Wall Street Pit

Was the “Considerable Period” or the “Measured Pace” More At Fault?

John B. Taylor — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 07:24:27 +0000

In his recent review in The New York Review of Books of my book Getting Off Track, Roger Alcaly makes a very interesting point about the “too low for too long” hypothesis, according to which the Fed helped cause the housing boom. I hear that some policymakers at the Fed have been [...]

Madoff’s Sons File Motion to Dismiss Civil Complaint

editor — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:34:05 +0000

Bernard Madoff’s sons, Mark and Andrew, who worked in the trading section of the Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, have moved to dismiss a civil complaint filed against them in October by Irving H. Picard, the court-appointed bankruptcy trustee in the case, arguing they too are “victims of their father’s terrible crimes.” Mr. Picard, who’s [...]

America’s Brain Drain

Addison Wiggin — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 03:58:04 +0000

Baris Guzel is the kind of fellow who used to find his future in America. Not anymore. Guzel is a 25-year-old student from Turkey working on his master’s degree in engineering management at Duke University. He and four friends plan to launch a company offering a free online tool that would allow [...]

Lehman’s Fraud: So Much Deception and So Many Accomplices

Rocky Vega — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 03:38:55 +0000

After 15 months and 2,200 pages of writing, the Lehman Brothers (LEHMQ) report has been released. As expected, the details are pretty gruesome. It explains how Repo 105 transactions allowed Lehman to exchange illiquid assets for short-term cash loans in order to disguise the crumbling financial state of the firm in its [...]

PE Ratios About to Normalize – And Be Too High

Duncan Davidson — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:29:57 +0000

We had negative quarters in the S&P on 2008 which made the PE ratio skyrocket to ridiculous levels. The trailing-twelve-month (TTM) earnings had to deal with negative quarters, until now: the last negative quarter was 4Q08, and it is about to drop out of the TTM calculation. Since almost all S&P companies have reported (99%), [...]

President Obama’s Statement on Financial Reform

editor — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 20:07:33 +0000

Full text of the President Obama’s response to proposed Chris Dodd bill. “It has now been well over a year since the near collapse of the financial sector, and yet today the same failed system that brought on this crisis remains in place. The financial crisis has resulted in more than 8 million American workers losing [...]

Investors May Want to Give a Toast to PepsiCo

Ockham Research — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:57:14 +0000

The world’s second largest soft drink maker, PepsiCo. (PEP), announced a share repurchase program that could amount to $15 billion over the next three years. The company had suspended buy backs earlier this year in order to devote capital to their acquisition of their two largest bottlers, which the company estimated at the time [...]

Health Care and the Political Lessons of History

Robert Reich — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:51:39 +0000

Health care reform is necessary, and House Democrats should vote for it because it’s best for the nation. But they should also remember the political lessons of history. To paraphrase Mark Twain, history doesn’t repeat itself but it does rhyme. As the White House and the House Democratic leadership try to line up [...]

China Manipulates Its Currency, Say 130 Congressmen

editor — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:47:38 +0000

More than 100 members of the US Congress are asking the Obama administration to label China a currency manipulator. In a letter to Tim Geithner, treasury secretary, and Gary Locke, commerce secretary, the 130 Congressmen — both Republican and Democrats — accuse China of artificially manipulating the value of its currency to ensure its exports remain [...]

After-Hours Earnings (March 15)

editor — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:27:54 +0000

» Look for the following companies to release earnings After the Close today – Monday, March 15: Emeritus (ESC) Medivation (MDVN) Geokinetics (GOK) Seaspan (SSW) HQ Sustainable Maritime Industries (HQS) Sequenom (SQNM) ……….