November 5th, 2011 is Bank Transfer Day and no better blog to highlight for that, than Verity. There is something in this that Credit Unions everywhere could could turn into their own slant on OWS. The timing is good and US banks have little substance for defense. https://www.veritycu.com/banktransferday Continue reading Bank Transfer Day
I am flabbergasted. Groupon Prices at $20 a Share; More Than 10x Oversubscribed Groupon has priced its public offering at $20 a share, several dollars above the expected price range of $16 to $18. That will garner $700 million for the start-up, which is only several years old, at a valuation of close to $13 billion. Also here http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a44264f4-0677-11e1-8a16-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1cOQ3SoMc Continue reading Groupon pulls off a $700 million launch / $13 Bn valuation
The situation in Europe is deteriorating fast. Reminder; this matters at this blog because of the sovereign risk impact to banks who are the largest holders of Euro debt including Greece. A default would potentially mean the 50% write down goes to 100%. At this point, today, its hard to argue against that. Politicians in Greece are no less delusional than American ones when it comes to the power/ impact/ influence of financial markets. Government in Greece Teeters After Move on Referendum | NYT Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, apparently caught off guard by … Continue reading No-one is sleeping in Bank HQ’s tonight
From one spreadsheet geek since the early 80’s, to all the others out there … http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2011/10/celebrating-visicalcs-32nd-birthday.html Continue reading It’s the spreadsheet 32nd birthday on Wednesday Nov 2nd 2011
Some stories burning the headlines tonight on MF. There is a criminality element creeping in here now, which would conveniently make this an outlier situation, rather than evidence of a systemic problem that I believe it still is. Lets see what the final headlines are tomorrow. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/panic-behind-mf-scenes-company-refuses-disclose-information-regulators-even-death http://www.zerohedge.com/news/someone-going-jail-mf-global-caught-stealing-hundreds-millions-customers http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/10/31/regulators-investigating-mf-global/?ref=business http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/8c81053a-03cc-11e1-bbc5-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1cOQ3SoMc Continue reading MF Global story goes Madoff/Enron/ tonight – pick your metaphor
There are more than a few nervous people on Wall St, Threadneedle St, La Défense, Ōtemachi, and all the other financial centres of the world held their breath Friday when MF Global, a Prime Broker in New York announced they were in trouble and selling their assets. That fell through over the weekend, and today MF Global are bankrupt. This is a big deal and might be another Oliver Stone movie in the future when we look back. http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/10/31/mf-global-files-for-bankruptcy/?hp http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/138241f6-03dd-11e1-98bc-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1cOQ3SoMc The bad part of this is how it could be allowed to happen. MF were downgraded by the ratings agencies … Continue reading MF Global had over 10 times capital in off balance sheet derivative and short selling contracts
First the Tsunami in Japan and now the floods in Thailand. There are downsides to sourcing product from world countries with extreme weather capabilities. The fact the 1/4 of the worlds hard drives come from Thailand and a relatively concentrated area around Bangkok is astounding. Computer makers caught in wake of Thai floods Roughly a quarter of global hard drive assembly facilities are located in Thailand, according to industry tracker iSuppli, which estimates that supply would be constrained at least until the fourth quarter of 2012. Western Digital, the world’s biggest hard disc drive maker, has closed all its factories … Continue reading Weather and environmental factors affect the global supply chain
The Euro leadership and in particular Merkel and Sarkozy deserve some credit for the key Euro deliverable earlier today. There has been much criticism and most of us would agree that more will be required to be done, but there was an important step taken here. It became a showdown between banks and government. (For government read taxpayers paying up). Merkel has been consistently speaking of bondholders taking a haircut for a year now. The message was clear and she won today. But is it that simple. Calling Bankers’ Bluff, Merkel Got Europe a Debt Plan | NY Times But … Continue reading Is the Greek debt haircut really a victory?
I have been thinking a lot about cloud computing for a while now. The advantages are clear. You never have to worry about data loss, and you can access your information from any device, mobile, laptop or PC. People worry about security, but this is more (to use a banking analogy) of a cash under the mattress worry. Lets leave that for the worriers. On a more practical level. I have a pretty fast laptop (ThinkPad, 2.7ghz, SSD) and I have constant access to decent bandwidth speeds. Lets suspend reality and assume there is nothing faster. What is in it … Continue reading Hardware design is lagging cloud capabilities
Niall Ferguson on how the Europe situation comes right down to Germany gaining control and the weaker nations (Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland) ceding control. Also the European banks and their need for capital being even greater than the amounts we have heard to date. http://www.businessweek.com/video/#video=xqdTd4Mjp7CxKGmKD9-r0NsqYMqZCmQO Continue reading Niall Ferguson on European Sovereign-Debt Crisis | Blooomberg
Bankwatch 