November 6, 2008 - I cannot tell a lieI did my fair share of dancing in the streets Tuesday night. Something, along with my general tendency toward optimism, that I should disclose before I say what I have to say here...
October 17, 2008 - A group of banking and private equity guys, including Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein, JPMorgan's James Dimon and Blackstone Group's Stephen Schwarzman, have decided they don't much like the idea of taking responsibility...
October 9, 2008 - 'How are you?' I say. 'Is that a rhetorical question?' the investor says. And so begins one of the conversations I had with portfolio managers this week. We all know it's bad out there. Really bad. The worst it has been in almost forever. What we don't know is: Could it get worse? When will it get better?
October 2, 2008 - Over the past week, many of you have voiced your understandable anger at the government's proposed bailout of Americas financial system. Across the country, the chorus rings out: Its not my fault, why should I pay? So, as one of you, I thought I would join in. Eh, its not my fault...
September 25, 2008 - I dont usually take up space here to tout the work of other columnists. I am human after all, and not free of jealousy when someone has a brilliant idea I wish had been mine. Especially when he works for The Wall Street Journal. And looks cocky in his photo...
September 18, 2008 - As those who have suffered through previous down cycles will tell you, the sky is not fallingit never really falls. But man, can it droop. And right about now, its drooping like it longs to touch bottom...
September 11, 2008 - Brace yourself for the spectacular risk Im about to takeIm going to guess, right here, right now, that youve read all you want about our friends Fannie, Freddie and the Lehman brothers...
September 4, 2008 - As a teenager, in that decade of yore known as the 1980s, I always had mixed feelings about this time of year. Back to school lame. New clothes bitchin! Declining temperatures bogus. A new season of Dynasty gnarly...
August 14, 2008 - In past years, market participants have tended to look to September as a month of promise, a time when the markets come back from their summer holiday, tanned and jazzed for a busy fall...
August 7, 2008 - The scenario: A New York banker cheats on his wife with a married woman in London. Five years later, after the affair has ended and been confessed, and the man has rebuilt his marital relationship, the London womans now ex-husband...
July 31, 2008 - Just about everyone has some sort of fear, rational or not, and Ill start right off by sharing my biggie: confined spaces. I have no memory of a dark closet incident, and Im pretty positive Ive never fallen down a well...
July 24, 2008 - This weeks news that BankAtlantic Bancorp filed suit against Ladenburg Thalmann banking analyst Richard Bove, accusing him of defamation and negligence over a recently published research report, makes me uneasy...
July 17, 2008 - People tend to toss around the Pollyanna label pretty freely, often using it in its most simplistic formto define someone, as the American Heritage Dictionary does, as foolishly or blindly optimistic...
July 10, 2008 - Whether you care to define it as a recession, a downturn or a pickle, the big question we all face regarding todays economy is: When will it recover?
June 26, 2008 - The Securities and Exchange Commission wants you to know stuff. No really, they do. And they have a plan, otherwise known as a 21st Century Disclosure Initiative ...
June 19, 2008 - As corporate recruiters like to say, there is always a demand for talent. In other words, investment banks tend to follow a code similar to that of the Soprano familyyou dont whack a good earner...
June 12, 2008 - Standing on summers doorstep always makes me feel frivolous. Not to mention that Im a tad tired of those wacky jokesters over at the DealBreaker Web site having all the fun. I mean, they get to cuss and everything...
June 5, 2008 - Lets take a look into my crystal ball, into the future to a debt market with a new breed of issuerenergy companies. But not the oil and gas and energy services types that have lately been streaming onto the high yield bond primary market, companies that specialize in nuclear power, or solar, or electric cars.
May 23, 2008 - ResCap says it has enough support from bondholders to go ahead with the exchange of $14 billion in notes. But for that to happen, it still needs to secure a $3.5 billion senior-secured credit facility from parent...
May 16, 2008 - I seem to find myself forever in search of the 'happy medium.' Extremes have come to define our culture, and the financial markets are certainly not exempt from this. You have your bull; you have your bear. Nothing mythical like a half-bull, half-bear-a beall, perhaps, or a buar...
May 12, 2008 - As I write this, oil prices hover at a mind-boggling $123 a barrel, and pain at the gas pump has created a happy little boom on the high yield bond market...
May 2, 2008 - Admit it, you woke up feeling a bit bullish this morning. Maybe in your off time you hang with Goldilocks, or maybe the latest bits of good news have yet to convince you that we're 'out of the woods,' as they say...
April 25, 2008 - Furiously compelling (and long) as the campaign has been, I somehow have neglected to employ any sort of clever presidential simile or metaphor...
April 11, 2008 - A certain temptation exists to label it 'ironic' when a group of private equity firms, including Apollo Management, Blackstone Group and TPG, buy up $12 billion in discounted buyout debt...
April 4, 2008 - The war of words being fought by the private equity sponsors and six banks over the financing of the Clear Channel Communications buyout got me to thinking about The Sopranos...
March 31, 2008 - If life on Wall Street were produced in Hollywood, right about now would come the trite 'passage of time' sequence-the flipping of calendar pages on an abandoned desk, possibly, or a view of Battery Park from a downtown window, the seasons rolling by, time-lapse style. The credit crisis: summer, fall, winter, um, spring...
March 24, 2008 -
At least once during our teenage years there comes a moment when life deals us what we perceive to be a horrible injustice, and in response to our cries of, 'It's not fair!' many of us likely got the unsatisfying parental response: 'Who ever said life was fair?' Well, if this truism was unsatisfying then, when it was about something trivial like the dance on Friday night, then it qualifies as downright infuriating with regard to the Bear Stearns situation, with the stakes so incredibly high for so many.
Believe me, if it were just a few bigwigs losing, for example, $100 million of their $250 million severance, I could say with total sincerity: I couldn't care less. But the news that many Bear Stearns employees, who own one-third of the company, will not only likely lose their jobs but a good chunk of their life savings makes the whole debacle difficult to stomach.
March 10, 2008 -
I'm wondering if good news for the debt markets might create a reaction akin to what apparently happens when a vegetarian decides she's had it with broccoli and wolfs down a T-bone steak.
From what I understand, what follows can be ugly. Unaccustomed to digesting dense chunks of cow, the system rebels, leaving said vegetarian in agony and possibly cured of any future meaty indiscretions.
March 13, 2008 - I've heard it said that when news from the financial world hits the mainstream press ... it's a clear sign the markets have landed in deep muck...