Blogs

Ladies, gather round. Chief Chimp Patrick forwarded me a press release he just received from a little site called Wall Street Kingdom, which will have you masturbating more vigorously to the toll of unbridled Capitalism than the SEC on its best day.

Truly, this is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time: Finally a man has endeavored to recreate the wardrobe and ideology that ensconced Patrick Bateman in our hearts. Out of the Netherlands, fashion mega icon, Christian Adriaanse (WHO?!) has launched a fashion site and brand geared towards you Masters of the Universe and Gekko wannabes.

This is just shocking. It appears the educational system in America is failing our most vulnerable students, and robbing them of their opportunity to inflict mediocrity on the ranks of middle management. What are these poor kids to do when there are no consulting gigs left?

So, with every day the routine revolves...sleep, work, eat, eventually die. I've spent so many years grinding that it makes me glad to see the young guys do it. At least it used to. I sat at a conference a few months back with a PhD overlord from the world of quant-finance academia. Some of you have probably read his books.

The center piece of this particular speech was how "China just needs to increase it's consumption and everything will go back to normal". Before you laugh...remember...many of you have read this guy's books, paid for them and adhere to their principles.

"The meek shall inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights." - John Paul Getty

After a particularly brutal day at the office, you might go home feeling like you're nothing more than a tiny cog in a vast investment banking machine. Hours of mundane labor leave you feeling like your contribution will never be recognized. You wonder if you've made the right career decision, and you wonder how much longer you can stand being just a cog in the machine.

You need to take a deep breath, relax, and quit flattering yourself. Even on your best day, you're not a cog in the machine. When a cog breaks down, people actually notice. You're more like the sandy bit of grease that gets squeezed out between the cogs. Completely expendable, and wiped away with as much thought as any other industrial nuisance.

Get ready, because I'm fixin' to lay some ugly truth on you.

The May 6 flash crash was a crazy event, the Dow plunged 998 points and stocks like Accenture dropped from $40 to a single cent in the span of minutes. Debate on what may have caused it has been never-ending, from the fat finger theory to shitty trade execution getting the blame for it, but one guy has stepped up and says he knows why it happened, and claims that it WILL happen again.

Inside Job is the latest documentary about the crash. What makes it different from the indie docs about the crash we've seen so far (like Plunder), is that it looks like director Charles Ferguson got some real access to the players. The movie is narrated by Matt Damon, and is certainly going to slant left, but it looks like it might be worth checking out. What do you think?

Christmas might come early to Wall Street this year . WIth higher taxes in 2011 and beyond a distinct possibility, Wall Street banks are looking to do right by employees and pay out their bonuses before the anticipated IRS onslaught.

So what is the general future of banker bonuses? It's easy to say that this is a one time thing, but with the feds continuing to breathe down Wall Street's back like a lames on necks in tight elevators, is it time to rethink the bonus structure? Self regulation has always been less painful than federal intervention.

"There are more old drunkards than there are old doctors..." - Benjamin Franklin

As if you needed another reason to partake in Wall Street's culture of booze (well, some of you do), a recent 20-year study has concluded that heavy drinkers live longer than people who don't drink at all. So there. You teetotalers in the crowd are probably coming up with all kinds of justifications about how this data is flawed, but you can rest assured that the researchers factored in everything. The fact is, heavy drinkers live longer.

I normally hate Monday, like rain in Seattle...a rant is always likely to fall. Today is different, though. Popped up at dawn, ran a few laps, smashed the pull-up bar, paid some bills...and NOW, I'm ready to hate with vigor. Political correctness makes me sick, I want to freely hate on people based on the ways they are different from me and have them hate me right back for it. That is freedom, alas...

We live in strange times. Simply having energy and aggression gets a kid diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. These rambunctious squirts wind up medicated zombies, taught that being human is wrong from their earliest exposure to society. Is it really shocking that we lead the world's league tables in the 40 year old virgin category?

Updated and revised! This 80+ page guide is a compilation of the most common technical questions encountered in Wall Street interviews. The Third Edition includes a 3 statement Sample Financial Model built to illustrate the typical valuation methodologies used in investment banking and private equity firms. The guide is an electronic pdf and the model is an Excel file so you get everything immediately and can start studying right away.

CLSA analyst Mike Mayo isn't pulling any punches when he accuses Vikram Pandit and Citigroup of cooking the books. For their part, Citigroup is proving that where there is smoke there is fire by freezing Mayo out and refusing to talk to him.

At issue are the losses on $50 billion worth of deferred-tax assets (DTA's), losses that amount to $10 billion according to Mayo. By refusing to write down the losses, he believes Citigroup is committing accounting fraud. There's no doubt that the write down would push Citigroup deep into the red, which explains the bank's reluctance to claim the loss.

November elections couldn't come sooner for Wall Street. Make no mistake about it, this will be the most important election in decades, if not in history, for the battered and tattered financial sector.

With autumn upon us, we get back to business as usual. Anxious aspiring monkeys peel their bananas at thoughts of recruiting season and self righteous populism dealers prep new narcotic propaganda for their fiends, the voters.

One man, however, looks to make a change Wall Street can believe in.

The M.B.A. degree used to be a sure thing, but today it may be becoming obsolete. T-Rex with a busted ankle, hobbling towards the Cenozoic. How quickly the world can change...

Not too long ago, with a Top 5-10 M.B.A. in tow, you could write your own ticket. Guys and gals going through the M.B.A. pipeline in the late 90's/early 00's had six-figure offers in the multiples by the end of their first-year summer. I'm including the undergrad physical recreation majors and latin poetry majors with little tangible work experience.

Southampton, New York: A gathering of Titans was brewing; names like Kravis, Schwarzman, Black, and Giuliani were on the guest list. Was it a Bilderberg meeting? No. Perhaps another “idea” dinner? Wrong again. Where they watching Shia LaBeouf pull a Costanza on the big screen? Bingo.

Once you're dubbed a size trader making some heavy coin is a mere by product. Certainly, we would expect anyone paying $172+ million in taxes to be a big time player.

Well friends, expectations can deceive.

We've all dreamed of running our own book at some point, haven't we?

Sitting on a beach somewhere, sipping boat drinks...hopping in and out of positions and making a few thousand a week. Sounds simple and grand, doesn't it?