Irene Eng The Kibbitzer

A Swede worked for an American bank in London struck a $2.5bn locked-in rate deal with a Chicago hedge fund two years ago was fired last week over the deal that has been losing money since the rate is so low lately.  The bank made decent profit on this deal for a while.  He was in [...]

Look who’s talking money here.  I heard he started an investment club or company, advising fellow players as how to invest or protect their hard earn $$.  I enjoyed watching him, a little fun guy making some in your face plays, same went with John Starks. 

The Irish PM Bertie Ahern, some consider him as the most successful PM in modern times has resigned yesterday … eeerrrr he sent his wife away in 1993 on borrowed money, €50k .. Europe is dirt cheap or what?  Thought about the Clintons vacationing in their friends’ places while living in da White House.  Didn’t sound right.  Guess Bill is just [...]

FT .. Barack Obama yesterday laid much of the blame for America’s unfolding credit crisis on the financial deregulation of the 1990s in his hardest-hitting attack so far on the economic legacy of Bill Clinton’s administration. ..
Not Reagan?  Wow .. the real punches are out now.  Why did it take so long?  Still remember when [...]

Tags: Politics

Bankers, especially IBs, conjure up fat pay checks, astronomical bonus and 80+ hours workweeks.  It’s interesting to know how much salary do the CBs, central bankers that set interest rates are being paid around the globe.  Ben isn’t on the top!  Ben Bernake, the US federal reserve Chairman since 2005 only receives US$191,300, 4.1 times of American GNP per [...]

Tags: Hong Kong

Last Friday we were talking about Bear Stearns, speculating that one or more hedgies wanted their money out [fm Bear] but couldn’t.  So they told other hedgies, hence the Northern Rock began, on Wall Street.  Reportedly, Jamie Dimon was having a relaxed birthday (FT put him at 51, NYT 52 .. I know I need a [...]

HSA is Health Savings Account.  It isn’t a health insurance, but a plan - saving a/c - that can be funded by pre-tax dollar pay for your qualified health expenses.  Anyone can make contribution that includes yourself, your employer or a generous friends, parents, relatives.  There is a ceiling as how much you can contribute each year.  For [...]

A man hasn’t paid a dime to his $1.5m mortgage in Florida since 2002, and the bank can’t foreclose on his perporty.  Because the bank can’t prove it owns it after they pool mortgages into securities.  Subsequent efforts to foreclose have stalled because no one has produced the paperwork.  More than $2.1 trillion, or 19% of outstanding mortgages have been bundled into [...]

Spreadsheet is a great tool in many things, but I found it sucks when you use it to total up, say trades or the like.  Because it provides opportunity for massage the data.  SocGen rattled the Wall Street, so the auditors are in full swing, demanding report here and there.  Many fancy derivatives are so new, there [...]

Ok, another down day .. like picking flowers

.. Kerviel at SocGen .. blaming a low ranked trader - his salary plus bonus was less than $200k .. If he indeed did all those, than all the credit to him.  Where was his boss or bosses?

A Californian hedge fund has made more than 1,000 per cent return this year by betting against US subprime home loans, making it one of the world’s best-performing funds of all time.
I’m surprised there aren’t that many such news surfaced since the subprime misery began to unfold.  The truth is there are certainly many funds had [...]

The Nixon-era Treasury Secretary famously told a group of Europeans that yes the dollar was “our currency, but your problem.”  Now that $ is weak and people start calling for Euro to replace it.  Not sure it will materialize.

Filipino maids in Hong Kong are sending ever larger $$ home, many are the major bread winners, supporting their hubbies and children.  But the weakening dollar is making it tougher to stay in the black.  The 120,000 strong maids that take over Victoria Park on Sundays are making about US$450 a month, plus the entertainers in the bars, etc. [...]

Tags: Hong Kong

This book on Richard Grasso, and the Survival of the New York Stock Exchange, by Charles Gasparino.  Grasso grabbed headline when then AG Spitzer sued him for his legally granted $140m deferred compensation parked in retirement a/cs.  It might be extravagantly earned, but nevertheless legitimately.  But Spitzer claimed the pay was ‘illegal’ and went after him.  I was confused.  Wondering [...]

In the real world, do smart people hold grudge?  The most obvious successor to Chuck Prince, who stepped down from Citi on Sunday, would be Jamie Dimon, chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase. But a person close to Mr Dimon said: “He would never consider it.”  Citi is trading at 35 now.

Cichlids is kind of fish survive in the brackish water, exist predominantly in the Great African lakes, Tanganyika, Malawi and Victoria.  They are not as bright colored eye-catchy as the salt water tropical fish you see in the ocean or aquariums (like Picassofish, lionfish, etc. .. heaven!) but they’re multihued - like the Electric Blue we have here - and smart.  I [...]

As Citigroup Chief Totters, CNBC Reporter Is Having a Great Year, she sure does.  “I didn’t think I had to defend what I was doing,” she said over the firing of Todd Thomson .. .. now Prince is gone.  And the girl is standing tall: “I love this thing now called sovereign funds,” Bartiromo said, [...]

Can a prince ever resign from being a prince?  Well, Citi’s Prince is about to do so.  while in the mist of dinner with friends and were talking about him, someone called me to say … yeeeeees, he’ll resign over this weekend.  Hey, let’s buy some C now!  The AOL survey asks if he should go, [...]