ScottyEconomist

Ford's Total Vehicle Sales Down Nearly 41% YoY

They deserve it, I have a car from asia. Anyone who says "Be American, Buy American" should be sterilized.

G20 Protesters Break into RBS

We should all follow Gore-Tex example. Fire all executives, and let the employees vote for a senior rep. I think their senior rep makes the same amt as the average employee at Gore-Tex too. It's a goofy setup but seems to work well for them. Just a model to look into....sorry, it was off the subject I know. On subject, I think it is cool that protestors broke into RBS, how cool is that.

Former GM Board Member: 'I Told You So'

I actually love reading this author's articles. He's a lot smarter than you think. Just because he's not reciting what he hears on cnn and the WSJ and assuming they are god, like you guys, doesn't make him wrong. It's refreshing to hear from an author that's not a mindless drone like you guys. I worked OTC and Structured Products with one of the top if not the top Investment Bank. I also worked with hedge funds for a while, so I've been around. I can tell you, we would hire individuals like "Mr Durden" and not you. He thinks outside the mainstream and actually thinks for himself, and doesn't let Cramer do it for him. "We do not talk about project mayhem"

Jon Stewart on CNBC's 'Worthlessness'

I hate Maria Bartiromo, let's rant on her

Hedge Fund Investment on Main Street

Good Call

In Defense of Hedge Funds

Was a great article though...Well written and the author definitely knows his stuff.

In Defense of Hedge Funds

I agree and disagree with your article. I also worked with hedge funds heavily and have seen how they operate.

Agreements-
I agree not all hedge funds are bad. A few that I have worked with make sure they were covered and didn't take too much leverage and risk. But that was a small few.

Investors are to blame too. Just because the SEC considers you a "qualified" investors, it doesn't automatically give you a financial education and make you bullet-proof to the downside.

I feel bad for your pension and 401k, but get mad at your CFO not the HF they bought in to.

Disagreements-
In response to your comment "not all hedge funds are scandals or dens of greed and vice". I would respond to that by saying not all Nazis were murderous ass holes, but they contributed to the wrong cause, they did nothing to fix it and they were guilty by association. Hedge funds today implemented strategies that were high-risk that were not fully covered (Principal Protection). A lot of their strategies were so exotic and with margins so low, that the traders I worked with couldn't understand the payoff let alone the investor. Also, investors that are allowed to to buy-in had to be qualified, and qualified by no means lives up to its name. You just need to be a milionaire with no idea about investing. I'm by no means "qualified" by the SEC definition, but I have been in the industry working OTC, hold charters and could run circles around those "qualified" investors. What's that to say about the investment pool knowledge?

I remember when I was graduating with my undergrad (BS Finance) and my teacher went around the room asking us what we were going to do with our degrees (I went back to school). No lie, half the class said they wanted to go out and start a hedge fund. None of these kids were in any way qualified to manage their own money, let alone millions from other investors. All you need is a Harvard/Yale degree and no one will ask any questions about your abilities, let alone your strategies.

When the dust settles, I hope to see more Hedge Fund exits and less consolidation.

Also, just a thought. 90% of HFs state in they strategy that they are alpha seeking or seek to generate a positive alpha. Every idiot in the market is looking for alpha, HFs were apparently looking in the wrong place.

So I guess my feelings are mixed. HF strategies and cool and usually have returns that are positively skewed with leptokurtic distributions. They give you somthing interesting to invest other than the usual ETF of mutual fund. But they carry lots of risk. The investors and market got what they deserved and I think that HFs will get their punishment. The ones that remain are all probably going to be the relative value or designated short strategies.

Why Hedge Funds Face a Rockier 2009

Logic is you buy Guns, Booze and Nukes when you're depressed

Why Hedge Funds Face a Rockier 2009

How's the Vice fund doing by the way? Thought it was negitively correlated with the market

Why Hedge Funds Face a Rockier 2009

In response to Big-K...Most individual investors don't have access to hedge funds, not "qualifited." Institutional investors or high net individuals.Also, hedge fund managers don't "skim" off profits. A lot follow the 80/20 of PE and a lot of their compensation is performance based and claw-back provisions prevent high volitility in performance.

Financial times stated today that they expect the amt of hedge funds to cut in half over the next year..Question is, will this be consolidation or exiting. Also, a lot of the Broker/Dealers have their own HFs and/or are bringing in outside advisors/HFs to buy their own structured products. Now I would expect the amt of structured products to decrease and these large broker/dealers to cut of these "contracted" HFs. With the lack of new structured products, institutional investment, and Private wealth heading toward money markets and saving (savings is at an all time high as a percentage of wealth...I think 5%) I agree with the FT that hedge funds are going to be seeing an exit.

2009: Boom or Bust for Clean Energy?

Great article Rona !

Just a few thoughts. Novera is a good benchmark for Alternative Energy in Europe and it seems like FSLR (First Solar) is a good benchmark for North America but more specifically and statistically solar demand/health in the US. Using these benchmarks it seems that European Alternatives are finding it harder to recover than the US and that Solar is rebounding much better than Wind. Can anyone comment on this ?

The Dollar's Point of No Return

A few things,

1) Has this guy been watching the news? Look at the charts, the dollar is up and the Pound/Euro are down.

2) Yes the US has been forking out tons of of bailout money and buying up toxic assets, but so has Asia and Europe.

Sorry John Lee, but you must not have been watching the news today on the BOE

Battery Wars

Great Article

This is to all those individuals that are in the "Be American, Buy American" bucket. If you want the US to be technologically ignorant for the rest of existance than go ahead and buy American. I am American but I also believe that if we reward GM and any other American company for lacking forsight and investing in new Tech will only hinder the US in the long-run and not help us. Buy purchasing new Tech, wherever it is from, will push those lagging behind to catch up or get out. I'm sorry but we live in a Globalization world where capital and the means of capital move relatively freely. I believe that by purchasing asian "New-Tech" you will only be motivating the US to step up and keep up. It is complete and utter ignorance to say "Be American, Buy American." 90% of the "American" stuff you buy was made outside the US. You'd probably be more "American" by buying foreign products.

Relative Performance of BRIC Countries

Great Article....guess it's either really good or really bad for BRIC, no real in between

East European Financial Crisis Likely To Hit Overexposed Western Europe

Great article, I had no idea that Western Europe was so heavily invested in Eastern Europe.