• Jimmy Cayne on Geithner
    Posted by on March 4th, 2009 at 11:16 pm

    The former CEO of Bear Stearns opines on Tim Geithner:

    The audacity of that p—k in front of the American people announcing he was deciding whether or not a firm of this stature and this whatever was good enough to get a loan,” he said. “Like he was the determining factor, and it’s like a flea on his back, floating down underneath the Golden Gate Bridge, getting a h–d-on, saying, ‘Raise the bridge.’ This guy thinks he’s got a big d–k. He’s got nothing, except maybe a boyfriend. I’m not a good enemy. I’m a very bad enemy. But certain things really—that bothered me plenty. It’s just that for some clerk to make a decision based on what, your own personal feeling about whether or not they’re a good credit? Who the f–k asked you? You’re not an elected officer. You’re a clerk. Believe me, you’re a clerk. I want to open up on this f—-r, that’s all I can tell you.

    This vaguely reminds me something but I can’t quite place it.

    Willard: They told me that you had gone totally insane, and that your methods were unsound.
    Kurtz: Are my methods unsound?
    Willard: I don’t see any method at all, sir.
    Kurtz: I expected someone like you. What did you expect? Are you an assassin?
    Willard: I’m a soldier.
    Kurtz: You’re neither. You’re an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill.

  • Dennis Kneale as Dexter?
    Posted by on March 4th, 2009 at 7:34 pm

    The Reformed Broker gives us CNBC Separated at Birth?
    BTW, Ron Insana is the best.

  • Obama Says Buy!
    Posted by on March 3rd, 2009 at 7:47 pm

    Sorta:

    “What you’re now seeing is profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you’ve got a long-term perspective on it.”

    The president later failed to mention what business school he didn’t attend.

  • Investor Quiz: Guess What’s Down for 11 of the Past 12 Sessions?
    Posted by on March 3rd, 2009 at 7:00 pm

    I’ll give you a hint: It begins with S&P and ends with 500.
    Give up?
    The last time this happened was May 8 to 24, 1984.
    The mega-bear market that ended in 1982 finished with 14 down days in 15 sessions.

  • The P/E Sits Just Above November’s Low
    Posted by on March 3rd, 2009 at 2:58 pm

    Despite yesterday’s unpleasantness, the market’s P/E Ratio remains a hair above the low from November. What this means is that stock prices have fallen a tiny bit less than earnings. Of course, there won’t be much of any earnings soon.
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  • Ugh!
    Posted by on March 2nd, 2009 at 6:11 pm

    Today was a wipeout. The S&P 500 dropped below 700 for the first time since October 28, 1996, just days before the 1996 Presidential Election. To add some perspective, Barack Obama was just 35 years old at the time. Neither of his children was even born.
    The Dow dropped to 6763.29. Obviously, traders were glued to this site since the Dow closed within inches of the Fibonacci number 6765.

  • Since September the Dow Utilities are Up 118%!
    Posted by on March 2nd, 2009 at 2:40 pm

    By September, I meant the one in 1929.

  • “They really did things that seemed outlandish”
    Posted by on March 2nd, 2009 at 2:19 pm

    In Vanity Fair, Vicky Ward delivers 5,000 words on Walter Noel and the Noel clan. Either Ward or Noel has been reading too much Fitzgerald:

    Another person who spends time in Southampton recalls, “They really did things that seemed outlandish. The first summer they were here, I won’t forget seeing two of the daughters blocking traffic on Jobs Lane, leaning out of their convertibles, talking to each other and making what sounded like idle plans and blowing kisses, as if they owned the street—literally for five full minutes while a line of too-polite-to-honk Southampton matrons sat in silence.”
    This person also complained, “They lit up their house like a Vegas casino, which shocked some of their neighbors on the pond [Lake Agawam],” who called police several times to complain about noise and music coming from the house at night. “It is not a quality that endeared them to their neighbors, including [investor] Ezra Zilkha, [NBC New York news anchor] Chuck Scarborough, [writer] Tom Wolfe, and [financier] George McFadden [who died last year], who all cherished their quiet summer weekends.”

  • The Dow is Now Below 6900
    Posted by on March 2nd, 2009 at 11:35 am

    The Dow has been as low as 6852 today. For what it’s worth, 6765 is a Fibonacci number. I have no idea what this means, but if you mention it to someone at work today, it will guarantee to impress them.

  • Revenge of the Glut
    Posted by on March 2nd, 2009 at 10:31 am

    The other day I opened my credit card bill and I was surprised by how small it was. I didn’t realize how much I had cut back on consumption. It wasn’t a conscious effort, it just sorta of…happened.
    In macroeconomic terms, what I did was a bad thing. By saving, I’m not spending money which would become someone else’s income. Keynes called this as “the paradox of thrift.”
    Apparently, I’m not alone. The government reported that the national savings rate bumped up to 5% in January from 3.9% in December. A year ago, it was at 0.1%. Here’s a graphical look.
    In yesterday’s column, Paul Krugman said,”we’re suffering from a global paradox of thrift: around the world, desired saving exceeds the amount businesses are willing to invest. And the result is a global slump that leaves everyone worse off.”