• Obama’s Presser
    Posted by on March 25th, 2009 at 9:12 am

    At the 42:25 mark of this video, President Obama takes a question from a reporter with Ebony. Naturally, Richard Pryor and Tim Reid were three decades ahead of themselves (3:38 mark).

  • Dear Mr. Liddy, I Quit
    Posted by on March 25th, 2009 at 9:09 am

    The New York Times reprints a resignation letter sent from a Veep at AIG’s Financial Products division. All I can say is read the whole thing.

  • Pounding the Tables for Sysco
    Posted by on March 25th, 2009 at 8:41 am

    Barron’s has nice things to say about Sysco (SYY), one of our Buy List stocks:

    There’s no doubt that Sysco, the nation’s largest foodservice distributor, is facing tough times as cash-strapped consumers cut back on visits to restaurants, the company’s biggest customer.
    However, management has been able to pare expenses successfully — Sysco actually beat analysts’ estimates last month on cost-cutting measures — leaving it with a growing dividend, currently yielding 4.2%, and plenty of free cash. Also, as smaller rivals struggle, Sysco, with its heft, can more easily steal market share and buy troubled competitors.
    “It’s happened before; they come out stronger after a recession and pick up new customers,” says BB&T analyst Andrew Wolf. “Though this environment is really unprecedented, they have very strong free cash flow and operating culture to manage through this.”
    Indeed, the company has outperformed its peers in the last year. The stock lost 23% in the past 12 months, about half the 41.8% loss seen by the broader market, and ahead of its rivals tracked by the Dow Jones Food Retailer & Wholesalers Index, down 28.5%.
    With a forward price-to-earnings multiple of 12.5, near its historic lows, this is an excellent time for investors to get into this industry-leading “best of class” company, as Wolf calls it.

  • Bond Auction FAIL
    Posted by on March 25th, 2009 at 8:37 am

    The British government tried to auction off 1.75 billion pounds worth of 4.25% 40-year bonds. The total bids they got were only worth 1.63 billion pounds.
    That’s not a good sign. I don’t think Gordo will be around much longer.

  • Top Hedge Fund Earnings Last Year
    Posted by on March 25th, 2009 at 8:18 am

    Alpha Magazine looks at what the top hedgies pulled down last year:
    1. James Simons (Renaissance Technologies Corp.) $2.5 billion
    2. John Paulson (Paulson & Co.) $2 billion
    3. John Arnold (Centaurus Energy) $1.5 billion
    4. George Soros (Soros Fund Management) $1.1 billion
    5. Raymond Dalio (Bridgewater Associates) $780 million

  • Yesterday’s Rally
    Posted by on March 24th, 2009 at 10:15 am

    The S&P 500 had its fourth-best day yesterday since the 1930s. The top two days came last October. Number three came after the market crash in 1987. Bloomberg notes that the last two weeks have seen the best 10-day run since 1938.

  • Paging Sherman McCoy
    Posted by on March 24th, 2009 at 9:58 am

    From Bloomberg:

    Eat-What-You-Kill Bond Traders Rise From Wall Street Wreckage
    Wall Street bond trading is heading back to the 1980s, when private partnerships and independent firms dominated the market.
    Jon Bass, who traded debt five seats from Salomon Brothers Inc. Chairman John Gutfreund and later helped run fixed income at UBS AG, joined equity broker BTIG LLC to help start its credit operation last month. BTIG, with a pool table and gym adjoining its seventh-floor midtown Manhattan trading room, is one of more than 50 credit dealers seeking to take advantage of the widening gap at which securities are bought and sold.
    Smaller firms are emerging from the wreckage of the world’s largest financial companies, which are conserving capital following more than $1.2 trillion of writedowns and credit losses since the start of 2007. They’re luring traders with a shot at $500,000 commissions for two days’ work as banks that accepted federal bailouts retrench and slash bonuses.
    “I don’t mean to dance on anybody’s graves here, but it’s just this incredible opportunity to reassemble a securities firm that does business the right way,” said Lee Fensterstock, chief executive officer of one of the firms, Broadpoint Securities Group Inc. in New York. “That business is going to lead with brain as opposed to capital. We’re not planning to run big balance sheets or big leveraged positions.”

  • Hey Can I Play?
    Posted by on March 23rd, 2009 at 1:56 pm

    Timmy’s plan is a pretty good deal for institutional investors. You basically have the government as your silent partner and your downside is limited. James Kwak at Baseline Scenario thinks the public should be allowed in on the action as well.
    Thanks to BlackRock, individuals may have a way to invest:

    BlackRock will raise money from investors such as pension funds and endowments for the new Treasury programs, Fink said. The company might consider creating mutual funds so that individual investors can also participate.

  • Hedge-Fund Investors Hire Private Investigators
    Posted by on March 23rd, 2009 at 12:36 pm

    Bloomberg finds an interesting story; investors in hedge funds are hiring private investigators to look into the funds:

    Background checks can take from two to six weeks, and may cost about $1,000 for each individual or company investigated, according to the firms.
    “Basically you don’t want managers to have distractions that will impact their decision making,” said Michael Dubin, president of New York-based The LongChamp Group Inc., which allocates client money to hedge funds.
    Background searches helped Cole Partners Asset Management LLC stay away from managers that were later found to have had run-ins with regulators, said Rian Akey, chief operating officer of the Chicago-based firm, which channels money into hedge funds.
    Akey said a check done three years ago on a New York-based hedge fund found that in 1999 the managers had paid fines amounting to $500,000 for violating trading rules. “That was enough to put us off,” he said, declining to name the fund.

  • AIG Renames Itself
    Posted by on March 23rd, 2009 at 11:41 am

    AIU.
    At least the good parts will be called that. It really doesn’t seem like much of a change.