(Reuters) - Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama administration's pay czar, is being pressed by federal officials to relax executive compensation restrictions at American International Group Inc AIG for 2010, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.The officials believe very severe curbs could harm the insurer and eventually...
(Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures pointed to a lower opening on Wall Street on Tuesday, following the previous session's sharp gains, with futures for the S&P 500 down 0.18 percent, Dow Jones futures down 0.26 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures down 0.38 percent at 0925 GMT (4:25 a.m. EST).Hewlett-Packard...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York Times editorial slammed Goldman Sachs GS for its role in the financial crisis and said that instead of paying big bonuses to its employees it should make a multibillion-dollar gift to help reduce the U.S. national debt.The editorial, published November 21, attacked Goldman...
Help Wanted: If you have what it takes to rescue a nearly bankrupt insurer with high turnover, curtail the turmoil in the executive suite and institute a repayment plan for $83 billion in debt, then you could be the right person for this job. Citing "sources familiar,"...
If you believe in the old political adage, "When nobody likes you, you must be doing a good job," then U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Sure, a Rasmussen telephone survey� shows that 42 percent of Americans believe Geithner is doing a "poor" job,"...
Editor's Note: This article was written by Edward Hoofnagle of Ebusinessware Thought Leadership. Have you ever really taken a moment to think about the implications of a thriving Credit Default Swap (CDS) market on sovereign debt?First a word about the Credit Default Swap market size. Because Credit Default Swaps are private bilateral agreements there's really no single source to determine the outstanding notional amounts.However much has been done to centralize trades and the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation has illustrated a view of market size with some figures that the Financial Times published yesterday in "Bets rise on rich ...
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DailyFinance: Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) reported quarterly results Monday after the bell. There were few surprises, because the company had pre-announced them last week when it acquired 3Com, so the 14% profit rise boosted by China sales and better profit margins was ... Read more
In the scenario I’m about to paint for you, the dialog is fictional, but all the facts and figures are real.
The time: 1 AM, November 23, 2011, exactly two years from now.
The place: the White House, suddenly and unexpectedly under siege as a new financial crisis erupts.
The economic booms of 2010 have morphed into super booms … the super booms into bubbles … and the bubbles into busts.[More...]
Each week, I like to publish the past week's hottest ETFs to share some new trends and niche ETFs (and ETNs) out there (check out this full ETF List of ~800 - every exchange traded fund I could find) and give investors some new investing/diversification ideas. Last week, it was metals, metals, metals. I made sure to include both conventional and leveraged ETFs in this week's hot list:[More...]
As everyone knows by now, Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for TARP, has a new report out on the decision by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York last Fall to make various AIG counterparties (primarily some very big banks with names you know) whole on the the CDS protection they had bought from AIG to cover their risk on some CDOs. The potentially juicy bit has to do with the Maiden Lane III transaction (New York Fed summary here).[More...]
There is a scene in the movie “Animal House” (which completely rips off Dr. Suess’ “Horton Hears a Who” in one fell swoop but that’s a story for a different day) where a small group is at Professor Riegert’s house and after the room fills with a certain scent the discussion gets a bit heady and the concept that our entire universe could be on the head of a pin in another, larger, universe is proposed. Grand stuff for sure but in the good professor’s case merely an attempt to raise Pinto’s awareness of a world outside of his own “Private Idaho”.[More...]
Stacy Summary: Witness the casino model in the Goldman Sachs / Buffett ‘charitable’ donation . . . you plough $23 trillion into the house slot machine and out comes $500 million in ‘free ‘drinks.
U.S. housing starts unexpectedly plunge in October
Goldman Sachs bankrupted AIG, played starring role in near collapse of global markets
Goldman Sachs & Warren [...]
Stacy Summary: And, of course, Goldman’s undisclosed role will not be examined by Congress or one of the commissions designed to investigate how this ‘mysterious’ financial collapse happened.
Goldman’s Undisclosed Role in AIG’s Distress [PDF]
Goldman questioned PriceWaterhouse, Goldman’s and AIG’s common auditor, about prices. Goldman wanted lower prices, which meant that AIG would have to produce more collateral. When AIG was downgraded in September 2008, AIG was required to put up an aggregate amount of $14.5 billion in additional collateral to equal the full difference between original prices and
market prices. But “market prices” in this illiquid market were influenced by Goldman Sachs.
Goldman was right to question the prices, make calls for collateral, and protect itself. Goldman’s
activity was not the same as that of an arsonist buying fire insurance, but its trading activities
with AIG and others were accelerants of AIG’s problems.
Stacy Summary: More forensic examination of Goldman Sachs’ role during the days that its former Chief Executive, Hank Paulson, was bailing out the financial players.
Goldman Sachs: Reasonable Doubt (Janet Tavakoli)
Sophisticated counterparties like AIG are supposed to protect themselves, and have little chance for recovering damages. But now the American taxpayer has stepped in to make [...]
Stacy Summary: Are you surprised? Negotiating privately with the banks?
Fed authorized 100% AIG payouts on CDS
Beginning late in the week of Nov. 3, the New York Fed, led by President Timothy Geithner, took over negotiations with the banks from AIG, together with the Treasury Department and Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s Federal Reserve. Geithner’s team circulated [...]
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