Tan Man Settles!

Posted by Sean Doyle, October 18, 2010.

Angelo Mozilo, God's gift to the tanning booth, has agreed to pay $ 67.5 million dollars to the SEC on charges that he committed fraud and insider trading during his stint as head of Countrywide Financial. Mozilo, who bares a striking resemblance to Syracuse University's beloved mascot "Otto The Orange" (see below), is the genius who brought us "liar loans" and nearly destroyed the world economy all while making himself and several California tanning salons very wealthy.

After pocketing a good chunk of change ($ 139 million) for selling his Countrywide stock in 2006 and 2007 as the phony real estate bubble which he helped to create burst, "Tan Man" now gets to ride off into the sunset. The rest of the world, however, isn't as lucky...

Google Crushes 3rd Quarter.

Posted by Sean Doyle, October 15, 2010.

Google, Al Gore's second favorite technology company, posted better than expected 3rd quarter results last night. Earnings came in at $7.64 per share, much better than the $5.89 the search giant posted in the same quarter last year. Wall Street, as usual, is unfashionably late to the party with a slew of hasty upgrades by "savvy" analysts. Here's a few ups for shits and gigs:

RBC raises GOOG target to $690 from $600.

Oppenheimer raises GOOG target to $650 from $630.

Barclays raises GOOG target to $675 from $550.

UBS raises GOOG target to $720 from $685.

With Apple trading at all time highs and Google making its way there, Vide President Al Gore was heard to collapse in a delirious (for him) joy...

Mr. T, Gold Bug.

Posted by Sean Doyle, October 14, 2010.

Pimm Fox better watch his back....

Hoenig To Fed: "Knock Off This Easing Bunk!"

Posted by Sean Doyle, October 12, 2010Photo Courtesy of Reuters/ Tami Chappell

Tom "The Bomb" Hoenig has about had it up to here with all this quantitative easing chatter! If Messrs Bernanke and Yellen don't knock off this cheap money kick, Hoenig may just have to layeth the smacketh down. Speaking before the National Association of Business Economics on Tuesday, Hoenig (who is a Fed inflation hawk) announced that "...the benefits are likely to be smaller than the costs," regarding a further round of Fed easing. Upon hearing Hoenig's comments an incensed Chairman Bernanke was heard to respond, "Tom better shut his 'effing mouth before I shut it for him!"

One Man's Trash Is Another Man's Treasure...

Posted by Sean Doyle, October 8, 2010.

"Junk Bonds Are Back On Top" So reads the headline in yesterday's New York Times. Due to historically low interest rates, companies with less than stellar credit ratings are in a mad rush to sell bonds to get financing. According to the Times, in the first nine months of 2010 $275 billion in junk bonds have issued worldwide. That number is up from $163 billion in the year before period, and by the way, an all-time record.

Photo Courtesy of Tina Fineberg/ The New York Times.

"Other than 1988 at Drexel, this is the best time I've ever seen, and it's getting better," said Jim Casey (pictured above), the new junk bond king, who runs the desk at JP Morgan.

Speaking of trash, take a look at this utterly scary jobs chart from the folks at Clusterstock. This nightmare graphic illustrates how truly anemic this post-recession "recovery" has been...

Tepper Don't Play.

Posted by Sean Doyle, September 27, 2010.Photo Courtesy of Marco Grob/ New York Magazine.

I must say I was very impressed with Hedge Fund King David Tepper's performance on Squawk Box last Friday. He was damn funny, and self deprecating (which is highly unusual for self important financial types) all while he made the notion of trading a few billion dollars seem easy as pie. Tepper even matched wits with professional wise ass Joe Kernan. Check it out below:

APPLE > THAILAND.

Posted by Sean Doyle, September 24, 2010.

It's official. Apple Inc.'s (AAPL) market cap is now larger than the GDP of Thailand! As of now, the stock market values Apple at $ 267 billion dollars. In contrast, the Gross Domestic Product of Thailand, a nation of 66 million people, comes in at $ 263 billion. (By the way, Apple has about 34,000 full time employees. So if you do the math, each Apple employee is 2000x more productive to the world economy than an average citizen of Thailand...)

This is a phenomenal success story for Steve Jobs and crew. (Especially for a company that 15 years ago looked dead in the water). Who knows? Maybe Apple will become the first trillion dollar company in World history. At this rate who's to bet against them?

Maria Shakes Her Bartiromos...

Posted by Sean Doyle, August 27, 2010

The Recovery So Far....

Posted by Sean Doyle, August 10, 2010
(Just in case you were wondering, the monkey is the Fed, and the dog is the U.S. economy...)

Is Chairman Bernanke the hero of the Great Recession? WSJ Economics Editor David Wessel seems to think so...

On The Road Of Capitalism There Are Passengers And There Are Drivers...

Posted by Colin Doyle, August 5, 2010.

"Pretty Boy" Lloyd's super-team has gone from perfecto to downright choppy in it's trading division. Goldman Sachs, which (remarkably) posted zero down trading days in Q1, has revealed in a filing that they had 10 days of trading losses in Q2. (Including 3 days of 100+ Million in losses...ouch)

Why the sudden change in trading performance? Insiders believe Lloyd's wild rock-n-rolla lifestyle may have contributed to the lackluster results.

Here's the linkage:

Dow Jones Newswires: Goldman Sachs Had 10 Days Of Trading Losses In 2Q- Filing.

Huffington Post: Goldman Sachs Makes Plan To Spin Off Prop Trading.