You've heard of Webcasts and Podcasts...welcome to Cubecasts. From our cubicle to yours, here is Issue #8 of The Weekly Oasis, a newsletter in which Bankerella shares her views on market events, financial news, and things of interest to everyone from gorillas to prospective monkeys.
Where did it all go?
In recent months, U.S. financials have lost almost $10 billion, which means that all the investors that bought into the Ponzi-like financing schemes of the last twelve months are hurting bad. That includes all those sovereign wealth funds, including those of Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, and Singapore, and individuals such as Prince Alwaleed bin Alsaud, who once said, "At about $43, Citi's share price was at too attractive a price." (Citi's now trading at $20.) We're talking about massive multinational corporations losing money so fast that they're starting to look like tech startup IPOs in 2000. Where'd all the money go? I know one thing: sure as hell not into our salary and bonuses.
So what's the long-term effect on the markets? Well, sovereign wealth funds are becoming increasingly important in the global markets, and they just got burned like they answered a Nigerian email from Dr. Aminu Atiku. My guess is that the way these funds think about the markets is in the process of changing. They're going to need experts, they're going to need analysts, and they're going to need to start acting like the $2 trillion (and booming) family of high-powered hedge funds that they are. My advice to all you out-of-work monkeys out there is to start thinking about angling towards these guys. In ten years, with the industry projected to grow to $15 trillion you might be glad you did.
Your place or mine?
Analysts are calling Yahoo "damaged goods" after Jerry Yang, Yahoo's CEO, thoroughly botched dealings with Microsoft. What's worse, like that girl at the bar who goes home with the guy she hates just because some other guy dissed her, Yahoo then turned around and made a deal with Google that gives Google the right to sell advertising for Yahoo's searches. This puts 90% of search revenues firmly in Google's hands... and it doesn't look like the deal will create enough share price value for Yahoo to come anywhere near what Microsoft was offering. This is a tacit admission that Yahoo can't extract as much value from search as Google can. Looks like the end of Yahoo's self-respect... and Google didn't even have to pick up the tab for dinner first.
Hardcore Shocker
This last story isn't finance-related, but I'm sure all of us can use a good scurrilous sex story in the midst of the credit crisis fallout. The judge in the trial of a hardcore porn filmmaker and shock artist has been discovered with "graphic depictions of naked women painted to look like cows, masturbation and a man "cavorting" with a sexually aroused farm animal" posted on his personal website. Now, in the era of Two Girls One Cup, at a time when senators and ministers are more likely to get caught up in sex scandals than Hollywood stars, the fact that a respected federal judge with over twenty years of time on the bench has a little barnyard porn on his server isn't all that shocking. Really, who cares? You can't google "horse" without stumbling across that stuff these days. What's shocking is that, once the press outed him, he recused himself and declared a mistrial. Then the real eyebrow-raiser: he asked the judicial counsel to review his behavior to make sure he hadn't done anything wrong. We're looking at something strange and exotic here, folks: a sudden and unexpected stand for decency, integrity, and freedom of speech, coupled with a guy's sense of respect and responsibility towards the position that he was appointed to fill. I'm not sure if the country's ready for this. Talk about shock art.
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Questions? Comments? Send an e-mail to Bankerella@WallStreetOasis.com or send a private message to her at WallStreetOasis.com. To read previous issues of The Weekly Oasis please click here: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/xtracker/type/simplenews
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