Long time readers are familiar with my fascination with antique sports cars. One of my pals, Jan, is a well known Porsche collector who is also affiliated with the International Automotive Appraisers Association (IAAA). Its a hobby for him, and he specializes in the rehabilitation and appraisal of antique sports cars. He has rebuilt and appraised everything from celebrity Bugattis to classic Ferraris to modern supercars.
I call Jan "landed gentry" -- he's owned a major car rental firm (sold it), develops real estate, buys/sells land and houses. He is quasi-retired, leaving him plent
“In good times, few focus on such ‘mundane’ issues as earnings quality and footnotes. However, this lack of attention to ‘detail’ tends to come back and bite investors in the arse during bad times. There are notable exceptions to this generalization…
Contrary to the silly populist backlash which sees short sellers as rumor mongers and conspirators, they are actually amongst the most fundamentally driven of all the investors I interact with. Rather than being some malignant force within the markets, in my experience short sellers are closer to the accounting police (something the SEC once purported to do!).
Whilst companies often accuse short sellers of lying and conspiracy, it turns out that the accusers are often the guilty party. Owen Lamont from Chicago University has examined th
Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch (Oct. 23, 1960 - July 25, 2008) gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving presentation, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals.
Randy finally lost his battle to cancer early Friday morning . . .
William Poole, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St.
Louis, talks about Standard & Poor's proposed downgrade of Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac bonds, June's durable goods and new homes data
released today, and the outlook for legislation to aid the hobbled
mortgage market.
click for video
00:00 Possible S&P action on Freddie, Fannie bonds 01:00 Economic indicators of durable goods report 02:28 Housing bill; Fannie, Freddie lobbying 04:15 Need for Fannie, Freddie to be private firms 05:11 Access to Fed discount window; oil prices 06:54 "Balancing act" of Fed on inflation, economy 07:52 Lob
Nicely structured reasoning via Barron's Randall Forsyth:
Borrowings at the Federal Reserve's discount window averaged a record $16.4 billion in the week ended Wednesday, up $2.5 billion from a week earlier. A spokesman for the New York Fed had no explanation for the jump.
That, by the way, doesn't include any of the new-fangled lending to securities dealers, which were nil in the latest week. (The Fed's $29 billion of financing of the Bear Stearns assets in the JPMorgan Chase acquisition resides under the quaint heading of "holdings of Maiden Lane LLC.")
Keeping the borrowing from the so-called PDCF, or Primary Dealer Lending Facility, would seem to be a significant impetus behind the Securities and Exchange Commission's crackdown on naked short-selling of big financial stocks, observes Joan McCullough of East Shore Partners.
