Plain peaking
“Formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil.” - J. Paul Getty Imagine bacteria growing steadily in a bottle. The bacteria double in number every minute (the so-called ‘doubling time’, in other words, is one minute). At 11 o’clock,...
Better dead than Fed
“Traders take heart from Fed comments” - Headline on the ft.com website. “Stocks surge, gold at fresh high and dollar falls to lowest since 2008” - Subheadline on the ft.com website. So it really depends what sort of traders were...
Waking up in a cold debt
“UK Probe Summaries May Damage Banker Reputations” - Bloomberg headline. It is difficult to see how bankers’ reputations could possibly become more damaged. That would be like Hiroshima in August 1945 becoming more destroyed, or Nick Clegg in 2011 becoming...
Waking up in a cold debt
“UK Probe Summaries May Damage Banker Reputations” - Bloomberg headline. It is difficult to see how bankers’ reputations could possibly become more damaged. That would be like Hiroshima in August 1945 becoming more destroyed, or Nick Clegg in 2011 becoming...
Government agents
“Barclays’ new chief executive is considering increasing the bank’s risk profile, in order to hit profitability targets over the next three years..” - Patrick Jenkins, The Financial Times, surprisingly not from its April 1st edition. “The budget deficit will clearly...
Government agents
“Barclays’ new chief executive is considering increasing the bank’s risk profile, in order to hit profitability targets over the next three years..” - Patrick Jenkins, The Financial Times, surprisingly not from its April 1st edition. “The budget deficit will clearly...
Govern-mental
“It is not even a full year since the time of Cleggmania, yet, in his own Sheffield constituency, even nursery-age children now come home with Clegg jokes. (“Why did Nick Clegg cross the road ?” “Because he said he wouldn’t.”)”...
Breaking News: Most Economists, Journalists, Are Muppets
“I would appreciate it if all investors and trading participants would respond in a calm and orderly manner.” - Atsushi Saito, president of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, quoted in a front page Financial Times article titled ‘Japan disaster scares markets’,...
Mad as hell and Icahn take it any more
“Independence is for the very few; it is a privilege of the strong.” - Friedrich Nietzsche. There has been much chatter among the financial chatterati about Carl Icahn’s recent decision to hand back capital to investors in his funds. Since...
Mad as hell and Icahn take it any more
“Independence is for the very few; it is a privilege of the strong.” - Friedrich Nietzsche. There has been much chatter among the financial chatterati about Carl Icahn’s recent decision to hand back capital to investors in his funds. Since...
Gold-shouldered
“Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes her laws.” - Mayer Amschel Rothschild. Alan Greenspan was one of the most over-rated Fed chairmen in history. (This coinage is admittedly akin to the phrase “one...
