Erez Attiya

George Soros, Reflexivity and Market Reversals

Again Soros try to reinvent the market while he bases his performance on a one time success and occasionally profitable deals. Maybe we need new and modern ideas against traditional economic thoughts but please be reasonable mind and not just a talking head.

Bond Expert: Tuesday Wrap

Bond is a loan and if banks won't give corporates loan than why should I? Do I know better??NO! And neither do you. Banks can smell the fire much ahead of us, so if they won't loan than we need to figure from it that the right time hasn't arrives yet. Prefer govs bonds for now.

5 Reasons for Optimism About This Market (Or Not)

The other one of my friends (which is not in the financial market arena and don't understand nothing in the financial activities) said to me that the GBP got very very weak against the jpy (I translate it for your convenient but believe me, the conversation was very hard to understand cause he couldn't explain himself very well), and he "can't understand how could it be, how the UK's gov let that happened, it MUST (!!!, he is so sure in his believes) goes back up- let's buy some pounds!!"
Well, optimistic or not, my friend is a fool. I offered to take him to the casino, at least he'll get to have some fun while losing all of his money...

A Financial History of the World

You can obviously cut the entire book by typing one sentence: "The defendant/s________ (fill the one or few you think are guilty in all this crisis and apathy reaction) found guilty!"
On the other hand, if you don't think there is one or few guilty persons, believe me, no book will help you find them or figure out who are they, so cut it right here.

Exploring the 'Nuclear Option' for This Crisis

Your article is not correct at all, although you has a point there. Look, derivatives market is good and it actually made work places and (you won't believe it) real people works in this market. The problem comes from the place that this market wasn't regulated at all (well almost, but not even close to the other markets). Think about that no financier could make any idiotic derivation without an authorization from the regulator (SEC, etc.). If we had a serious regulator, it wouldn't let the market come to the place it is staying at now. Every mathematical development that can lead to smarter financial actions (like more sophisticated derivatives), is blessed, but the regulator need to (at least) approve it (or not) but absolutely not letting the bankers in WS to whatever they want without censorship. I promise you that when this turbulence will over and we all will get smarter (including the regulators) we will be able to enjoy a sophisticated markets, with a lot of opportunities to make profits, but in much safer financial environment.

How the World Almost Came to an End on September 18, 2008

So what? If so much money was drawn I guess that every person who drew his/her money knew about it. I don't care about the withdrawing fact but about the reason- the trigger that delivers the citizens to withdraw all their money: What the heck the citizens knew BEFORE the govs.??? Whi the gov wasn't ready for that very-very close crisis to come?
Don't get it and this enigma is for me the real scary event.

Can We Go Back to the Old Wall Street?

Let's say nobody feels good and comfortable today, as the markets are too complicated and too sophisticated so anyone could control it. Moreover, It's a monster that took over us. Like the machines in the saga "The Terminator"- the machine (financial markets) took control on the menkind and made us lose almost every good old asset we formerly had.

U.S. Government vs. the Stock Market

Every month has a new giant crisis and every new week delivers the "worse event in generations". Enough with these anger prophecies, there always a closer crisis that threaten the stability of our delicate financial markets, Don't forget that when the markets went up good and hard, not you and not anyone (except for some economic pros but certainly not you) has something bad to say, so please, let the professional do their work and if they'll (IF), then you'll have a chance to giggle on this figure or another.

Carl Icahn Says Capitalism Should Return to Its Roots

The corporate management is in most of the time a rubber stamp, and the outsider directors are most of the time yes men, check what happened in lehman and bear sterns.
Just to make a point: the US gov need to control the risk that companies takes on themselves (based on the CEO approach and these rubber stamps and yes men) according to their activities: meaning, a financial institution won't take an overload risk on its daily working method and a Hi Tec company won't deal with real estate and risky financial moves based on the back of their shareholders.

In Search of a New Hedge Fund Business Model

The model of hedge fund has to be as any other investment branch, and I want to delay on it for a second:
Hedge fund's last model was :nobody know what our model is, and if we'll explain it, probably nobody will understand". Based on that approach, we got madoff and his friends that support the collapse of the financial market, and with it, the entire economy. Now the gov is obliging these financiers to get back to earth and get attached with rest of the people: Real investing in real assets to make reasonable profits in reasonable risk. Based on that approach, I guess that hedge funds won't be anymore hedge funds, at least not the way we knew them till now. Now these financial institutions have to give their client a new added value, on here is exactly my point (back to the beginning): What is the added value a financial institution can give to his clients if it's not "hedge fund's sophisticated investing method and algorithm"?
The answer in my opinion is split into two branches:
1) customer service: Be as transparent as you can and give your client exactly the true and not any "leave it to us, we know exactly what we're doing".
2) reliability: Don't lie and hide behind to-hard-to-figure-out numbers. Don't be my friend, be trustable enough so we won't get into new mess like this one in the fall down session.

Preview from Europe: Markets Braced for U.S. Non-Farm Payrolls

What about:
* Senators consensus of modifying the Obama's stimulus plan? (NYTIMES)
* Historically event of women workforce to overtake men workforce? (NYTIMES)
* Toyota's announcement of expecting losses to be THREE TIMES BIGGER then their earlier numbers? (NYTIMES)
* Finally the US Gov gets some outside help for the GM mess from expertises in the fields of law & finance? (BLOOMBERG)
* Ford encountered 4B$ pension costs, what may push Ford for its last operational year before bailing out? (BLOOMBERG)
* Mastercard is the only surprisingly (for better) as overtaking 4th Q estimates? (FORBES)

Have A Good Day!
Erez

BofA's Merrill Purchase: Good for America, Bad for Them

Just don't forget that anyone has a motive, and under the surface you could never tell what was happened.
As it looks from your (Narrow?) point of view BOFA did a favor to someone which it never gets paid back, but remember (or check by yourself again) that BOFA portion in all the (pathetic) stimulation plans bush gov had was the biggest, based on the fact that BOFA carry Merrill. I don't think you're totally mistake but the facts you showed (except for Thain greed) are not correct and need a lineup.

Erez A.

It's Time for the Next Generation of Executives

Who says the shareholders are those choosing CEO (or for that matter CFO,COO,CTO or any other executive role in the company)?
The true is that a company has its board of directors, which choose those executives, and if you do some work and drill down inside public companies, you'll see that most of the directors has some connections with the executive they offer, recommend and finally choose. Below the surface, every company has its intrigues and sub-connections and as for the shareholders, well, they're naive enough (like you) to believe non of it is true and that they have any power with choosing this role or another. As of your qualifications, I must say that you practically missed the central point, and after the last crisis and events in the market, I hope you would notice that just asking for lower salary isn't enough anymore (actually it never was) and your skills are lacking with one important thing we noticed every other executives lacks: RISK MANAGEMENT SKILLS!!
What do you understand with risk? How you gonna protect the company from falling down or get hurt in these kind of times? Just talking about general skills and lower salary is not what shareholder are looking for and we start to understand that, so take it to your attention.
Thanks for your time.