6 Free Financial Modeling Lessons...and More.

Mod Note: Blast from the Past - "Best of Eddie" - This one is from June 2011.

Freeriding : The illegal activity of buying a stock and selling it before paying for the purchase. - Investopedia

While I was thinking about writing a post about the power once wielded by Series 7 stockbrokers, I started to think back to some of the funnier episodes from back then. It occurred to me that, while a great many things have changed, some have remained the same. What specifically came to mind is the recently bubblicious nature of the tech IPO market, and how similar it was to the IPO market of 1993-95.

Back then, I worked for a firm with a very hot hand in the IPO market. You could say it was our specialty. In 1993 we brought 15-18 deals (I don't remember the exact number), and they each rose an average of 52% (later verified by USA Today). The public had IPO fever; you could literally dial a US phone number at random and if an English-speaking male answered (we didn't do business with women), there was a 50/50 chance you could sell him an IPO on that phone call.

So, I've taken some time to peruse through WSO's 2013 Compensation Database, and it's honestly awesome. I've been on WSO for a while, from my time as a bright-eyed undergrad trying to break into a summer analyst gig, to my time as a jaded banking analyst, seeking out the greener pastures of private equity. The site has always provided tremendous value.

With that said, I think the 2013 Compensation Database is among the most interesting and useful things I've ever seen on the site. The sheer amount of information is astounding, and the presentation and formatting would please even the most hardass of Managing Directors.

I highly recommend you do what you have to do to gain access to it. Whether that's adding info a review for the company you work for, insight into an interview you had, or detailing your comp last year, it's worth it. Plus it's anonymous, so there's no fear of anyone finding out who you are.

Now, I'm not here today to drone on about the benefits of the database, rather, I'm here to share a few of the fun things I found while I was digging through it. Read on to find out what I found...

Apparently, someone forgot to pass along the message to the Chinese that the most important part of government bond auctions is making sure they can't fail. Bond auctions should function more like Storage wars, where there is always a buyer, than what happened in China. Here's the story out of China this morning .

Long story short, rates have spiked and markets have tightened up over the past few months without the central bank injecting short term liquidity into the market. Also, look at that 7 day repo... almost 7%! Juxtapose that against ours at all but zero. Anyway:

1) 39-year-old ex of retired 83-year-old Wall Street exec is now on welfare — and thinks she deserves more $$$ (NY Post) - Now I'm not saying she's a gold digger... Heartwarming story here. Side note: if you've been in the business 52 years and you've only got $26,000 to your name, you're doing it wrong.

2) Rupert Murdoch files for divorce (CNN) - Must be the season. Here's another May-December romance gone sour. What do you wanna bet ol' Emperor Palpatine finds himself a nice 22-year old slammer next?

3) Scaramucci Seeks Money for Manhattan Hedge-Fund Hangout (Bloomberg) - Mooch has the right idea here. What New York needs is a 1980's Gordon Gekko-type hangout where even the back office troglodytes can feel like somebody special.