tanga

Zero Hedge serves up a property-level analysis of the most at-risk CRE properties you've never heard of.

excellent,thorough analysis.i learned alot from this post and thank the gentleman that put it together

Preferred Shares and Cumulative Dividends: An Investor's Guide

Quantum Online is an excellent link, but you m ust do the work..I have found a preferred PARTNER RE -C that yields above 7.5 pct(above that of the troubled of Wells Fargo,for example)where the fundamentals are excellent and the common was one fo the few financia; stocks that DID not decline in 2008..AM BEST gives it its highest rating.
There are ineffeciencies in the preferred market that exist because the floats are often too small for institutional buyers. Also the ETF's have buy and sell programs at various time which provide opportunities in these issues that have no relation to their fundamentals.

The New York Fed failed to use its "considerable leverage" to force [[AIG]] counterparties into concessions on credit-default swaps, says TARP special inspector Neil Barofsky in a new report - severely limiting the bank's ability to save taxpayer money. Of eight counterparties contacted by the Fed, [[UBS]] was willing to make a 2% concession, but the Fed decided all would be paid in full.

Geitner,the ultimate Goldman syncophant strikes again. Imagine that.GOLDMAN gets paid 100 pct on the dollar on their deal with a company the American people now owns and he's not even humble.What a country!

While Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein understands that "people are pissed off" with bankers, he says everybody should be happy: "Companies are looking to grow again and raise money. That's where we come in. The financial system may have led us into the crisis but it will lead us out."

Here's the thing..We may detest the Schwartzmans of Blackstone or Steve Cohen's of the world(who hopefully will be required to speak the truth about HIS relationship with Goldman)but we did not bail them out. Paulson can make 100 mil putting his own money on the line and that is capitalism,but no one I know got bailed out when there portfolios went down 60 percent..They didn't get made whole by an AIG whose existence was one of the things that kept Goldman alive.No GS would have been floating in the two dollar range without the taxpayer's assistance and that's the difference that Blankfein and these other Goldman spokespeople don't get or don't want to admit.
My idea,short of something fair like getting paid back,would be to attach wires to all these execs;they would not be able to speak to anyone except clients of the firm or immediate family.They could continue to make all the money theywish,hopefully give much of it away to museums and such but NEVER serve on their boards..We do not want to see or hear from them again. If they violate these simple rules,perhaps they should have to spend a month cleaning up an old company's vacant warehouse that they lbo'd ten years ago.

Nearing the end of 2009, Floyd Norris has a nominee for worst idea of the year: Goldman Sachs' (GS) galling offer to buy discount tax credits from Fannie Mae. Given Fannie's ward status, it amounts to Goldman offering Uncle Sam 15 cents to save 20 cents in taxes - after it was taxpayer money that saved the megabank from extinction. (earlier)

totally agree on Volcker who was perhaps the only financial governmental figure to show any gumption in the last thirty years..and,i too am a free market person,having traded equities for 20 years(without a bailout:))unfortunatel... will never happen


On Nov 02 07:52 PM davidbdc wrote:

> Its beyond the worst idea of the year. I'm a free market person,
> and even I can't fathom what some of these folks are thinking any
> more. And the author is spot on that they aren't providing any benefit
> to society at this time. The raising of capital is important, but
> I think that about 75% of the rest of what is driving compensation
> is just paper games at this point in time.
>
> We need Obama to turn Volker loose......we all know he had the backbone,
> the intelligence, and the experience. And he's willing to do unpopular
> things if its needed in the long term. We don't have very many true
> public servants left, but he is one. Time to sweep away Geithner,
> Summers, Shapiro, etc and put Volker in charge.

Janet Tavakoli says events are bearing out that Goldman Sachs (GS) CFO David Viniar was just lying to shareholders in an answer in last fall's earnings call, where he said that credit risk from [[AIG]] was immaterial - just as all anyone wanted to know was "What's going on between Goldman and AIG?"

totally accurate and brave post by Janet Tavakoli as she has written a book on on one of the firm's largest shareholders,one Warren Buffett,who naturally has been eerily silent on all of Goldman's evasion of the truth in so many areas:AIG,GMAC,Dark Pools,the truth about making a big percentage of their money on squeezing fractions out of everyones pockets and giving info to high commission paying hedge funds before everyone else...

Trading executives warn sweeping rule changes meant to shed light on so-called dark pools could ultimately hurt the investors regulators are trying to empower. SEC meets on Wednesday, and is expected to force off-exchange dark pools to display more quotes and reveal more data.

amen


On Oct 18 10:43 AM Tom Armistead wrote:

> Agree with Graham and Dodd Investor, it's the same story, "if you
> regulate us you are going to hurt the retail investors." To listen
> to these people they are providing indispensable public services
> free and gratis, providing liquidity and price discovery, making
> a market, etc. Anything that harms them harms All American red-blooded
> capitalism.
>
> Dark pools seem to be about keeping price information from the public.
> And whatever liquidity they provide is not available to the retail
> investor.
>
> What this market needs to do is get rid of both extremes, the high
> frequency traders who prey on the visible market and the dark pools
> that hide the true market price and volume from the public.

Two days' worth of speakers at a trading industry conference this week were unanimously supportive of high-frequency trading, arguing it reduces costs and volatility while adding liquidity. And then Seth Merrin took the stage.

i used to be blown away by the Knight Trading ads I used to see while walking thru Grand Central.A tradition of trust they procalimed while anyone who trades knows that they exist soley to pick off fractions for themselves all day long and to add insult to injury actually PAY firms that most ordinary retail traders use for order flow(td ameritrade etc)because they make money off virtually all of them or at least stop themselves out at break even.
You have to laugh when \you see the TD ads emphasizing how they try to get the best price for investors when in truth most orders are farmed out to firms like KNIGHT,CITADEL(their only profitable division!)and Madoffs old firm.
Of course,the funniest ad of all is ETRADE.No not the little kids.They say they open a thousand accounts a day.If so,this means that they have opened around 300000 accounts over the year! They could hire half the laid off back office people on the street if this were the case..Truth is,most people who trade that I know have,if anything transferred their accounts away from E TRADE because of the firms precarious financial condition which may account for the largest holder cashing in alot of equity recently at a dollar plus a share....

How Galleon Got (and Lost) Its Edge

This area should be explored much more completely. There have been a few un prosecuted cases where hedge fund traders knew or even lived with analysts at major wire houses..Along with the early Goldman calls,pay the street culture has accounted for much of the outsized returns of hedge funds over the years...
Inicidentally,Id like to hear more about the Pequot Capital situation...Maybe one of Byron Wien's ten surprises could be........Art Samberg and the boys are totally clean...Will miss you at the Barrons Roundtable next year dude,but thankfully we always have Abby C.

Blackstone Rallies and Goldman Sachs Huddles

Great and funny article Mark and unfortunately,all too true as I've been short a couple of stocks that seemed to be going up rather suddenly (sometimes enough for me to cover) and then I find out that a few days earlier,Goldman gave a rec to its favored clients.And then I pay them TARP money out of my taxes! What a world.

Barrick Gold (ABX) plans to take $5.6B in charges to end all of its fixed-price gold contracts, betting on rising prices. The company will offer up to $3.45B in shares to offset the cost. COMEX gold futures rebounded late today; currently flat at $999.60.

....At one time ABX always hedged ALL their production..More recently,they had said they were going to stop doing that....Now at the high with volatility spiking,they are buying back 'hedges.'They are pricing their stock secondary a few dollars below last sale so only SAC capital and other pay the street funds can make money buying that secondary. Today's holder (ouch!) will be out a few bucks with gold at 1000. Meanwhile,GOLD ETF up almost ten dollars an hour after the company's annoucement Did they sell an extra 50000 calls or equiv by mistake?...Very strange stuff,indeed.

Higher Interest Rates: Not a Question of 'If' but 'When'

Recession Proof has distilled the prob with the article...You can and people have been losing quite a bit of money being short governements since the yield was 3.9 pct.But where is the true value added in this article? Should we short now and average down or up? Where do we stop ourselves out?It's wonderfully fun to speculate about the future course of events,but if you are a manager of money or a trader give me some numbers I can work with..


On Sep 06 03:20 PM RECESSIONPROOF wrote:

> "when" is still a very important question, because "if" you short
> bonds before "when" its right time to short, then "when" can cost
> you too much "if"

After reports surface about Goldman's (GS) 'trading huddles,' SEC and FINRA officials plan to investigate. The huddles may violate securities laws, including a requirement that Goldman engage in "fair dealing with customers."

Raloute's comment about the sec is spot on..This sort of stuff has been going on for MANY years. But even when Levitt was in charge there was nary an investigation.And now he wants to let these firms continue to steal fractions of cents from the public all day in this new technology trading.!!!Did the SEC ever wonder why some of these firms pay customer firms like TD WATERHOUSE and others for order flow?They did/do it so the online firms could make money from both customer and a little extra from these behemoths(kind of like the stock loan biz where they make money from YOUR securities but often charge you for borrowing) As for Goldman's huddles and 'early calls'-ii know there are bigger fish to fry in the financial world,but this is nothing but frontrunning for the big guys.

Critics are crying foul over Goldman Sachs' (GS) 'trading huddles,' weekly gatherings in which analysts offer stock tips to a small group of favored clients, often days before the same information is published in its reports.

Yes.There is a fine and GS knows that making positive comments in and of itself is not illegal.Yet if you gathered the top hedge fund managers in the land ,they would,to a man under oath,acknowledge that they have made a great deal of money from these non-call,calls.the only reason these big operations even do business with Goldman is to get IPO's and the "first call" on a stock..You pay the street ,you get the free money...But don't forget we all get Abby Cohen's research! Talk about value added

Critics are crying foul over Goldman Sachs' (GS) 'trading huddles,' weekly gatherings in which analysts offer stock tips to a small group of favored clients, often days before the same information is published in its reports.

this has been one of the reasons the big hedge funds that "paid the street" garnered excess returns.It is the Street's dirty little secret