BBC News asks independent trader Alessio Rastani "
what would keep investors happy, make them feel more confident?" and gets a surprisingly honest answer:
"Personally, it doesn't matter. See, I'm a trader. I don't really care about that kind of stuff. If I see an opportunity to make money, I go with that. So, for most traders, we don't really care that much about how they're going to fix the economy, about how they're going to fix the whole situation; our job is to make money from it. And, personally, I've been dreaming of this moment for three years. I have a confession which is I go to bed every night and dream of another recession, I dream of another moment like this." [SLYT]
posted by finite
on Sep 26, 2011 -
235 comments
"
Any industry would be proud of an average annual growth rate of 34% over ten years and of a global reach from Austria to Taiwan. But the headlong expansion of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which by May this year controlled almost $1.5 trillion of assets (not far short of the $2 trillion in hedge funds), has become a matter for concern among financial regulators. Could ETFs be the next source of financial scandal, or even of systemic risk?" Characterizing the Financial sector "like a hyperactive child" that "can never leave a good thing be",
The Economist appears to be
wishing for the
ETFs to be
better regulated because "it would be a shame if reckless expansion spoiled a good innovation".
posted by vidur
on Jun 26, 2011 -
28 comments
"The plan was money. The architect was money. The designer was money and the builder was money. And if you ever wondered what money would look like if it were left to its own devices,
it's Dubai."
posted by vidur
on Mar 13, 2011 -
69 comments
Today, while
testifying for only the second time on Capitol Hill since the financial crisis began, [former Fed chairman] Alan Greenspan said the Fed closely monitored the subprime market [...]
"I was right 70% of the time, but I was wrong 30% of the time, and there were an awful lot of mistakes in 21 years...". But
Greenspan's defense of his record today
rang hollow to many
seasoned observers, if not
downright deceitful.
posted by HP LaserJet P10006
on Apr 7, 2010 -
44 comments
Standard & Poor’s changed the
UK's credit outlook from stable to negative a few days ago, and warned that there is a chance the UK could lose its AAA rating. Meanwhile, Moodys, another of the
big 3 rating agencies, has warned that
the US might also eventually lose its AAA rating. The UK announcement
caused sterling to drop by 1% and the FTSE by 2%. However,
many blame the same rating agencies for their part in
triggering the subprime crisis. The irony of this is not lost on the
Wall Street Journal, who note that "After all, those governments are jacking up spending, in part, to bail out the financial firms who gobbled up those 'AAA' asset backed securities duly blessed by the credit ratings firms."
[more inside]
posted by memebake
on May 26, 2009 -
38 comments
Matt Taibbifilter:
Among other things, the GAO report noted that the entire OTS had only one insurance specialist on staff — and this despite the fact that it was the primary regulator for the world's largest insurer! This week's MeFi stories have generally failed to explain the reasoning that caused the recession, even though
Jon Stewart was basically on the mark. Now,
Rolling Stone's only reporter lays it all out
The Big Takeover, a typical combination of zealous snark and the overlooked, damning facts needed to clear up a ridiculously complicated story.
posted by shii
on Mar 20, 2009 -
111 comments
TARP, SSFIP, EESA, CPP, TALF, MMIFF... Are you feeling overwhelmed by all the new acronyms coming out of the US Treasury Department lately? Here's
a handy PDF reference guide to untangling the US government efforts to rescue banks, financial corporations, and other companies.
posted by Asparagirl
on Dec 29, 2008 -
10 comments
Letter from Iceland. There you see the Iceland of today – the victim of an economic 9/11 and one of the very few places in the world where the words “financial meltdown” can be used without fear of exaggeration. [more inside]
posted by jason's_planet
on Nov 15, 2008 -
33 comments
Argentina Didn't Fall on Its Own. (Single-page, printer-friendly version
here.) I don't normally read long articles on economic subjects, but this one is riveting, because it links Argentina's collapse to larger issues of how the world of money works today.
"The time has come to do our mea culpa," Hans-Joerg Rudloff, chairman of the executive committee at Barclays Capital, said at a conference of bank and brokerage executives in London a few months ago. "Argentina obviously stands as much as Enron" in showing that "things have been done and said by our industry which were realized at the time to be wrong, to be self-serving."
...It is like "a bizarre AA program in which you remove booze from the homes of people who are reducing the amount they drink and put it into the homes of people who are drinking more every day," Pettis said. "This is probably not the best way to reduce drunkenness."
posted by languagehat
on Aug 3, 2003 -
7 comments
Could he be right yet again? : Interview with Bob Prechter (and
another one)
If he is, we're all in for a world of hurt.
In this three part interview, Elliott Wave International president Robert Prechter discusses his new book, “Conquer The Crash: How To Survive and Prosper in a Deflationary Depression.”
During the 1980s, Bob Prechter won numerous awards for market timing as well as the United States Trading Championship, culminating in Financial News Network (now CNBC) granting him the title, "Guru of the Decade." In 1990-1991, he was elected and served as president of the nation-al Market Technicians Association in its 21st year.
He has also published a seminal book on Elliott wave analysis titled, “Elliott Wave Principle – Key To Market Behavior,” three books on the major practitioners of wave analysis, and books on his own views in Prechter's Perspective and At the Crest of the Tidal Wave.
posted by muppetboy
on Feb 13, 2003 -
47 comments
US Airways Bankrupt. It had to happen to one of the big airlines eventually, what with 9/11 and the hesitancy to fly following. But on top of everything else financially as of late... it just deepens that already sick feeling. Who's next?
posted by dopamine
on Aug 11, 2002 -
17 comments
High Finance Run Amok [latimes free reg req] is a Kevin Phillips editorial on the "financialization" of the US economy. "As the financial sector, in short, became too important to fail, the Fed and the Treasury abandoned market economics to embrace socialization of credit risk. No other sector of the U.S. economy, save possibly defense, received such governmental assistance."
posted by electro
on Jun 24, 2002 -
13 comments
The House has passed the bankruptcy reform bill that Clinton vetoed at the end of the last session. I'm mildly optimistic that it won't pass the Senate, given that the Democratic vote in the House was split. But should we be worried at all?
At first glance, it doesn't seem like a bad idea. But so many consumer groups are against it, and it seems to benefit credit card companies while hurting individuals, so I'm inclined to think we should leave things as-is. Especially since personal bankruptcies are down and credit card issuers' profits are up. Anyone know more about this?
posted by aaron
on Mar 1, 2001 -
7 comments
