Like most bloggers, I have a big fat mouth and sometimes it opens before the brain it’s attached to can complete the necessary processes. UNLIKE most bloggers, however, I’m not afraid to admit when I’ve spoken in error and I am certainly no stranger to making apologies. Get ready for a little contrition, as there…
AIG
Correcting the Rest of the "Headline Readers" on Goldman Sachs
There’s a pet name I’ve privately assigned to many of the bloggers out there who are so obsessed with covering every story that they barely read actual articles anymore. It’s “Headline Readers“. You know who they are and so do they, so we’ll leave it at that. Now that the government has just released its…
Love Smoking Crack? AND Investing? Allow Me to Introduce…AIG!
Love smoking crack? Love investing, also? Well now you can combine two of your favorite activities, enjoying both at the same time! How, you ask? Simple! Allow me to introduce you to…AIG, the former insurance company stock that now exists purely for trading purposes: Here’s a “stock” that for any reason (or no reason at all) on…
We Interrupt This Rally To Bring You The Following Foreclosure Stats…
Is this thing on? Check one two. Hello everybody. Quite the party we’re having here on Wall Street. My friends will tell you that I’m the polar opposite of someone who wants to bring any party to a crashing halt. Especially one as mind-blowing as this (did I see the dollar AND stocks up on…
The Incredible Shrinking Finance Sector
This is very cool. The New York Times put up a moving infographic that shows the progression of the 29 largest financial firms and how they first shrank since 2007 and then began to grow again. The graph above shows them from the starting point at the market’s peak in October 2007. The one below…
Lapping the Crisis Quarter Makes For Pretty Headlines
As I’ve just thoroughly enjoyed the opening weekend games of the NFL, I thought I’d start with a football analogy to make my case. Here is a bizarre but true factoid that exemplifies the drawing of flawed conclusions based purely on logic: If the Detroit Lions win a single game in the 2009 season, their…
Hot Links: Venom Mickey
Stuff I’m Reading this Morning… FDIC’s Sheila Bair makes the case against having just one banking super-regulator in this morning’s op-ed. (NYT) Are you following the JunkDEX? Guess what the components are…lol. (VIXandMore) Check this huge graphic out: The Anti-Fed Fact Sheet. (VisualEconomics) Chinese ADR’s outperforming actual Chinese stocks…’cause we westerners know better what your…
A Metaphor for Being Short AIG
This is what it must feel like to have been short AIG this month… [vodpod id=Groupvideo.3212572&w=425&h=350&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26] X X X Full Disclosure: I have no positions, long or short, in shares of AIG for client or personal accounts. Nothing on this site should be construed as advice or an invitation to buy or sell any securities,…
Breakfast Links: CIT, Jimmy Carter & The Grapes of Wrath
Stuff I’m Reading this Morning… The exact date that the Chinese stock market will collapse. (MoneyScience) Stick a fork in CIT Group, 1908-2009. (Bloomberg) They caught the runaway Credit Sueeeeesse broker, and no, he wasn’t at Le Cirque. (NYT) Virginia is for Usury. (LOLFed) JPMorgan smokes their numbers, 28 cents vs 4 cents expected…get ’em…
The Man Who Crashed the World in Vanity Fair
As we’ve discussed before, AIG‘s little hidden hedge fund, Financial Products Group, not only took down the world’s largest insurance company, it had a huge hand in the global meltdown last fall. While some of AIG’s counter-parties came out pretty unscathed (Goldman Sachs), the rest of the financial complex surely did not. While there were…
