March 31, 2008
I know, I know, magazine/newspaper contrarian cover indicators are passe, but still ... this overdone one from The Independent has to be worth something, doesn't it? [Update] Good, empirically-minded takedown of the article's argument here....
Interesting to see that activist hedge fund Pardus Capital is being forced to stop redemptions. The firm has positions in the Delta Airlines, United Airlines, and Atos Origin, and on Monday it apparently told investors couldn't (temporarily) have their money...
As a regular exercise, I like to ask myself to come up with a list of things that I currently believe, but there is a higher than average chance I'm wrong about. It's always a good exercise. Some examples: The...
Does being in the right social network mean an easier time getting credit? Good question. An interesting new paper looks whether Freemasons favor one another with loans: Using a unique data set of 410 companies quoted on the London Stock...
Here is a poster-child for how hot sectors don't always translate into hot stocks: The GPS business is booming, with such location devices being the hot product this past Christmas, and lots of heat, but sector kingpin Garmin is touching...
It's easy to take potshots at the Paulson plan, and I haven't resisted doing that, especially its embrace of new regulations, but is there anything to like about it? Sure. It's nice to see an attempt to harmonize a system...
The wet weather records set in March of 2008 have me thinking at least as much about global wetting as about global warming: Record or near record precipitation occurred in a swath from eastern Texas into the Ohio Valley and...
With the Brazilian real having its first monthly decline against the U.S. dollar since November, and BRIC (Brazil/Russia/India/China) markets all having a bad run -- the Shanghai Composite is off 34% this year -- I thought it timely to take...
At an admittedly cursory first read, my initial reaction to the Treasury plan to save us all from financial markets is to short housing and insurance. Those are the two main areas that will a new and heavier regulatory burden....
Tom Perkins of Kleiner Perkins fame has his mega-super-yacht Maltese Falcon for sale. Launched only in the summer of 2006, and nos being sold for $166m or so, this is not going be a 10x exit for the former venture...
