12 Sept 2010
No one helps Bank analyst Bove in hour of need
But if his claim that several associations that represent stock analysts or the securities industry declined his requests to help him pay his legal bills it leaves a sour taste in the mouth - to say the least. What use are the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the New York Society of Security Analysts and the CFA Institute if they decline to make a stand for independent investment research. To cap it all, they declined to comment when approached by the New York Times. Even worse - the investment bank Ladenburg Thalmann, his then employer, chose to settle its end of the case by paying BankAtlantic $350,000, without admitting to any wrongdoing, and leaving Mr. Bove to defend himself. We are glad to report that Bove won his court case against the Bank but is still left with legal bills totalling $800,000. The stakes in a case like this are high as any successful lawsuit against an analyst would deter critical analyst comments in the future and stifle independent research.
11 Sept 2010
Investment Banking: tough to make it pay
10 Sept 2010
FSA fines Goldman Sachs $31 million
9 Sept 2010
Masters of the Universe: Memento Mori!
8 Sept 2010
Barnier: get out of Europe, fast!
7 Sept 2010
Banking Reform: Tinkering leads to bureaucratic monster
6 Sept 2010
Sauve qui peut!
4 Sept 2010
US sanctions akin to tolls exacted by robber barons
HSH Nordbank: Management plays power games
2 Sept 2010
FACTA: Will the EU stop US power grab?
A Stalinist Approach to Banking
28 Aug 2010
Cash bonuses reduce risk - Study
27 Aug 2010
Musings of a Hedge Fund Manager
Bank Capital should be 13 pct - Basel Committee
24 Aug 2010
Image Campaigns - do they make sense for Banks?
Image Campaigns may well have a role to play for banks that are active in the mass market but for banks that are mainly involved in the institutional or high networth market a more focused approach must be the preferred route.
23 Aug 2010
Who should regulators be accountable to?
2 Aug 2010
Pay rules: Bureaucratic nightmare in the making?
The average employee has zero influence on the overall risk profile and financial performance of his employer. A small circle of top managers is wholly responsible for the success of any enterprise in our system of corporate governance and any major delay in paying the much-needed pay-checks to staff further down the rung will only massively demotivate staff - and in many cases make them willing to consider a move to friendlier shores.
26 Jul 2010
Verdict on Dood-Frank bank reforms
"Based on sound-thinking courageous judgement, the Glass-Steagall legislation was only 17 pages long. Packed with wheezes and loop-holes, Dodd-Frank runs to 2,319 pages. Enough said"
14 Jul 2010
Limits to Vulture Funds?
6 Jul 2010
Goldman cannot separate Derivative Profits
We can only assume that some information got lost on the way from the FCIC to the reporter as we can not imagine that at a time when computing power is so abundant it would not be possible to separate the profitability by product - down to the P&L of each individual transaction.
4 Jul 2010
Re-Recruit your team every day
Lagarde: Stress tests will show EU banks healthy
8 Jun 2010
Germany: Compliance Madness
27 May 2010
Banking: Maturity Mismatch continues
26 May 2010
FSA behaves like a traffic warden
25 May 2010
Bank Chief: Savers should lose in bank failure
24 May 2010
Dubai debt settlement leaves sour taste
Banks are still allowed to play in Private Equity?
Abacus CDO Deal: Moral Equivalency
Neo-Feudalism will kill London Financial Centre
23 May 2010
Financial Non-Reform in the US
SEC: non-report on 1000 point drop in Dow Jones
8 May 2010
Client or Counterparty?
To ask for full disclosure from a securities dealer would be like asking a Bond Street jeweler to disclose the production cost of the latest Rolex watch and 'advise' the customer on the merits of the purchase.
7 May 2010
Goldman PR counterattack: Risking Overkill?
6 May 2010
Derivative Clearinghouse no magic Bullet?
Hedge Fund Wolves destroyed Bear Stearns?
30 Apr 2010
Private Equity Investment in Banks poses Risk
27 Apr 2010
Credit Derivatives: Ban speculative Buyers of 'Protection'
Goldman most powerful Bank?
23 Apr 2010
Lacking CDO Disclosure: Who is to blame?
Bank Reform: Ban on non-bank business
Financial Reform: rejoinder to Ferguson and Forstmann
"Wrong, Wrong, Wrong! The three goals CAN be addressed at the same time, it just depends on how you define the words depression economy, bail out and efficient capital markets. All these terms leave plenty of room for discussion (and disagreement). Bail-outs can be done in a phased way for example, first wipe out the shareholders (and management options and restricted stock), then impose haircuts on bondholders and large depositors. Assuming that banks in the future will face tighter regulation (limits on maturity mismatch, higher capital ratios, limits on risks by industry, geography, limits on prop trading, no non-bank investments such as hedge funds or private equity) bail-out costs will be more calculable. With respect to 'efficient' capital markets we give just one aspect where there may be disagreement with respect to an appropriate definition -does an efficient capital market have to include the ability to trade share in nano seconds at the expense of the broader investing public? Reforms are possible that leave us with capital markets that are sufficiently 'efficient' to finance business and industry."
22 Apr 2010
Financial Reform Bills - the case for democratic reform
When financial reform bills are 1273 and 1336 pages long as in the case of bills that have been passed or debated by the US Congress one can only say that this is legislation run amok. I would not expect a single member of congress to pass a simple multiple choice exam about the content of these bills and as a consequence one has to assume that a lot of nonsense is being passed that will hardly improve the situation for investors or taxpayers in the country. What is demonstrated by this perverted legislative process is the need to reign in overbearing and/or incompetent governments and parliamentarians. Anyone interested in how to bring this change should visit www.dirdem.org
Fabrice Tourre: Goldman's sacrificial lamb?
21 Apr 2010
IMF - full of bureaucrats and tax dodgers
Disclosure no safeguard against deception
20 Apr 2010
What is socially useful work?
Glass Steagall is good for you!
Dick Fuld's Ignorance: argument for smaller Banks
Goldman's CDO Investors - were they stupid?
The CDO product at the center of the SEC's case against Goldman Sachs raises the question: were the 'sophisticated' investors (including ironically the middleman Goldman Sachs) that bought into this transaction stupid or victims (or both)? Leaving the legal and factual arguments for the moment out of the discussion - what was the motivation that caused the fund managers at IKB and ABN Amro to buy securities that were one or two steps removed from any real underlying economic transaction? Speaking from experience I can see them as busy, maybe even diligent people who were working in a set of parameters that prevented them from questioning certain assumptions at the heart of the structured product business: that securitised products contain what the label promises, that companies with a certain public image behave in a way that confirms this image, that all players on the field can be trusted to pursue goals that do not harm the other participants.
Securitisation in particular is critically dependent on trust as the buyers in effect must give a certain amount of leeway to the creator of the product they are purchasing. The whole business idea underlying securitisation is the fact that the buyer does not want to - or is not able to - to buy the underlying assets himself. In effect, he buys a packaged product and can never expect to fully analyse all the assets - would he do so he could as well purchase these assets directly thus disposing of the need for securitisation.