30SEP08:
31DEC08 INDICES:
FTSE100:3550
DOW30:7550
# HEDGE FUNDS:4425 30JUN08: Oil to be USD200 by 30OCT08 USA Inflation to be 7.5% by 30OCT08
...oops 23APR08:
Next Rights Issue:
HBOS...yes
All & Lec ...
...1 Nil. 17APR08: Oil to be USD127 by 30SEP08
...16MAY08 losing my touch 27FEB08:
2 Banks go bust by 30JUN08
BS down, Lehman (a bit late I know) 20NOV07: Northern Crock to be sold for 15p
Nationalized 01NOV07: Oil to be USD103 EOM
...peaked too soon 08OCT07:
SEC to fine Goldman for pricing issues
...still waiting 15JUN07: ML to buy-out BS
JPM got there first 06JUN07: The Big Crash: 17OCT07
...well it's here
Having not flown at the back of plane since ...well never ...I decided in these cost cutting times to save some cash. First Class equals decent service, leg room and a top class wine list but it costs 30 times as much as flying economy. However, flying first isn't what it is cracked up to be either. It doesn't mean, for example, you hob knob with the great and the good. Most people who do fly first class are on business or upgraded from business class and are quite frankly pretty dull. They hide in their pods with their Bose headphones and shut themselves away.
The great and the good fly on private jets. Usually. I read recently that a number of well known celebs have been flying at the back of the plane. This is not some sort of Al Gore Prius wearing eco trip but a way Celebs can travel without being recognized.
Imagine you were at the back of the plane, by the toilet and Britney Spears was lining up outside it? You would double take, but of course realize it wasn't her because no way would she be travelling at the back of the plane. Or be on a commercial plane at all. But it probably was her. Unhassled she would be able to move around without the hoards pulling lumps of her hair out or demanding she sings one of her one hit wonders to the drunken backpackers. She would be able to live the sort of existence celebs always complain they lost when they became famous. I understand that.
So I decided to join in too. The flight was from Los Angeles to New York. The ticket cost less than a taxi ride across London. I liked that. But it stopped there. Everything else was truly awful. Now I know why I hate backpackers. However, it also confirmed to me that First Class is a complete rip off. But I like being ripped off if I get peace and quiet and can smell the flowers.
One advantage of first class is space. I can take out my trusty vaio and tap away without some moron trying to read what I am typing. If I fancy a quick yoga work out, I can. My own pod space is large enough for me to bend and twist to my hearts content. Push-ups, skipping or an on board orgy, everything is possible. Flying economy is a little bit different and has that battery hen type feel.
Turning right onto a plane is not something my brain tolerates and I started to sweat profusely when I did. Seat 197K and my heart really did sink. Calling it a seat was an affront to the trades description act. Being six foot, I suffered DVT within 10 minutes of sitting down. The plastic covering was as shiny as a well polished candlestick and was looking forward to shining up my expensive Italian hand made suit trousers. The other “seats” were so close together they might as well have put us in coffins, drugged us and opened the lids when we landed. [Editor: Why are you presuming your readers would have never flown economy?].
5 hours of this was not feasible. I would die of claustrophobia before then. No blankets, duvets, wash bag, soft leather slippers, ear plugs, soothing to the eyes cabin crew, it was primitive. I have had more luxury on a camping trip in Scotland. My elbows were battered and bruised and the screaming children were not being blocked out by cheap in the ear plastic headphones. No noise reduction here because they were not noise reducing. I took the headphones off and stared at the second hand ear wax staining on the well worn foam ear pieces and promptly demanded a drink.
No champagne or vintage pinot noir so I had a beer. It was warm and past its best buy date. My bladder complained and I had to climb over sleeping, deodorant shy back packers to line up outside the lavatory with Britney. No slippers either so I was in my own silk cashmere socks. 30 minutes later and it was my turn. The smell was overwhelming as I slid back the door to witness a couple of drunken back packers high miling. I kicked them out, shut the door and found myself standing in a puddle of urine.
Where were the flowers? Or the pot-pourri? Or the Paul Smith moisturiser?
Of course the experience got worse and I had to drink even more beer. 5 hours later and my beer gut was so large they had to cut me out of my seat.
So what has this to do with running a hedge fund?
Often people who start hedge funds try and do it in a First Class way. They want luxury, pampering and to show off to clients. I agree whole heartedly. If your fund goes down, at least you do it in style. Running a hedge fund like a real cost conscious company is fraught with heart ache and disappointment. If you cannot or fly in style, stay at home. [Editor: I fell asleep there]
Which brings me onto rumors. Last Friday the markets were awash with rumors like any other day. Sabre Fund Management were rumored to have a fund in trouble caused by rogue trading. This they have denied and run to the UK's FSA to ask them to investigate where these malicious and untruthful rumors had come from (a certain French bank perhaps?). An interesting turn. Hedgies like to be unregulated and opaque, like to spread false rumors around to keep their short positions profitable and generally behave despicably. That's what I thought anyway. Imagine a hedgie complaining that people were being horrible about you.
A hedge fund has complained to the City watchdog that it was the victim of an attempt to spread false rumours about huge losses said to have been incurred by a rogue trader.
Sabre Fund Management, which specialises in quantitative trading - a share picking system based on a complex computer programme - said it had contacted the Financial Services Authority on Friday evening about "spoof" rumours.
Fintag says Looks like the FSA are turning into a Citizens Advice bureaux. Before long, every UK listed company and FSA regulated company will be crying fowl and demanding they take out those who dare gossip, rumor monger and slander and libel. Surely it has got enough on its plate trying to save the financial world than hearing Hedge Funds complain? Hedgies are always spreading stories about how crap companies are to keep their shorts up and this smacks of double standards.
Moody's Investors Service downgraded Morgan Stanley as the ratings agency said the size of trading losses in the past year has reduced confidence in the bank's risk controls but expects the Wall Street firm to remain profitable for the remainder of this year as well as next year.
Morgan Stanley's ratings was cut by one notch to A1 from Aa3 and the outlook was affirmed as stable, according to a statement from Moody's
Fintag says Poor old Stanley. Another incompetent bank trying its best to hold onto its rating. Given the CRA's are mostly responsible for the credit crunch and fat bonuses in 2007, it seems ironic that the hand that fed them is now starving them.
Apax Partners, one of Britain's biggest buyout groups, is within days of clinching a deal to sell 10 per cent of itself to sovereign wealth funds from Australia and Singapore and to a Japanese investor.
The Australia Government Future Fund, the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) and an undisclosed Japanese firm have agreed in principle to invest several hundred million euros in Apax, according to one senior source.
Fintag says Of course the other culprits of the credit crunch were the Pirate Equity crew who couldn't stop borrowing to pay inflated prices for worthless companies (their fees are usually basis points on the gross consideration of the deal - the more they borrowed, the more they made). Irony of irony, they are now begging to the arabs and asians who were among their biggest investors.
INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS BRACED FOR ANOTHER BIG FINANCIAL COLLAPSE
Institutional investors expect another big financial firm will collapse within the next six months in the continued fallout from the credit crunch, a report has shown.
Nearly 60 per cent of US and European institutional investors surveyed by Greenwich Associates believed there would be such a failure within the next six months; 15 per cent thought it would happen in 6-12 months.
The investors feared that the knock-on effects of the collapse of a large financial institution on the credit derivatives market would pose a "serious threat" to global markets.
Fintag says Am I allowed to say what the market rumors are? Merrill Lynch being number 1 followed by Lehmans? Or will I go to jail for stating the obvious?
bloomberg says " UBS Posts Fourth Straight Loss on Writedowns, Settlement Costs "
financial times says " Credit crunch forces JPMorgan into $1.5bn mortgage writedown "
In what must count as one of the largest retention bonuses of all time, a New York hedge fund has lavished $300m (£156m) on a 38-year-old star trader to keep him with the business.
Fortress Investments, which also runs a number of sizeable private equity funds, has given $300m in shares to Adam Levinson, chief investment officer of one of its main funds.
The married father-of-one joins Fortress' five founding shareholders to become one of its controlling shareholders, crystallising his efforts at the firm over the past six years.
Fintag says That'll do nicely.
new york times says " Jack Nash, Pioneer in Hedge Funds, Dies at 79 "
PHYSICS BOFFIN WHO WORKED FOR LTCM SETS UP LONDON HEDGE FUND
A City trader who formerly worked at Long-Term Capital Management, the hedge fund that spectacularly blew up a decade ago forcing the Federal Reserve to step in with a rescue package, has teamed up with a former colleague to launch a new fund in London.
David Ko, whose background is in quantum physics, filed documentation earlier this year with Companies House applying to set up a hedge fund called Kurtosis Capital Partners. The other founder named in the document was Stephen Cain, a former senior trader at Deutsche Asset Management.
Fintag says Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Should I invest or run a mile?
Hedge funds are braced for more dire performance data after sharp reversals in commodities and financials in July pushed some funds to record losses -- making the goal of positive returns for the year even harder to reach.
Like the market swing in March following the bailout of Bear Stearns, the spike in volatility in July caught many funds by surprise as two of their favourite bets -- long commodities and short financials -- simultaneously unwound.
Fintag says Give me a break [Editor: You have just spend a lot of money on a Kabbalah vacation? I thought it was a non violent religion?]
Suspicion over the collapse of Bear Stearns is centring on a massive options trade, less than two weeks before the historic investment bank went under in March, by which a single investor made a profit of more than $270m (£141m) on a bet against the company's share price.
In a "whodunnit" that has gripped Wall Street for months, many traders and senior executives at Bear Stearns have become convinced the firm was brought down by a conspiracy of rivals and hedge funds, who spread malicious rumours and ultimately triggered a collapse in confidence among its trading partners.
Fintag says Here we go again. Somebody spots an opportunity and is berated for it. Good grief, we all knew Bear Stearns was stuffed months before. So we aren't allowed to make money anymore? The USA is turning into a communist state.
Oh well, its another chance to see the Bear Stearns condoms with ventilation holes:
For those of you who find this tasteless (Catholics mostly) here is a First Class experience for you to enjoy instead::
5 comments
anonymous said ...
How can someone sing 'one of' their one hit wonders? Surely a one hit wonder has....one hit only?
12 Aug 08 - 07:29 gmt
anonymous said ...
Kurtosis? Dreadful name, sounds like ketosis so I hope Ko does not have halitosis.
Glad to see Kabbalah has not improved your spelling Fin.....most people cry foul rather than fowl, unless their is a chicken in the room
12 Aug 08 - 07:37 gmt
Finbar said ...
@anonymous: You try writing this with a hangover, jet lag and a firefox spell checker that has a life of its own at 6 in the morning ... [Editor: The customer is always right]
12 Aug 08 - 08:55 gmt
GalwayBoy said ...
Welcome back Finbar. Everyone needs a holiday. Unfortunately the nutters took over the asylum while you were away.
12 Aug 08 - 09:15 gmt
anonymous said ...
$300million to stay? That's nothing... I asked for a 40% pay rise, but got £100 of Waterstone's vouchers instead. Now that's a staff incentive program
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A hedge fund has complained to the City watchdog that it was the victim of an attempt to spread false rumours about huge losses said to have been incurred by a rogue trader.
Sabre Fund Management, which specialises in quantitative trading - a share picking system based on a complex computer programme - said it had contacted the Financial Services Authority on Friday evening about "spoof" rumours.