Category: Economics

Inside The Biggest-Ever Hedge-Fund Scandal

Hint : S.A.C.

The tactics echoed the approach the F.B.I. had used to dismantle the New York Mob. The plan was to arrest low-level soldiers, threaten them with lengthy jail terms, and then flip them, gathering information that could lead to arrests farther up the criminal hierarchy.
Over time, agents produced an organizational chart with names and faces, just as they had with La Cosa Nostra.
At the top of the pyramid was Steven Cohen.

It took me quite some time to read this gigantic piece, but as always, The New Yorker delivered a brilliant investigation. Here is another one from Vanity Fair.

→ The New Yorker

Fast Traders Are Getting Data From SEC Seconds Early

The SEC uses Tradeworx datas to analyze the market and causes of flashcrashes, while high-frequency traders get a prime access to the SEC’s datas to place bets. Fair trade.

Hedge funds and other rapid-fire investors can get access to market-moving documents ahead of other users of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s system for distributing company filings, giving them a potential edge on the rest of the market.

→ WSJ

Revisiting the Lehman Brothers Bailout That Never Was

Inside the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, time was running out to answer a question that would change Wall Street forever.

At issue that September, six years ago, was whether the Fed could save a major investment bank whose failure might threaten the entire economy.

The firm was Lehman Brothers. And the answer for some inside the Fed was yes, the government could bail out Lehman, according to new accounts by Fed officials who were there at the time.

***

Those teams had provisionally concluded that Lehman might, in fact, be a candidate for rescue, but members of those teams said they never briefed Mr. Geithner, who said he did not know of the results.

→ The New York Times

Do We Need To Fire PIMCO ?

Update : Now Felix Salmon thinks PIMCO should exit the mutual fund business altogether.

Virtually no large pool of assets in this industry is completely Pimco-free, whether we’re talking about Total Return or any of their other funds and SMAs. The issue cannot be ignored because the end-customers of these investors will have read plenty on the topic this weekend and will have questions and concerns of their own. No amount of reassurance from Pimco can change this fact right now.

This is the question that will lead off almost every investment committee meeting on earth tomorrow.

→ The Reformed Broker