Here’s a stat that doesn’t get a ton of attention but continues to increase… From the AFP: WASHINGTON — The number of failed regional US banks exceeded 100, after authorities announced the collapse of seven more financial institutions around the country. A total of 106 regional banks failed in the United States this year, a…
October 2009
Big Week For Econ Data, All Eyes On Q3 GDP
Virtually everyone I speak with on The Street is looking toward Thursday morning’s GDP report for the 3rd quarter of 2009. This is supposedly THE quarter, the one that proves we are, in fact, growing again. When explaining to clients what the GDP report actually is, I use the following quick-and-dirty equation: Consumption + Investment…
Hot Links: Pete Rose, Harvard & SpongeBob SquarePants
Stuff I’m Reading this Morning… Rally notwithstanding, insider buying down big, insider selling triples. (PragCap) What on earth is going on at TheStreet.com? (ZeroHedge) Harvard sold at the bottom. (Forbes) Matt Taibbi’s Yankees prediction doesn’t quite pan out. (Clusterstock) Europe to be powered by the Saharan sun. (NewScientist) Justifying hedgie insider trading is like defending…
Jeffry Picower, a Madoff Castmember, Found Dead
This development is sure to ignite a torrent of speculation and conspiracizing this week… From the New York Times: Jeffry M. Picower, a prominent philanthropist accused of reaping about $7 billion in profit from Bernard L. Madoff’s vast Ponzi scheme, was found dead on Sunday afternoon in a swimming pool at his mansion in Palm…
Bohemian Bankruptcy
I don’t usually post song parody videos as the vast majority of them are corny. Every time someone sends me a video of MBA students rapping, I want to stick a fork in my eyes and pour wet concrete into my ears just to end the cringing pain. This one, however is cool. Think Freddie…
Blaming Retail Investors for Commodity Prices
“Commodity index rolls have little futures price impact, and inflows and outflows from commodity index investment do not cause futures prices to change” I haven’t come out strongly on either side of this issue because my job presents me with a dilemma. On the one hand, I believe that individual investors have played at least…
Wal-Mart: Emerging Markets Investing Guru
I caught this in Barron’s today and thought it was a remarkably interesting story. Apparently, Wal-Mart (WMT) has a knack for picking emerging markets to open up shop in, as said markets tend to outperform countries that Wal-Mart skips. From Foreign Policy Magazine: When India’s first Wal-Mart opened this summer in Amritsar, the response was…
Hot Links: Rules of the Internet
Hot Links for Weekend Reading… Joe Nocera: Where’s Our Bonus? (NYT) The truth about yesterday’s Existing Home Sales data. (TheBigPicture) The Hoffmans’s continue flogging Roubini, this time with a video. (RealClearMarkets) Controversy over Dick Bove’s intraday opinion shift on Well Fargo. (FTAlphaville) Hulu is an H Bomb, Destroying the Television Industry. (Clusterstock) Matt Drudge has…
Seven Things You Should Know 9/23/09
Seven Things You Should Know October 23rd 2009 1. The trailing 10-year total return for the S&P 500 as of the end of 2008 was negative, the first time this had occurred at the end of a calendar year since 1939. (source: BTN Research) 2. The actual results for fiscal year 2009 (i.e., the 12…
Winners and Sinners: Synovus Financial (SNV)
Synovus Financial (SNV) looks like it was hit by a bus today, down 21% from last night’s close as of this posting on a worse than expected earnings report. What’s notable about this Georgia-based bank is that in a rush to get long some banks this summer and fall, SNV was mentioned favorably by way too…
