The Best of Bloomberg Oct09 - Previous Month
The best friend
of any Front-office professional is definitely his/her Bloomberg Professional Terminal with its 80's GUI (this being said, the GUI has improved dramatically lately).
Miss a Bloomberg Terminal? No worry, we make for you here a repository of the most read news of the month.
What is the first information a professional trader look at in the morning? It's the "Quote of the Day" Terminal. The quotes of the month can be found here also.
The most read News
Galleon's Rajaratnam Charged in Biggest Hedge Scheme (Update5)
By David Glovin, Katherine Burton and David Scheer
Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Raj Rajaratnam, the billionaire
founder of Galleon Group, and former directors at a Bear Stearns
Cos. hedge fund were among six people charged in a $20 million
insider trading scheme that federal prosecutors called the
biggest ever involving hedge funds.
Prosecutors also arrested Rajiv Goel, who worked at Intel
Capital as a director in strategic investments, Anil Kumar, who
worked as a director at McKinsey & Co., and IBM Corp. executive
Robert Moffat. The former officials at Bear Stearns Asset
Management are Danielle Chiesi and Mark Kurland, who were
affiliated with the firm's New Castle Partners, which managed
about $1 billion.
"The defendants operated in a world of, you scratch my
back, I'll scratch your back," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in
Manhattan said at a press conference today. "Greed, sometimes,
is not good."
The case is the largest ever over hedge fund insider-
trading, Bharara said. It's the first time wiretaps have been
used to target insider trading, signaling the government will
now use the same tools against Wall Street that it employs in
organized crime and drug cases, he said. Bharara called the case
"unprecedented."
The Full Article
K1 Hedge Fund Probed as Barclays, JPMorgan Face Loss (Update2)
By David Scheer, Josh Fineman and Karin Matussek
Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) -- K1 Group, the German hedge fund firm, is embroiled in an international criminal investigation after saddling banks, including Barclays Plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co., BNP Paribas SA and Societe Generale SA with about $400 million of losses, people with knowledge of the probe said.
European and U.S. authorities are examining whether K1, which manages funds of hedge funds, deceived the banks when borrowing money to ratchet up the size of its investments, according to the people, who declined to be identified because the investigation isn’t public. German and U.S. prosecutors may announce the first charges in the case as soon as this week, they said. JPMorgan inherited its exposure to K1 after acquiring Bear Stearns Cos., which did business with the fund manager.
The inquiry focuses on whether K1, founded by German psychologist Helmut Kiener, 50, engaged in circular transactions with a network of investment firms in the U.K., the U.S. and other countries to create the illusion that K1 had more money available to backstop loans from the banks, the people said. The K1 Web site says Kiener’s investment system generated an 825 percent return from 1996 through last June.
The Full Article
Galleon to Liquidate Funds; Said Approached on Assets (Update6)
By Saijel Kishan
Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Raj Rajaratnam, the billionaire founder of Galleon Group charged last week by federal prosecutors with insider trading, told investors he will liquidate his hedge funds.
Galleon, which managed about $3.7 billion, is exploring alternatives for the business, according to a letter sent to investors today. New York-based Galleon has been approached by unidentified parties interested in buying the company and an undetermined amount of its assets, according to a person familiar with the firm.
“I want to reassure investors of the liquidity of our funds and assure Galleon employees that we are seeking the best way to keep together what I believe is the best long/short equity team in the business,” Rajaratnam, 52, said in the letter. “I want to reiterate that I am innocent of all the charges.”
The Full Article
Cocaine Survivors Losing London Bonus See End to Bubble’s Binge
Share Business
By Stephanie Baker and Thomas Penny
Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Neill Junor remembers the exact moment he decided to quit snorting cocaine. On a chilly December afternoon in 2005, the former equities analyst took a stroll in London’s deer-filled Richmond Park to select the tree from which he would hang himself.
The decision to step back from the brink marked the end of a six-year binge of drug and alcohol abuse that by then had cost Junor his marriage and a career that paid him as much as 1 million pounds ($1.7 million) a year. He was out of work, having already walked away from both his analyst job at BT Alex. Brown and a subsequent position in a dot-com venture. “I burned through everything,” Junor says. “I knew there was a choice -- and the choice was to hang from that tree or not.”
His story reflects the cocaine use that medical experts say is rampant in the City, London’s financial district. It’s a habit that often goes hand in hand with heavy drinking. Junor says he and his mates wanted to maintain the thrill they felt at work as they poured into the Square Mile’s pubs and clubs after a day of getting high on finance.
“It’s the same rush from doing a deal and doing cocaine,” Junor, 45, says. “The adulation from doing a deal spills into going for a beer and then a party -- it’s an amorphous blob of energy.” Everyone knows about the City’s drug problem, recovering addicts say. Bosses turn a blind eye to drugs, as long as you’re making money for your firm -- and until recently, making big money was easy to do.
The Full Article
Wall Street 40% Bonus Rise Fuels Buying of $43 Steaks (Update1)
By Martin Z. Braun
Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- A 40 percent jump in Wall Street bonuses this year may bring relief to New York City and Albany as the state and its biggest metropolis struggle with a combined $14 billion in budget deficits this fiscal year and next.
New York investment houses will dole out $26 billion in bonus checks by the end of March, said Alan Johnson, president of compensation consultant Johnson Associates Inc. The money will probably boost sales of multimillion-dollar co-op apartments and generate extra income-tax revenue for state and city governments.
“I don’t think this is going to make everybody think, ‘Oh, good times are here again,’ but it may ease things a bit,” said Lawrence White, professor of economics at New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business.
Before the financial meltdown slammed bank earnings and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of U.S. stocks dropped 38 percent last year, Wall Street’s compensation and corporate profits provided 20 percent of New York state tax revenue and 9 percent of the city’s taxes. New York banks lost $42.6 billion in 2008 and shed 30,000 jobs, according to the city’s Office of Management and Budget.
The city’s unemployment rate is 10.3 percent, the most since 1993, after the private sector cut 96,600 jobs since employment peaked in August 2008.
The Full Article
The Quotes of the Day
“Everyone rises to their level of incompetence.” -- Laurence J. Peter
“The only place where success comes before work is the dictionary.” -- Vidal Sassoon
“Those whom we support hold us up in life.” -- Marie Ebner von Eschenbach
“We are confronted by insurmountable opportunities.” -- Walt Kelly
“Have no fear of perfection - you’ll never reach it.” -- Salvador Dali
“Success comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” -- Henry David Thoreau
“We are astonished at thought, but sensation is equally wonderful.” – Voltaire
“Be wise to-day; ‘tis madness to defer.” -- Edward Young
“Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.” – Aristotle
“The shortest answer is doing.” -- Proverb
“It requires a very unusual mind to make an analysis of the obvious.” -- Alfred North Whitehead
“Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.” -- Albert Camus
“I walk firmer and more secure up hill than down.” – Montaigne
“Nagging is the repetition of unpalatable truths.” -- Edith Clara Summerskill
“My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income.” -- Erroll Flynn
“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.” -- Malcom X
“All men of action are dreamers.” -- James G. Huneker
“The best time to make friends is before you need them.” -- Ethel Barrymore
“When you’re as great as I am, it’s hard to be humble.” -- Muhammad Ali
“Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art.” -- Garson Kanin
“Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.” -- James Thurber
“Success has ruined many a man.” -- Benjamin Franklin
