Bronte Capital

Sonray Capital failed a couple of days ago and the clients are likely to incur nasty losses.  Strangely I first found out about this from US news sources.  Only three weeks ago I wrote a letter to a blog reader who knew someone who worked at ...
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Australia is a commodity sensitive economy.  Greece is tourism sensitive.  Tourism is almost as big in Greece as mining is in Australia.  But unlike Greece Australia has a really effective adjustment mechanism to a decline in demand fo...
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No stock implications – just a fabulous YouTube rap.  Christiaan Van Vuuren is locked up in quarantine in Sydney with a really nasty strain of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis.  He connects with the world with his rap videos…   ...
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The Scandinavian banking crisis was solved in the following manner (a).  The banks were guaranteed (b).  Someone independent of the banks was invited in to reassess bank capital. (c).  The banks were then told how much capital they ha...
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I purchased a Kindle in the US.  I wasn’t an early adopter – but it was an early Kindle DX.  I loved it.  I get almost any book I want and the font size is whatever I want.  A Kindle is the obvious gift for a reader getting on i...
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I once met the CEO of a French regional bank affiliated with Credit Agricole.  His bank was rich and a quasi-mutual – and hence he was only marginally concerned about profits – though he himself was extremely competent and his bank executed br...
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Edward Hugh is obsessed mainly with Spain – and Spain is the big picture – but the markets are obsessed with Greece.  Greece is ground-zero in the Euro-zone implosion.  At ground zero is a bank – a surprisingly nice bank – the Nationa...
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Edward Hugh writes A Fistful-of-Euros – one of my favorite blogs. I always thought of Edward as some second-tier economics academic who was right about several key issues and had an obsession which left his faculty members nonplussed. Academic rigor ...
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Donald Marron and Phil Swagel have written a paper which proposes a reform structure for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  It should not be taken seriously – and indeed it should disqualify this pair from serious debate – a larger gift to Wall Stre...
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Nigerian spammers are now trying to profit from its woes, according to Bronte Capital’s John Hempton, who (ahem, ahem, cough, cough) found the following in his inbox on Wednesday:...
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