Ben Steinway

Cramer Grilled on Jon Stewart

Cramer disappointed me on the Daily Show. He lay down like a pussy and feigned contrition in order to appease Jon Stewart. Meanwhile Stewart was slinging half truths and, at best, layman populist market bullcrap. I am a market professional and keep CNBC on at all times. The key to watching CNBC is distinguishing the signal from the noise. This comes from decades of market experience and I'm sorry if laymen take it ALL as 'signal.' But I don't feel CNBC touts their reporting as entirely correct signals. Hey, it's no secret that Cramer's stock picks don't ouperform the market -- but he does give a lot of good insight into things and tells you to do your own homework.

Jon Stewart was unfair and mean spirited during the interview. Cramer could have set him straight but was just plain spineless.

Bill Ackman Piled Into Wachovia and AIG Shares

I've got to think Ackman had some inside information on plowing into Wachovia. I'd love to hook these guys up to lie-detectors and ask them how they REALLY discover their brilliant trading ideas!

Ben Stein and Bear Stearns: Getting It Wrong

It was reported that a few huge hedge funds began pulling their money from their Bear Stearns prime brokerage accounts. These withdrawals constitute a "run" on Bear. No problem so far as these hedge funds are free to bank whereever they choose, just as you and I can switch money between different brokerage houses as we wish. Impropreity, however, arises if Citadel or Rennaissance or whatever hedge funds involved had on significant short positions in Bear Stearns at the time of withdrawing thier capital. (These shorts could take the form of short stock, long puts, swaps, or long CDSs -- in other words, many ways to hide their tracks.) A Prime Brokerage account is often termed a "Joint Back Office" relationship which to me, sounds like the hedge funds may potentially be related as insiders with respect to Bear. So their brilliant trade would be to short Bear, and squeeze them by withdrawing their accounts. Brilliant, yes. But legal??