Sorry, but a lot of the cool news today is from the financial markets.
Internet wags come up with the Hedge Fund implode-o-meter. (Ouch!)
Another wag comes up with the best-ever tag cloud, compiled from contrite, non-apology hedge-fund "dear investor" letters:
In the bigger picture, non-bank financial companies and the systematic risk they pose is likely to get more scrutiny, especially if Freddie and Fannie have to step up to buy-back low-quality stuff.
Hopefully, someone in the private sphere will organize to provide liquidity before they have to, if it needs to be done. (A consortium of Banks unclogged the Canadian secured commercial paper market today in this way...).
Anyway, all this credit-gone-sour perhaps provides ample indication with why it may not be smart for companies like WalMart to get their own bank ...
SAVE THE BEAR! OH, PLEASE ...
Last, but not least, Jim Cramer ... goes advocate-ballistic. How many people would shed a tear if Bear-Stearns went out of business? They could just sell themselves to Merrill Lynch.
After the way they treated some of their investors in their funds recently, I don't think that sentiment is 'way out there', do you? Looks like they just don't want to put the firm's capital further at risk and are looking for a ... screaming way out:
Update1 (8/17): Bear Cuts 240 Jobs Wasting no time, money.
Update2 (8/17, p.m.): Further Cramer Smackdown. "`Policy makers can't see themselves as giving in to a crank, ..''' [youTube views of financial wiz spinout top 1.5 million!]
Update3 (8/18): Barron's Slams, with "Shorting Cramer"
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Willie Wonka and Non-Bank Financial Companies
