Stuff I’m Reading this Morning… Not just tent cities anymore, more like a Tent Metropolis in Nashville, TN. (WSJ) The SEC kids were dropping off resumes after auditing Bernie Madoff. Nice. (NYP) Felix Salmon saw the Scariest Billboard of the Day in NYC yesterday. (Reuters) My favorite read of the week: Lunch and a discussion…
FT
Melt It Like Beckham: Major Changes for the Indian Gold Market
Very quietly, two developments occurred in India over the last week that could have major implications for the gold market. Both of these developments could portend drastic changes in gold demand from a key market, just as the inflationistas believe they are at the threshold of a paradigm shift in the precious metal’s pricing. First…
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: 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…
Dr. Doom on Hyperinflation
Many economists are scoffing at the potential for hyperinflation here in the United States as housing price declines, unemployment and auto sector weakness dominate the headlines. I don’t know if scoffing is the best idea right about now. I have frequently been discussing the possibility of hyperinflation both with clients and here on TRB. Earlier this month, I…
Tax Evasion Central Cutting PaineWebber Brokers
How does a big Swiss bank built on stolen Nazi gold, hidden money from African and Middle Eastern despots and un-taxed lucre from wealthy Americans with cross-border connections react to yet another multi-billion dollar quarterly loss? That’s easy! It fires stockbrokers. From the Financial Times: 2,500 will go in wealth management Americas, the former PaineWebber…
Hot Links: Charlie, AOL, J Crew, MLB, Schumer & Biden
Hot Links for Weekend Reading Let’s start off with The Daily Beast’s Charlie Gasparino‘s take on the BofA/ Ken Lewis/ John Thain showdown. Thain went off on his former boss but Charlie stayed neutral: “Watching these guys go at it is kind of like watching old World War II footage of battles between Germans and…
Hot Links: Poor Celebs, Spitzer, Analysts in Love & Holy Trading
Hot Links for Weekend Reading Let’s kick things off with Stockwire’s list of Celebrities who are poorer than you, including Gary Coleman and Kim Basinger. Next up, here’s the story of an analyst who fell in love with the CEO of a company she covered and what FINRA decided to do about it…Bill Singer’s BrokeAndBroker.com…
Who Else Got Pushed Around by Hank Paulson?
I just sat down and digested the B of A/Merrill Lynch Merger Investigation letter and I felt like I was reading excerpts from a Godfather IV script treatment. Ken Lewis is no innocent, but Hank Paulson comes off like a f@ckin’ psycho in Andrew Cuomo‘s letter to the SEC and TARP oversight committee. Cuomo basically…
These Little Piggies Went to Market
Apparently, there is an explosion in new equity offerings and even new debt offerings coming from the REIT sector. The Real Estate Investment Trusts are raising cash from investors while they can, and high-profile deals have already gotten done by Simon Properties (SPG) and Kimco (KIM). From FT: There is an appetite from institutional investors…
