While the title of the book makes you think “teen angst” and the book’s choice of cover image that makes you think “Jack the Ripper”, you’d be surprised to learn that this is a book about the Securities Exchange Commission (yes, that’s right – the not-so-dreaded SEC). The book follows the mildly eccentric tale of the mildly eccentric Harry Markopolos, briefly and intermittently describing his journey through life, but getting quickly into the meat of how he set his sights on Bernie Madoff.
Just reading Oyama’s table of contents we get a clear run-down of the key issues in the current financial crisis, from its seeds (the pre-crisis summer of 2007, 2007, and the full-fledged crisis in mid-late 2008), an overview of its elements, reactions by governments and regulators, issues that set this crisis apart from others, reform of the risk management regime for banks, the Japanese and Asian perspective to the financial crisis, and a new conclusion that highlights significant post-crisis risk management issues.
Prudential’s purchase of AIA is being packaged like a marriage of equals; it is anything but.
by Byron Wien
The United States economy grows at a stronger than expected 5% real rate during the year and the unemployment level drops below 9%. Exports, inventory building and technology spending lead the way. Standard and Poor’s 500 operating earnings come in above $80.
The Federal Reserve decides the economy is strong enough for [...]
No one talks about green shoots any more, they just assume that the worst is behind them. Assumptions are always dangerous, all the more so when billions are involved.
Besides the forced castration of capitalism, I also had some pretty good ideas about Column V of Basel III. Capital requirements of 120%! And all the banks will have no choice but to do it—surely there’s no need to remind them that the cost of non-compliance is nationalisation.
By Ásgeir Jónsson
The Icelandic financial crisis was very similar to the Asian crisis of 1998, or at least the part concerning the currency crisis. On both occasions you had countries that were initially favoured by international investors and received very large sums of foreign investment, which to a large extent was short-term carry trade position. [...]
And so it was with great interest that we got to finally meet Piyush Gupta in his new role as CEO of DBS on February 5th, where he presided over the group’s 2009 results meeting. But more than the results, which he had little influence over, we were more interested to find out what kind of leader he would be. Before he retired as CEO, Jackson Tai told us…
If you think we can sort out finance with Ben Bernanke at the helm, it was sensible to reappoint him. But when the time comes for members of the Senate themselves to be held accountable, do not be surprised if people point out that pushing Bernanke through – come what may – was the beginning of the end for any serious attempt at reform.
MiFID has been of concern as it has not achieved what it set out to do, namely to improve trade execution by providing guarantees of processing in terms of the best price, cost, speed of processing. The fact that the Directive celebrates its third year of operation without a single major best execution case or fine shows how effective that has been, particularly as best execution is known to be way off.
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