“Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss” – The Who, Won’t Get Fooled Again The Morgan Stanley Smith Barney (MS) experiment is underway. According to the AP, not much will change to start with, other than new business cards and a new phone greeting from the receptionist. The cultures of these two white shoe…
The Executioner Wore Abercrombie
Who is Brian Deese? You’re going to love this one. He’s the latest heartthrob out of the Obama administration who’s been called up to run the GM bailout/ bankruptcy/ clusterf&ck. And he’s, like, 31 years old. From the New York Times: A bit laconic and looking every bit the just-out-of-graduate-school student adjusting to life in…
Creativity vs. the Quants
It was only a matter of time… From the New York Times: (Advertising firms) are bringing some Wall Street-like analysis to Madison Avenue, exploiting the huge amounts of data produced by the Internet to adjust strategy almost instantly. So now instead of someone coming up with the next great tagline or catchy ad slogan, the…
John Mauldin: An Unpayable Deficit?
John Mauldin‘s latest newsletter, entitled This Way Be Dragons (Thoughts from the Frontline), tackles the big problem that the bulls don’t want to think about yet: How will the $1.2 trillion deficit we’ve got in the oven ever be paid off? While Obama gives lip service to cutting the deficit in half, his actual budget…
Hot Links: Bling, the 90's, Wharton and American CEO's
Hot Links for Weekend Reading… What was the best post of the year in each of Knowledge@Wharton‘s first ten years? Here’s what David Merkel of the Aleph Blog thinks are the thirteen most important aspects to our current economy. The Wall Street Journal needs to look itself in the mirror after this one: The Bling Culture…
Market Recap: Of Silver and Centipedes
[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.830915&w=425&h=350&fv=] The Reformed Broker, AKA Goldie Hawn here with today’s Market Recap… When they write the book on May of 2009, they won’t be talking about General Motors’ (GM) long-overdue bankruptcy, they’ll be talking about the raging, historic rally in commodities. Here’s a quick glimpse at this month’s Silver run (the biggest monthly percentage gain for…
Droppin' Knowledge: Doug Kass Takes on the Perma-Bears
“I have often written that both perma-bears and perma-bulls are attention-getters, not money-makers.” Doug Kass, May 2009 On May 27th, TRB fave commentator Doug Kass of Seabreeze Partners and TheStreet.com took on the Cult of the Perma-Bears. As someone who is often characterized as a bear, he sought to establish the difference between people who have…
Hot Links: Too Lazy To Post Edition
Hot Links for Friday Reading Hey kids, here’s what I’m reading this morning… What’s the most thankless job you can think of? Try being Irving Picard, the Decider of the Madoff affair. Trustee in Madoff Case (NYT) More from the “commercial real estate is the next shoe to drop” camp. New Debt Fears in Commercial…
This Just In: Ackman Gets Smoked by Target's Board
From Reuters: 14:47 TARGET CORPORATION SHAREHOLDERS ELECT COMPANY’S DIRECTOR NOMINEES Supposedly the margin was over 70% voting for the Target (TGT) board, against Ackman and Pershing Square. We’ll see if the rest of my prediction comes true. Better luck next time, Bill. Read Also: Why Ackman Can’t Back Down No Market Recap Tonight…Thanks for reading…
Yes, Melissa…OPEC is, in fact, a Cartel
CNBC’s Melissa Francis inadvertently ticked off one of the lovely OPEC ministers she was pointlessly attempting to interview by referring to the organization as a “Cartel“. Melissa shouldn’t apologize, she was right on the money… From Wikipedia: A cartel is a counterfeit agreement among industries. It is an informal organization of producers that…
