credit Suisse: Time To ‘Remediate’

We love that word, “remediate” – it is also used, we notice, to describe the clean-up efforts after a toxic-waste spill. Or in this case, what follows when a small band of what we assume to be otherwise virtuous traders intentionally mess with pricing models because, quite frankly, the alternative was rather too scary to contemplate. Today, the bank reveals the high cost of their fuzzy math – and it ain’t cheap. > read more

Asset Play

Don’t allow the token of your affection to be a token gesture. Give your special someone a sublime spirit — and an intoxicating bottle. > read more

Tombstone: Smart Cookie

A trip down memory lane, when Credit Suisse mixed it up in one of the more unlikely IPOs of the decade. > read more

Friday Levity: From The Hooker’s Mouth

The Freakonomics blog, via The New York Times Web site, gets up close and personal with a high-class prostitute who tells it like it is on all things Spitzer (withholding all the surname jokes today) and the ins and outs (no pun intended) of servicing the rich, the famous and the merely moneyed in the world’s oldest profession. > read more

Retreats: Large Cap

Behold Cap Cana, the Dominican Republic’s newest — and most obscenely ambitious — luxury real-estate enclave. > read more

Fashion: Power Tools

The clothes may make the man, but it's the accessories that make the money man. Here’s how to swing that bling. > read more

Home Equity: King Of The Mountain

Why settle for purchasing a piece of the valley when you can acquire a mountaintop instead? These new high-altitude residence clubs make the climb to the summit worthwhile. > read more

Road Show: Great Porsche, Bad Idea

Road Show The 911 Carrera S is both Porsche’s finest roadster — and its most deeply flawed. We put a fearless financier behind its wheel and shot up California’s Highway 1 to see if that flaw would prove fatal. > read more

Insider Surfing

Let the tourists splash around in the kiddie pools of Waikiki. For the trader who yearns to ride the waves of Hawaii’s more remote secret spots, the Kapalua Resort has a fixer for you. > read more

Fed Playbook Unveiled

We are guessing that Bloomberg is really reaching if it’s combing back through Bernanke statements issued as far back as far as 2002 for a hint at the future. That said, we’re just glad someone else decided to do it: we hear tell that squeezing a diamond from so many lumps of coal off the Fed Web site is about as fun as cleaning sugar out of your gas tank. > read more

Contrarian: Money Trail

How Westwood Capital's Dan Alpert is working with overextended homeowners to profit from the mortgage mess. > read more

Second Société Générale Trader Arrested

French financial police searched Société Générale's trading room Wednesday and took into custody a male employee from the bank's cash equity trading department. According to The International Herald Tribune, the police are questioning Manuel Zabraniecki, who joined Société Générale's equity sales desk in October 2006, and who was one of 11 people originally listed as friends of Jerome Kerviel on his personal profile on the Facebook social networking site. > read more

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