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Guest Blog: Financial Crisis and Reform Déjà Vu

Menzie Chinn — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 01:01:01 +0000

By Simon van Norden

Today, we're fortunate to have Simon van Norden, Professor of Finance at HEC Montréal (École des Hautes Études Commerciales), as a guest blogger.

"Once you've seen one financial market crisis...you've seen one financial market crisis."

-- Attributed to Federal Reserve Board Governor Kevin Warsh by former US Treasury Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy Phillip Swagel in The Financial Crisis: an Inside View, March 2009, p. 4.

The financial crisis has set a lot of records so far; it's certainly the worst US banking crisis of my lifetime. Some, as suggested by the above quote, see such crises as unique events; each one is singular and there's not much to be learned about how to handle one from looking at past crises. For example, there's no precedent that I know of for a banking crisis involves the failure of the biggest counterparties for credit default swaps.

I think a much smaller number of people see the crisis differently; they think of it as another potato, a big one. No two potatoes are exactly alike in size and shape, but they all taste pretty much the same and you can use the same recipe for most of them. For that reason, it's interesting to see to what extent the current crisis behaves like other crises, even if it has some unique features.

I think there's some interesting parallels between the current crisis, the Savings and Loan (S&L) crisis of the 80s and 90s, and the Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) Crisis of 1998. But before I talk about that, let me talk about what a "typical" banking crisis looks like.

The Basel View of "Typical" Banking Crises

If we set the way-back machine to 2004, a time long before terms like ARM, CDS, and AIG entered common conversation, we can see what people thought a typical bank crisis looked like. That's the year the guys in Basel who worry about such things published "Bank Failures in Mature Economies." They looked at the main banking crises in developed countries from 1980 to 2000 and asked themselves what they saw. To be sure, they saw some differences, but they also saw some patterns. Here's part of their main conclusions (note that "credit risk" is Banker for "bad loans").

Most of the widespread [banking] failures required some amount of public support, sometimes in very large amounts. All of the episodes that involved large amounts of public support were caused by credit risk problems. ...The widespread banking crises that involved credit risk were remarkably similar. A period of financial deregulation resulted in rapid growth in lending, particularly in real estate related lending. Rapidly rising real estate prices encouraged more lending, abetted by lax regulatory systems in many cases. When economic recessions occurred, inflated real estate prices collapsed, leading directly to the failures. (BIS, 2004, p.66)

That sounds a lot like what the US (and some other countries) experienced immediately afterwards. There had been some financial deregulation, which was followed by a period of very rapid growth in real-estate-related lending. Rapidly rising real estate values encouraged more lending. The biggest difference seems to be the last point; the recession did not cause real estate prices to collapse; they had peaked by 2006 and fell before the recession started. We could probably also argue about whether it was financial deregulation or "financial innovation that avoided regulations" that helped fuel the increase in real-estate lending. However, in this view the boom and bust cycle in real estate, the subsequent fallout for the banking sector, and the need for a major publicly-funded bailout is not remarkable; we've seen this kind of story before. In fact, Reinhart and Rogoff have gone so far as to tabulate what happens to government debt in the aftermath of a banking crisis. They find that real government debt increases by an average of 86% in the three years after the start of a crisis. So regardless of how you feel about the US government's spending during the crisis, it seems less remarkable when compared to what typically happens in a banking crisis.

Figure from Reinhart, Carmen M., and Kenneth S. Rogoff. 2009. "The Aftermath of Financial Crises." American Economic Review, 99(2): 466-72.

Three American Financial Market Crises

More support for the view that banking crises follow similar patterns can be found by comparing the last three US banking crises; the S&L crisis of the late 80s and early 90s, the collapse of LTCM and the most recent crisis. The S&L crisis closely followed the pattern described by the BIS report quoted above; financial deregulation, followed by a rapid growth in real estate lending, creation of local speculative bubbles in real estate prices, and the failure of institutions as bubbles burst (For descriptions of the S&L crisis, see BIS (2004) or the GAO 1996 report). The General Accounting Office put the cost of the S&L bailout to US taxpayers at $132.1 billion, or a bit under 2% of GDP (United States General Accounting Office (1996) "Financial Audit: Resolution Trust Corporation's 1994 and 1995 Financial Statements," Table 3 and author's calculations). That may seem small compared to the size of TARP or this year's projected federal deficit, but it was shocking at the time.

At first glance, the LTCM crisis appears quite different; no bank failed (LTCM was a hedge fund), its failure was unrelated to real estate investment or credit risk, and the crisis was resolved at no cost to the taxpayer. However, the LTCM crisis showed that, as a result of deregulation, a systemic crisis could start outside the regulated banking system. Another GAO study noted:

The LTCM case illustrated that market discipline can break down and showed that potential systemic risk can be posed not only by a cascade of major firm failures, but also by leveraged trading positions. LTCM was able to establish leveraged trading positions of a size that posed potential systemic risk primarily because the banks and securities and futures firms that were its creditors and counterparties failed to enforce their own risk management standards. (US GAO (1999) p. 29)

The same report noted:

Gaps in [US Government agencies'] regulatory authority limits their ability to identify and mitigate systemic risk (US GAO (1999) p. 24)
Regulators did not identify weaknesses in firms' risk management practices until after the crisis (US GAO (1999) p. 16)
Monitoring did not reveal the potential systemic threat posed by LTCM (US GAO (1999) p. 17)

and provided a variety of proposals (some of which are mentioned below) to reform the financial system by reducing systemic risks.

The success of those reforms can be judged by role of similar factors in the most recent US banking crisis. An important factor in the latter has been the role of trading in derivative securities, primarily mortgage-based securities and credit default swaps (CDS). Again, government oversight of this market was limited due to faith in the market's ability to manage its exposure to risk, and was further weakened by divided responsibilities between multiple agencies. Regulators and private lenders alike were again unaware of major firms' exposure to losses on derivative securities; this time even the heads of major financial institutions were not aware of the extent of their own exposures. Again, this was in part due to the lack of transparency, lack of clearing and high leverage afforded by trade in Over-the-Counter (OTC) derivatives (particularly those traded at Bear Stearns.) Again, weaknesses in firms' risk management practices became apparent only in hindsight. Again, major financial firms that were not regulated as traditional deposit-taking banks took on highly-leveraged positions and posed major systemic threats to the banking system. These included several investment banks (such as Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, and CitiGroup) and the insurance company AIG.

Conclusion

Looking at recent events from this perspective, I still see the size of the losses as breathtaking, but the causes and dynamics seem much more familiar. What bothers me is that some of the suggested solutions sound pretty familiar too; make derivative trading more transparent, improve coordination among the regulators, give regulators more power to control systemic risk in new places, and so on. Despite that, not only was there another crisis, but it was much larger than the two previous crises combined.

This post written by Simon van Norden.

Why ‘Best of Breed’ Investing Is No Passing Fad

Andrew Gordon — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 22:30:02 +0000

pIf you want to do well in today’s market, ignore this rally. Pay all your attention instead to the only class of companies you need to know about. I call these companies the “best of breed.” They’re probably the least-talked about companies in the market. Many investors are missing the boat. And that’s a shame./p pThis has been a tough quarter for companies. Compared to last year’s second quarter, profit is down roughly 31 percent and revenue is down even more. Wall Street thought it was going to be even worse. So in one of the worst quarters ever, the market has rallied./p pInvestors learn all the wrong lessons from a rally like this. Nothing about it makes sense. The smallest companies#8230;/p

The Silver Market: Some Call it CRIMEX

Contrarian Profits — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:24:53 +0000

pThe silver market is showing signs of bullish strain and an incredible opportunity is being presented to you. I’m a staunch silver advocate and it’s time for an update right now. Silver stands to outperform gold as the long term precious metal bull market continues to unfold.The price of silver, along with gold, is kept under wraps by officials of the New York COMEX market, aka CRIMEX. The old boy network which runs CRIMEX have whipsawed the market in their desired direction for decades and profited accordingly. These actions are government sanctioned because precious metals are competition to un-backed fiat money. State mandated fiat is so weak and poorly designed that it cannot stand competitors./p pI wrote a silver article 4½#8230;/p

And Then There’s This…Friday, April 17th, 2009

Contrarian Profits — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 20:35:29 +0000

pGold spent most of Far East and European trading hugging $890#8230;and silver spent the same period within a dime of $12.70. Nothing to see here, folks! Then, shortly before the Comex open, both metals began smallish rallies#8230;and half an hour after the Comex opened for business, it was lights out./p pNot only did the dealers pull their bids in both metals, but I highly suspect that there was actually some fresh shorting by the Non-Commercials and Nonreportables [in the COT] as well./p pAs I#8217;ve been saying for the last week or so, an assault on gold#8217;s 200-day moving average would materialize sooner or later, as a couple of the U.S. bullion banks [JPMorgan (NYSE:a href="http://www.google.com/finance?q=JPM"JPM/a) and HSBC USA (NYSE:a href="http://www.google.com/finance?q=HBC"HBC/a)] still had huge short#8230;/p

On Addressing Risk Prevention – Analyst Blog

Dirk Van Dijk — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:41:30 +0000

Highlights include Citigroup Inc. (C), Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Bank of America Corp. (BAC), Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC).

So far, most of the activity of the Obama Administration has been focused on cleaning up the existing mess. Today, it is turning its attention to preventing new, potentially world-threatening financial messes from occurring in the future. Please read Neena Mishra's blog for the details for regulatory overhaul proposed.

One of the most important underlying factors in causing the current financial crisis -- and the resulting economic downturn -- was the gutting of the financial regulatory regime set up in the wake of the Great Depression, as well as the adamant refusal of the regulators to actually enforce the few regulations that remained.

Lest someone think that I am being too partisan, I will point out that the 2 biggest legislative roll-backs occurred with Clinton in the White House (albeit with a GOP Congress). Probably the most significant of these was the repeal of Glass-Stegall, the Depression-era law that kept banks, investment banks and insurance companies separate.

The Secretary of the Treasury at the time, Bob Rubin, later went on to greatly personally enrich himself by becoming vice chairman of the firm most responsible for the crumbling of the wall between different types of financial institutions, Citigroup (C). This bill was written and championed in the Senate by Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX) who similarly went on to great personal riches by becoming the vice chairman of Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS).

Senator Gramm was also behind the other key piece of legislation (signed by Clinton) that allowed this all to happen -- the Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000. This was the law that prevented any sort of oversight of the derivatives markets, most notably the now infamous Credit Default Swaps or CDS. However, there were still some rules on the books, and the decision not to enforce any of the meaningful ones rests squarely on those who were in charge as the bubble inflated.

On the face of it, going back to the old regulatory regime would make sense. However, it will be very difficult to unscramble that egg. The initial efforts at containing the mess have actually pushed the system in the other direction.

When Bear Stearns was failing, the only safe port in the storm was J.P. Morgan (JPM) and when Merrill Lynch was about to go under, it was Bank of America (BAC) that stepped up to the plate to keep it alive. Both of these actions were actively encouraged and subsidized by the regulators. It would seem a bit two-faced to turn around and make them unwind the transactions so quickly.

We have, in a larger sense, also been going the wrong way on the whole issue of "too big to fail" for much the same reason. Not only did J.P. Morgan take over Bear Stearns, but it also took over Washington Mutual, the largest thrift in the country, when it failed. Wells Fargo (WFC) took over Wachovia, but not before a bit of a battle with Citigroup over it (talk about some potentially very ugly kids from that marriage!). The problem of "too big to fail" has so far been addressed by making these institutions even bigger. But hey -- it was a crisis, and there were not a lot of other routes to go down, particularly if one wanted to avoid outright nationalization of institutions.

If we can't break up these financial institutions, the least we can do it to try to effectively regulate them. This is where the call for a systemic risk regulator would come in. Most likely it will be the Fed, but conceivably the job could be done by either the Treasury or the FDIC.

We have seen that banks are not the only institutions that pose a systemic threat -- insurance companies and hedge funds also have that potential. OK, hedge funds have not been at the core of the problem this time, but let's not forget about the near meltdown of the system when Long Term Capital Management went under a decade ago. At the very least, they should have to register with the SEC.

There are many details of the new regulation scheme that have not been disclosed yet. As always, the devil will be in the details. Given the size of this regulatory overhaul, rest assured that there will be an army of demons in it. However, it does appear to address some of the most important issues.

Finally it looks like all derivatives will have to be traded on an exchange, much the same way that commodities and equity options are traded. This means that everyone will have a common counterparty -- the exchange itself. Collateral will have to be posted and will be adjusted each day. This will go a long way towards getting the problem with CDS's addressed.

Also, apparently the larger "too big to fail" companies will have to keep more capital in reserve to make sure they are more financially sound than smaller companies that do not pose a systemic risk. This will indirectly guide firms towards becoming smaller, since the efficiencies of scale of being larger will be offset by the higher capital requirements (less leverage allowed). Companies may decide on their own that it makes sense to spin off units to their shareholders, thus slimming down and not having to have such large reserves.

Current proposals include more conservative capital requirements for important financial institutions comprehensive oversight of OTC derivatives like CDS. (Again, please read Neena's blog for details.)

From the info we have so far, this looks like a positive and long overdue step.
Read the full analyst report on "UBS"
Zacks Investment Research

Thanks for the Memories and the $50 Billion

Justice Litle — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:50:48 +0000

pThe Bernie Madoff scandal has investors newly terrified of money manager fraud. But fraud is actually not all that hard to avoid - the real lesson goes deeper than that. #8220;Madoff with ya money.#8221;/p pOf all the articles covering the scandal, that title from the emFinancial Times/em sums it up best. The opening of the piece is pretty good too:/p p style="padding-left: 30px;"emNothing stupefies like money. Even the savviest investors tend to look the other way when extraordinary returns are being made. This unfortunate human trait is the fuel behind speculative bubbles and the magic behind all financial scams./em/p p style="padding-left: 30px;"emNo one, it seems, has exploited this as blatantly in recent times as Wall Street bigwig Bernard Madoff, a former Nasdaq chairman arrested this week for allegedly#8230;/em/p

William Kristol on Economic Theory and Practice

Menzie Chinn — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 01:44:55 +0000

I don't usually read Bill Kristol's column, but once in a while, my eyes get caught by a headline (that's the difference between reading online and "on paper"), and I'll check out what he has to say. The other day, I read his column "Admit we don't know" on the current economic crisis that, while not in my mind "wrong", seemed puzzling to me. Pay attention to the last paragraph (highlighted in bold).

...basically, it seems to me, we're all flying blind. The markets are spiraling down, and our leading experts don't have much of a clue as to what to do.
Given that, one has to welcome the expected appointment to senior positions in the Obama administration of economists like Lawrence Summers, Timothy Geithner, Jason Furman, Peter Orszag, and Goolsbee himself. They're sober and competent people who know we face a real crisis -- and who, importantly, may be more willing than many of their colleagues to adjust their thinking early and often.
Indeed, one hopes they're not too invested in the findings of the economics profession of which they're such distinguished products -- because one suspects many of the conventional answers of that profession aren’t much applicable to the current situation. After all, wasn't it excessive confidence in complex economic models and sophisticated financial instruments on the part of people well educated in modern economics that helped get us into the current mess?
So I hope the best and the brightest who will be joining the new president will at least entertain the possibility that a lot of what they think they know is wrong. I trust they'll remember that successful economic policies in the past have pulled together elements from unlikely sources, and that they're as likely to find wisdom from reading political economists like Friedrich Hayek or Joseph Schumpeter, or Keynes himself, as from poring over the latest academic paper in a peer-refereed economics journal.

My puzzlement is driven by several assertions.

Are our economic leaders flying blind?
Were the economists overly enamored of complex economic models?
Were the economists overly confident in sophisticated financial instruments?
Is it as likely to find wisdom from Hayek or Schumpeter as in the latest academic paper?

On the first point, I think Kristol is on the most solid ground. So much of what has happened has been unprecedent in terms of institutions, although as Markus Brunnermeier has pointed out, the general outlines are remarkably similar to banking crises of the past. So, here I think reasonable people can certainly disagree whether it's ignorance, or failure to agree between Fed and the Bush Administration and components thereof.

What about complex models? First ask what exactly constitutes a complex model? Is Kristol alluding to models involving algebra? Or calculus? Or lots of equations? I think one could make the argument that the models weren't complex enough to capture important effects (asymmetric information, agency costs, etc.) despite the complexity along other dimensions.

Were economists overly confident in sophisticated financial instruments? Here I think it might be useful to discriminate between economists that work in the financial world, and those that work in academia. From the former group, I always heard a lot about "risk management" and sophisticated statistical models to price derivatives. From the latter, I heard a lot more skepticism, perhaps borne of ignorance. So, Kristol might be right, but I suspect his views are deeply influenced by the sample of economists he talked to.

By the way, I won't say I saw the full enormity of the leveraging problem, but at least I can truthfully say I was suspicious of the free lunch aspects of the net borrowing binge of the past decade. From my August 2005 Council on Foreign Relations report:

Although the likelihood of a "disorderly adjustment," is small,37 the potential consequences are so troubling that the possibility of economic disruption cannot be ignored. In addition to the threat of rising unemployment and declining income, sharp movements in asset prices and interest rates could also threaten the stability of the financial system. In the past, policymakers have been able to contain the threats of systemic crises, such as the crisis of Long Term Capital Management in 1998. That event was at least partly attributable to bets on interest rates movements that did not meet expectations. Markets for making bets are much larger and diverse than they were seven years ago. Some are very new and remain untested. The question is whether they are up to the task of distributing risks when low probability events occur.38 This open question should in itself give some additional weight to the case for action now, to avoid putting the world economy in the position of finding out the answer.

I'm confident it's quite easy to dig up plenty of quotes from other economists who were nervous.

Finally, the assertion that really caught my attention: That the likelihood of finding useful nuggets of economic wisdom in Schumpeter and Hayek is equal to that of finding it in the latest article in peer reviewed journals (I get the feeling he's making a perjorative remark about peer reviewed journals, but I'll let that slide).

Why do I think this is odd? Well, because the statement identifies modern economics as distinct from the great thinkers of the past. But in fact many of the works in the "peer reviewed journals" are not orthogonal to the works of the past, but like many other intellectual endeavors, based upon them. Open up the JPE or the QJE (or better yet, the NBER Working Paper series, and there are plenty allusions to "the greats", and ideas like "creative destruction". That being said, just like there has been plenty of thinking in political science since Machiavelli and The Prince (you'll get the allusion if you've read Dani Rodrik's take on Kristol's economics acumen), there's been a lot of insight developed in economics over the past hundred years. In this respect, the admonition to look backward sound good, but is less profound that it appears at first glance.

Top Stock Market Book Gifts

Fred Fuld — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 05:50:00 +0000

It's time to start doing your gift shopping. Here are some great investment, finance, and stock market books to give your friends and relatives. These are in no particular order other than the approximate order that I wrote about them, within the categories. You can click on the title of each book to get more info about them. And if you aren't sure what books are right for gifts, how about an a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00067L6TQ/ref=nosim/?%5Fencoding=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325"Amazon Gift Certificate/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20amp;l=ur2amp;o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /.br /br / center span style="font-weight:bold;"Fiction/span /centerbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804119120?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0804119120"A Conspiracy of Paper/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=0804119120" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / by David Lissbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FDay-Trader-Stephen-Frey%2Fdp%2F034544325X%2Ftag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325"The Day Trader/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20amp;l=ur2amp;o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / by Stephen Freybr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FSet-Up-Paul-Erdman%2Fdp%2F0312968051%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1194850092%26sr%3D1-1tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325" The Set-Up/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20amp;l=ur2amp;o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / by Paul Erdmanbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000GRQ8V2?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=B000GRQ8V2"Something Wild/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=B000GRQ8V2" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / by Linda Daviesbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0440221900?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0440221900"Nest of Vipers/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=0440221900" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / by Linda Daviesbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0440222958?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0440222958"Wilderness of Mirrors /aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=0440222958" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / by Linda Daviesbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/076791936X?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=076791936X"The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=076791936X" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /, by Bill Brysonbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345480619?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0345480619"The Power Broker: A Novel/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=0345480619" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / by Stephen Freybr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345480597?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0345480597"The Protégé: A Novel (The Protege)/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=0345480597" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / by Stephen Freybr /br /br / center span style="font-weight:bold;"br / Non-Fiction Business and Investing/span /centerbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471655848?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0471655848"Trade Like Warren Buffett/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=0471655848" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / by James Altucherbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FTrade-Like-Hedge-Fund-Uncorrelated%2Fdp%2F0471484857%2Fsr%3D1-1%2Fqid%3D1165049133%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbookstag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325"Trade Like a Hedge Fund: 20 Successful Uncorrelated Strategies Techniques to Winning Profits /aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20amp;l=ur2amp;o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / by James Altucherbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/047007499X?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=047007499X"The Only Three Questions That Count: Investing by Knowing What Others Don't/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=047007499X" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / By Ken Fisherbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743224892?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0743224892"Jim Cramer's Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=0743224892" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / by Jim Cramerbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FJim-Cramers-Mad-Money-Watch%2Fdp%2F1416537902%2Fsr%3D8-1%2Fqid%3D1165046159%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbookstag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325"Jim Cramer's Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Rich /aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20amp;l=ur2amp;o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /br /by James J. Cramer, Cliff Mason br /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743224876?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0743224876" Confessions of a Street Addict/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=0743224876" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /br /by James J. 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margin:0px !important;" /br /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0131499084?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0131499084"Options, Futures and Other Derivatives (6th Edition)/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=0131499084" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /br /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471745995?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0471745995"SuperCash: The New Hedge Fund Capitalism (Wiley Trading)/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=0471745995" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /br /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452284732?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0452284732"The Neatest Little Guide to Stock Market Investing (Revised Edition)/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=0452284732" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / by Jason Kellybr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470102101?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0470102101"The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns (Little Book Big Profits)/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=0470102101" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / by John C. 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Levitt br /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FEssays-Warren-Buffett-Lessons-Corporate%2Fdp%2F0966446119%2Fsr%3D1-1%2Fqid%3D1165046772%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbookstag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325"The Essays of Warren Buffett : Lessons for Corporate America/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20amp;l=ur2amp;o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / br /by Warren E. Buffett, Lawrence A. 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Tharp br /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FLittle-Book-That-Beats-Market%2Fdp%2F0471733067%2Fsr%3D1-1%2Fqid%3D1165047315%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbookstag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325"The Little Book That Beats the Market /aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20amp;l=ur2amp;o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /br /by Joel Greenblatt br /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FIntelligent-Investor-Collins-Business-Essentials%2Fdp%2F0060555661%2Fsr%3D1-2%2Fqid%3D1165047423%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbookstag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325"The Intelligent Investor Rev Ed. 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Chan Kim, Renée Mauborgne br /br /br / centerspan style="font-weight:bold;"Hedge Funds/span/centerbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FSuperCash-Hedge-Capitalism-Wiley-Trading%2Fdp%2F0471745995%2Fsr%3D11-1%2Fqid%3D1165049945tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325"SuperCash: The New Hedge Fund Capitalism /aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20amp;l=ur2amp;o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / by James Altucher br /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FAll-About-Hedge-Funds-Started%2Fdp%2F0071393935%2Fsr%3D1-1%2Fqid%3D1165049013%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbookstag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325"All About Hedge Funds : The Easy Way to Get Started/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20amp;l=ur2amp;o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / by Robert A. Jaeger br /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FInvestment-Strategies-Hedge-Funds-Finance%2Fdp%2F0470026278%2Fsr%3D1-1%2Fqid%3D1165049292%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbookstag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325"Investment Strategies of Hedge Funds /aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20amp;l=ur2amp;o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / by Filippo Stefanini br /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FCreate-Manage-Hedge-Fund-Professionals%2Fdp%2F047122488X%2Fsr%3D1-1%2Fqid%3D1165049369%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbookstag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325"How to Create and Manage a Hedge Fund: A Professional's Guide/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20amp;l=ur2amp;o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / by Stuart A. McCrarybr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FFunds-Hedge-Performance-Diversification-Quantitative%2Fdp%2F0750679840%2Fsr%3D11-1%2Fqid%3D1165049432tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325"Funds of Hedge Funds: Performance, Assessment, Diversification, and Statistical Properties/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20amp;l=ur2amp;o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / by Greg N. Gregorioubr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FVault-Career-Guide-Hedge-Library%2Fdp%2F1581313020%2Fsr%3D1-1%2Fqid%3D1165049624%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbookstag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325"Vault Career Guide to Hedge Funds /aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20amp;l=ur2amp;o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /by Aditi A. Davare and Holly Goodrichbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FManaging-Hedge-Fund-Keith-Black%2Fdp%2F007143481X%2Fsr%3D1-1%2Fqid%3D1165049696%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbookstag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325"Managing a Hedge Fund /aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20amp;l=ur2amp;o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /by Keith Blackbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FHedge-Fund-Funds-Investing-Investors%2Fdp%2F1576601242%2Fsr%3D1-3%2Fqid%3D1165049874%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbookstag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325"Hedge Fund of Funds Investing: An Investor's Guide/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20amp;l=ur2amp;o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / by Joseph G. Nicholasbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FHedge-Fund-Masters-Overcome-Performance%2Fdp%2F0471724165%2Fsr%3D1-1%2Fqid%3D1165050066%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbookstag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325"Hedge Fund Masters: How Top Hedge Fund Traders Set Goals, Overcome Barriers, and Achieve Peak Performance/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20amp;l=ur2amp;o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / by Ari Kievbr /br /br / centerspan style="font-weight:bold;"Real Estate/span/centerbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307345629?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0307345629"The Wall Street Journal. Complete Real-Estate Investing Guidebook/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=0307345629" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /br /by David Crookbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446691844?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0446691844"Rich Dad's Advisors®: The ABC's of Real Estate Investing: The Secrets of Finding Hidden Profits Most Investors Miss (Rich Dad's Advisors)/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=0446691844" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /br /by Ken McElroybr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446694118?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0446694118"Rich Dad's Real Estate Advantages: Tax and Legal Secrets of Successful Real Estate Investors/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=0446694118" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /br /by Sharon L. Lechter, Garrett Suttonbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452286697?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0452286697"Find It, Fix It, Flip It!: Make Millions in Real Estate--One House at a Time/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=0452286697" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /br /by Michael Corbettbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471692794?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0471692794"The Pre-Foreclosure Property Investor's Kit: How to Make Money Buying Distressed Real Estate -- Before the Public Auction/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=0471692794" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /br /by Thomas Lucierbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FPre-Foreclosure-Property-Investors-Kit-Distressed%2Fdp%2F0471692794%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbookstag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325"The Pre-Foreclosure Property Investor's Kit: How to Make Money Buying Distressed Real Estate -- Before the Public Auction /aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20amp;l=ur2amp;o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /br /by Thomas Lucierbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071470727?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0071470727"The Reverse Mortgage Advantage: The Tax-Free, House Rich Way to Retire Wealthy!/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=0071470727" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /br /by Warren Borosonbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FRich-Dad-Poor-Money-That-Middle%2Fdp%2F0446677450%2Fsr%3D1-1%2Fqid%3D1165046574%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbookstag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325"Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money--That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20amp;l=ur2amp;o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / br /by Robert T. Kiyosaki, Sharon L. Lechter br /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FPre-Foreclosure-Property-Investors-Kit-Distressed%2Fdp%2F0471692794%2Fsr%3D1-1%2Fqid%3D1165047953%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbookstag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325"The Pre-Foreclosure Property Investor's Kit: How to Make Money Buying Distressed Real Estate -- Before the Public Auction /aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20amp;l=ur2amp;o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /br /by Thomas Lucier br /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FPre-Foreclosure-Real-Estate-Handbook-Pre-Foreclosed%2Fdp%2F0910627665%2Fsr%3D1-2%2Fqid%3D1165048257%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbookstag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325"The Pre-Foreclosure Real Estate Handbook: Insider Secrets to Locating and Purchasing Pre-Foreclosed Properties in Any Market/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20amp;l=ur2amp;o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /br /by Frankie Orlando br /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FComplete-Guide-Investing-Foreclosures%2Fdp%2F0814472885%2Fsr%3D1-3%2Fqid%3D1165048373%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbookstag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325"The Complete Guide to Investing in Foreclosures/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20amp;l=ur2amp;o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /br /by Steve Berges br /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FBuying-Estate-Foreclosures-Melissa-Kollen-Rice%2Fdp%2F0071412387%2Fsr%3D1-4%2Fqid%3D1165048473%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbookstag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325"Buying Real Estate Foreclosures/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20amp;l=ur2amp;o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /br /by Melissa S. Kollen-Rice br /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FHow-Buy-Foreclosed-Real-Estate%2Fdp%2F1580622585%2Fsr%3D1-5%2Fqid%3D1165048549%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbookstag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325"How To Buy Foreclosed Real Estate/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20amp;l=ur2amp;o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /br /by Theodore J. Dallowbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446677450?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0446677450"Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money--That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=0446677450" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /br /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471692794?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0471692794"The Pre-Foreclosure Property Investor's Kit: How to Make Money Buying Distressed Real Estate -- Before the Public Auction/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=0471692794" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /br /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471692794?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0471692794"The Pre-Foreclosure Property Investor's Kit: How to Make Money Buying Distressed Real Estate -- Before the Public Auction/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=0471692794" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /br /br /br /By Fred Fuld at a href="http://Stockerblog.com"Stockerblog.com/adiv class="blogger-post-footer"div class='adsense' style='text-align:center; padding: 0px 3px 0.5em 3px;' script type="text/javascript"!-- google_ad_client="ca-pub-2427831169011625"; google_ad_width=300; google_ad_height=250; google_ad_format="300x250_as"; google_ad_type="text"; google_ad_channel ="8681602088"; google_color_border="FFF3DB"; google_color_bg="FFF3DB"; google_color_link="1B0431"; google_color_url="1B0431"; google_color_text="29303B"; //--/script script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js" /script /div

Could the US Dollar be a “doomed” currency? Jim Rogers seems to think so

Alex Stanczyk — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:12:48 +0000

In a recent interview with Financial Times, mega-investor Jim Rogers had some interesting comments about the fate of the US Dollar. He sure doesnt mince words. *** Insight: The dollar is a flawed currency By Jim Rogers Published: November 17 2008 16:05 | Last updated: November 17 2008 16:05 The following are excerpts from this week’s View from the Markets online [...]

MARKET COMMENT November 10, 2008 Friday after the close stock futures rallied mightily and I posted that image for subscribers on Sunday.

David Fry — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 23:32:41 +0000

MARKET COMMENT November 10, 2008 Friday after the close stock futures rallied mightily and I posted that image for subscribers on Sunday. Something was up, as in someone or some group had some inside information and was running with it. The 5 minute chart below is Friday’s NASDAQ futures which included the ramp 30 minutes before the close and thereafter. That was a large 5% move with much of it on heavy volume.

Hedge Fund Discussion | A Commentary Piece

Richard C. Wilson — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 04:45:06 +0000

Hedge Fund Discussion

Hedge Fund Discussion Piece

I can't tell if Mr. Berko is for or against hedge funds, I will leave it up to you to decide....

Dear Mr. Berko: There's big trouble in the $3 trillion hedge fund industry. Many have lost massive amounts of money because the market has gone against them and thousands of hedge fund employees are losing their jobs. The Hedge Fund Sector is a very vital sector of our economy and I've not heard a word from the Department of Treasury or the Federal Reserve about helping the hedge fund industry in this economic crisis. In 2000, then Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan rescued Long Term Capital Management and saved it from complete collapse. Many hedge-fund investors can't get their investments back because the hedge funds can't get the credit they need to finance their portfolio positions or investor withdrawals. Do you believe the government should assist these people who invested their money in good faith? -- H.W., Boston.

Dear H.W.: Hedge funds are being rocked, socked, knocked, clocked and docked by the market. Most deserve every blow they get and then some. These financial leeches provide zero-sum benefit to our economy. Many of these funds contributed to the mortgage crisis, the credit crisis, the oil crisis, the bank crisis and the soon-to-occur credit card crisis as well as the soon to-occur-crisis with the Big Three auto companies. These funds, along with Goldman Sachs, Lehman Bros., Bear Stearns, etc., helped push the price of oil past the $145 level by trading contracts between themselves at predetermined prices. They are one of the reasons many Americans had to pay $4.25 a gallon and more at the pump. These funds traded and shorted billions of dollars of subprime mortgage securities between themselves, creating unprecedented volatility and cascading losses. And these hedge funds shorted hundreds of millions of shares of bank stocks, collapsing their market values, pushing Countrywide, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Washington Mutual into bankruptcy.

Marrow suckers These hedge funds gleefully sucked the marrow from the backbone of our financial system. They had this power because they are unregulated (they had strong lobbyists in Congress) and are not required to abide by the same rules that control the trading activities of Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, Vanguard and other funds owned by most of the less-affluent public. Many of the 10,107 hedge funds are hurting badly, very badly, as they got caught on the wrong side of the oil market, the wrong side of the commodity market, the wrong side of the dollar, the Yen and the Euro. They got sliced and diced in the derivative market, were boxed by the credit market and bet the wrong horses in the mortgage-backed securities markets. Things got so bad that investors began a stampede to safety and these funds, which were highly leveraged, didn't have the capital to return principal to their hugely wealthy investors. Read more...

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Tags: Hedge fund discussion, hedge funds to blame, hedge fund losses

Fixed Income Arbitrage Investment Strategy | 1 Page Guide

Richard C. Wilson — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:59:35 +0000

Fixed Income Arbitrage

Fixed Income Arbitrage Investment Strategy

Fixed income arbitrage strategies exploit pricing differentials between fixed income securities. Some of the most famous fixed income arbitrageurs were the principals of Long Term Capital Management, the hedge fund that returned annualized returns of over 40% in its first years. However, in 1998, when some of its bets moved against it, the fund had to be rescued by prominent Wall Street firms with a $3.5 billion package orchestrated by the Fed.

Some of the most widely used fixed income arbitrage strategies are swap-spread arbitrage, yield curve arbitrage, volatility arbitrage and capital structure arbitrage, all of which try to exploit perceived mispricing among one or more fixed income instruments.

Swap-spread arbitrage is a bet on the direction of swap rates, Libor, treasury coupon rates and repo rates. A typical swap-spread arb trade would consist of a fixed receiver swap and a short position in a par Treasury bond of the same maturity. The proceeds of the sale of the Treasury bond would be invested in a margin account earning the repo rate. This trade is a simple bet that the difference between the swap rate and coupon rate will be more than the difference between Libor and the repo rate. The trade could of course, be engineered in the opposite direction.

Yield curve arbitrage strategies are designed to profit from shifts in the steepness of or kinks in the US Treasury yield curve by taking long and short positions on various maturities. This could take the form of a butterfly trade, where, for example the investor goes long five-year bonds and shorts two and ten-year bonds. Or, it may take the form of a spread trade, where, the investor goes short the front end of the curve and long the back end of the curve. The strategy requires the investor to identify some points along the yield curve that are “rich” or “cheap.”

In their simplest form volatility arbitrage strategies profit from the well-known tendency of implied volatilities to exceed subsequent realized volatilities. This is done by selling options of fixed income instruments and then delta-hedging the exposure to the underlying asset. However, many hedge funds implement vastly more complex volatility arbitrage strategies, some of which are described in our bibliography.

Capital structure arbitrage strategies exploit the lack of co-ordination between various claims on a company, like its debt and stock, for example. The strategy involves buying one instrument of a company’s capital structure and hedging that exposure by selling another. For example, a trader, who believes that the debt of a company is overpriced relative to its equity, would short the company’s debt and buy its stock. Capital structure arbitrage trades may also trade junior vs. senior debt or even convertible bonds vs. stock.

Books
Lhabitant, Francoise-Serge. Handbook of Hedge Funds. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2006.This is an excellent guide to the industry, with concise and informative descriptions on all of the major hedge fund strategies and primary methods to measure their risk and performance. Lhabitant also includes an overview of the legal environment of hedge funds and their organizational structure as well as a short guide to investing in them.

Lowenstein, Roger. When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management, Random House, October 9, 2001
Lowenstein takes an inside look at the story of some of the most famous fixed income arbitrageurs.

White Papers
Yield Curve Arbitrage
Leung, Seng Yuen. “Yield Curve Analysis and Fixed Income Arbitrage.” HKUST, February 23rd, 2006.
Give a good overview of key instruments and principles in the fixed income space.

Volatility Arbitrage
Duarte, Jefferson, Fancis A. Longstaff and Fan Yu, “Risk and Return in Fixed Income Arbitrage: Nickels in Front of a Steamroller?” March 2006
This paper examines the risk and return characteristics of major fixed income arbitrage strategies and finds that strategies that require the most intellectual capital to implement, produce significant alpha, contradicting the view that many strategies in this space are equivalent to ‘picking nickels in front of a steamroller.’ In the process, this paper provides a detailed overview of all major fixed income arbitrage strategies.

Habib, Rami, “Volatility Arbitrage – A New Hedge Fund Strategy” GTNews, 29th October 2003
Dr. Habib describes the mechanics of common volatility arbitrage strategies

Higgins, Tom, “The Long and Short of Volatility,” Alternative Investor Conference, 2003
Executive VP of Maple Financial Group, Tom Higgins, details some of the risks of volatility arbitrage strategies.

Incisive Media, “Volatility Arbitrage: The Non-Correlated Alternative.” Hedge Funds Review, July 2006.
This paper is a detailed description of volatility arbitrage strategies as well as an overview of the main hedge funds who work in this area.

Petherick, Martin, “Volatility Arbitrage from the Short Side,” Hedge Fund World, October 2003
This article describes popular volatility arbitrage trades as well as more complex ones.

Capital Structure Arbitrage
Currie, Antony and Jennifer Morris, “And now for capital structure arbitrage,” Euromoney, December 2002
Currie and Morris provide a very clear explanation of a market in which debt vs. equity capital structure arbitrage trades would be highly profitable. Writing at the time when capital structure arbitrage was just gaining ground as a trading strategy, they also provide some of the historic context behind the strategy’s development.

Nelken, Izzy, “Capital Structure Arbitrage,” Super Computer Consulting Inc
This powerpoint presentation describes major capital structure arbitrage strategies.

Yu, Fan, “How Profitable is Capital Structure Arbitrage?” University of California, Irvine, June 3, 2005
Yu examines the risk return characteristics of capital structure arbitrage strategies using the stock price and CDS spread of 261 companies. He finds that while the excess returns of this strategy are not correlated with any other major portfolio strategy, its excess returns are similar to all other major fixed income arbitrage strategies.

Guest post by Sharini Kulasinghe

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Tags: Fixed Income, Fixed Income Arbitrage, Fixed Income Investments, Fixed Income investing, Fixed Income Investment Strategy, Fixed Income Arbitrage, Fixed Income Hedge Fund, hedge funds

Not-for-Profit Sellers Send Gold Down $10

Contrarian Profits — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:09:07 +0000

Not-for-profit sellers dropped gold $10 in the Globex market almost the moment that the Comex closed, says Casey Reserach's Ed Steer. Silver fared far worse... but it was on very light volume once again. Strangely enough, the share prices did very well yesterday.

The HUI was actually in positive territory until 1:45 Eastern time when someone thought it might be a good idea if the shares sold off in sympathy with the metals themselves....so they did. You have to ask yourself this question...who would be aggressively buying the HUI in the face of a 3.71% decline in the gold price and a stiff 7.80% decline in silver? Is it the insiders again? Whoever it was, they had very deep pockets in order to turn the HUI positive on a day like yesterday.

You may remember that last week the CFTC announced that they were investigating the silver market again for signs of price management. This time it was being conducted by their Enforcement Division...not their Division of Market Oversight. The CFTC has had ample evidence since that announcement to prove that price management exists. So far they don't appear to be doing much! The action we've seen in the precious metals since that announcement has been anything but free market.

The open interest numbers for Monday were rather disappointing. I was expecting larger numbers...but didn't get them. However, there was more tech fund long liquidation in both metals. Gold o.i. was down another 2,500 contracts and silver o.i. declined a smallish 166 contracts. I was expecting a bigger number in silver. After Tuesday's hammering, both open interest numbers should show further improvement when they become available later this morning.

Yesterday was the cut-off for Friday's Commitment of Traders report. If Monday's and Tuesday's numbers are included (as they should be) then we'll see an even more wildly bullish COT this week than we had last week.

Yesterday was the end of the month and the quarter as well. I'll be shocked if we don't have a huge rally going into the New Year...and it can start any time as far as I'm concerned. Today would be nice.

In other gold and silver news, the production of platinum, silver and gold eagles were huge again for September. It was a record for both platinum and gold. Here's the link to the US Mint's eagles production page. Click here. These gold eagle numbers do not include the four nines fine gold buffalo. The link for that is here.

I see in a Bloomberg story yesterday that Paulson said he will use "all the tools at our disposal to protect financial markets". One would assume, as head of the PPT, he would mean the gold and silver markets as well. But for how much longer, as the physical market is eating the bullion banks alive.

Today's first story is from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard at The Telegraph in London. In this piece he delves into the frantic efforts by Europe and Britain et al, to save their banking systems, This is something I touched on briefly yesterday. If you think it's bad over here...what's gong on in Europe right now should scare you half to death. It's entitled "Financial Crisis: Ireland's banks are rescued" and the link is here.

And if you think that gold demand won't last...this next story from the Financial Times in London should bury that fear once and for all. Even I was taken aback by it. World-wide demand for the physical metal has become insatiable. As the story says, it's "unseen" and "unprecedented" demand for bullion by the rich. The article is entitled "Wealthy Investors Hoard Bullion"...and the link is here.

No matter what the models say, traders are not machines guided by silicon chips; they are impressionable and imitative; they run in flocks and retreat in hordes. - Roger Lowenstein, author: When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management

The word is out that they are going to reintroduce this $700 billion bill again on Thursday. Why would the results be any different this time? It's my opinion that both Bernanke and Paulson should resign and then be taken to the steps of Jefferson Memorial and be hung for treason. And as F. William Engdahl said in his latest piece..."This is the end of the world as we knew it. The American financial Superpower is gone."

Source: And Then there's This Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

Uncle Sam, the Enabler – Memo Found in the Street

Prieur du Plessis — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 20:21:12 +0000

Barry Ritholtz has put pen to paper to write a memo "from Wall Street to Washington, D.C.", spelling out in no uncertain terms the role that Uncle Sam played in enabling the current financial mess. Please visit my website (by clicking on the heading a...

Buyout of Merrill and Bankruptcy of Lehman Heightens Worry of U.S. Credit Crisis Pain Still to Come

William Patalon lll — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 11:03:46 +0000

By William Patalon III And Jennifer Yousfi Money Morning Editors After a weekend in which the deepening U.S credit crisis sent one top investment bank to bankruptcy court and a second into... Money Morning is here to help investors profit han...

Trading On News

Brian Shannon — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 20:17:00 +0000

No closing video today, I am out of town. Here is an excerpt from MY BOOK

You may be wondering what a chapter on news is doing in a book about technical analysis. A technical purist would take a closed-minded approach, indicating that “fundamentals don’t matter because the chart tells all.” Just as many fundamentally oriented managers express their perceived disdain for technical analysis (“Reading charts is like reading tea leaves.”).

The practical truth is that participants place their trades based on analysis of both fundamentals and technicals, and to completely ignore either is foolish. Don’t start thinking that I’m talking out of both sides of my mouth here – 95 percent of this book is dedicated to technical analysis, and the other five percent to this chapter. All of my timing decisions are based on price, not news or fundamentals.

Human nature is to ask questions. People want to know the “why” of those things they don’t understand right away. The markets are no different. All of us try to assign order to chaos, and crowd behavior in reaction to news frequently is very chaotic. We often do this instead of focusing on why a stock has already moved.

Personally, I want to know why people buy stocks in much more general terms. More importantly, though, I want to anticipate what their next move might be, when it may occur, how much risk to take and how much can I make if my analysis is correct.

In the market, the answer to why isn’t always easy to understand. Fortunately for traders, it doesn’t always matter. Interpreting news and committing capital based on our views of those events is very one- dimensional, just as monitoring the actions of just one participant is one-dimensional. But correctly interpreting human nature and crowd behavior is really what understanding technical analysis is all about. What causes one participant to buy or sell has very little significance beyond a couple of days.

It has been shown over and over again that no one is bigger than the markets -- remember Long Term Capital Management, Amaranth Partners, Bear Stearns and some of the other large “smart money” participants who went down in flames? If a very large participant attempts to move a stock – or even the market -- it can be accomplished for short periods of time, but it is very risky because it puts that institution in a large and likely difficult-to-liquidate position if the market moves against them quickly. Without proper risk controls in place, even the largest market participants can be forced out of business. Incidentally, many of the stocks you will trade successfully with a short-term timeframe are the recipient of a participant attempting to move prices in a particular direction.

Fundamentals Do Make Market Participants React
Fundamentals do matter because they are often the catalyst that causes a large group of participants to take buy or sell actions. There are many technical traders who buy breakouts or sell a stock short as it breaks below support. On a larger scale, there are more participants who buy and sell stocks based on their perceptions of a company or its products.

News releases are the biggest catalysts for participants to reevaluate their thinking about a company and make position adjustments based on expectations and ideas of value gained from the new information. News triggers emotion, and that emotion triggers actions that can be measured on price charts.

In college we are taught to evaluate a company based on its fundamentals, while technical study is given almost no attention. I learned a great deal in business school, but very little of it has helped me to become a good trader. What has helped me attain trading success with fundamental information is an understanding of when it makes sense to pay attention to these catalysts as it gives me insight into the psychology of the fundamental crowd.

I do believe that “the market knows all” and also that “news and surprises tend to follow the direction of the primary trend.” One of the principles of technical analysis is that the market discounts the past and anticipates the future. Whether it is anticipating where the economy will be in six to twelve months or the lifecycle of a business product, the smart money attempts to position its holdings to take advantage of emotional responders to the news when it is released. Financial analysis is big business, and institutions pay millions of dollars per year to access information based on in-depth analysis of what the future may hold for the economy, a market sector or an individual stock – and for good reason. It is the goal of an institution to accumulate shares before the “good news” is known to the majority of participants so they can be in a position to sell shares as price and volume expand.

When positive news is released, it is usually the public who buys from professionals. When negative news is released the coin flips, and professionals are often the buyers from the emotional public. The smart money buys temporary setbacks in a bull market and sells their long positions on short-term rallies in a bear market. It is common for strong markets to ignore negative news (“climb a wall of worry”), while weak markets react quickly and severely. Bear markets tend to ignore positive news and slide down a “slope of hope” or react with limited enthusiasm.

Today’s near-instant dissemination of information can be an undisciplined trader’s worst nightmare. Inexperienced and uneducated market participants -- the “dumb money” -- are more likely to be motivated by news headlines, chat room gossip, etc., and the market dutifully punishes their lack of thoughtful preparation with losses. Simply put, professionals anticipate while amateurs react.

more to come....

Jim Rogers: How the Federal Reserve Will Fail and the One Sector Every Investor Should Be In

Keith Fitz-Gerald — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 17:19:26 +0000

Keith Fitz-Gerald Investment Director Money Morning/The Money Map Report VANCOUVER, B.C. - The U.S. financial crisis has cut so deep - and the government has taken on so much debt in misguided... Money Morning is here to help investors profit h...

WSJ: Treasury is Close to Bailout Plan err Backstop for Fannie (FNM), Freddie (FRE)

Trader Mark — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:24:00 +0000

Not that they need it because their business model is just fine thank you - but your tax dollars are on the way... this administration is infamous for doing their best bailout... err assistance ... plans on the weekend. I wonder if this was leaked to Goldman Sachs... err to someone, and that caused the [...]

Devil’s Dictionary for Financial Markets

Prieur du Plessis — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 07:29:21 +0000

There is nothing like a good dose of humor to cheer one up from the otherwise depressing economic situation. The honors go to Norgate Investor Services who compiled the amusing Devil’s Dictionary for Financial Markets, the A to Z of satirical investm...

Dead Men Walking

Prieur du Plessis — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 05:23:00 +0000

"When I look at my Bloomberg monitor each day that contains my 100 most important indices, companies, commodities, bonds, bond spreads, preferred shares, etc, I shudder. The reason I shudder is that my screen doesn’t have just one 'problem child'. It...

Jim Rogers, on Bernanke, the Federal Reserve, and why the US May just be Screwed

Alex Stanczyk — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:27:18 +0000

Alex’s Notes: Dont know about you, but I consider Jim Rogers to be a very smart man. You dont become a Billionaire in commodities by being stupid. He has some very interesting things to say about the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in a recent interview. In my opinion, this guy gets inflation and the big [...]

Exclusive Interview: Jim Rogers Predicts Bigger Financial Shocks Loom, Fueling a Malaise That May Last for Years

Keith Fitz-Gerald — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 01:19:47 +0000

[The First of Two Parts.] Keith Fitz-Gerald Investment Director Money Morning/The Money Map Report VANCOUVER, B.C. – The U.S. financial crisis has cut so deep – and the government has... Money Morning is here to help investors profit ha...

Rate Cut to 5.75% – Fed to the Rescue?

Prieur du Plessis — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 17:41:15 +0000

Since hitting a peak on July 16, the meltdown in global stock markets has taken place with lightning speed. Given the fact that more than 10% (using the Dow Jones World Index as a proxy for global stocks) has already been wiped off investors’ scoreboards, the question invariably is how low can we go. Has the [...]