Bonus Bananas August 5, 2011
That was one hell of a day yesterday. I'm anxious to see how things "go down" today! Here's this week's bananas:
1) Dow Sinks 500, Worst Day Since Dec. 2008 (CNBC) - Here's a nice, succinct wrap-up of yesterday's action. In a word? FUGLY.
2) Ex-Directors of Failed Firms Have Little to Fear (Dealbook) - Hat tip to Happy Pants (also known as @ambitiousginger to the Twitterati) for this gem. Turns out there's not a whole lot of downside to committing fraud and running a major corporation into a ditch. Who knew?
3) Barclays to cut 3,000 jobs as profit sags (MSN Money) - Alright, let's get the bad news out of the way all in one banana. Barclays is letting 3,000 go after a disappointing quarter, HSBC is laying off 10,000 worldwide, and Morgan Stanley's Smith Barney unit plans to cut next year's training class from 1,750 to 1,250. It ain't pretty out there right now.
4) Buy AAPL, BITCH: Jesse Pinkman Says Apple’s Going Higher (MarketSqueeze) - If meth dealers published research recommendations, this is what they'd look like. Despite the ghetto tone, he makes some pretty solid points. And there's no shortage of AAPL fanbois on WSO.
5) US charges ex-UBS banker over $215 mln tax fraud (Reuters) - Sucks to be Gian Gisler. You try to do right by your clients, and this is the thanks you get. Unsatisfied with the $780 million in fines the IRS extracted from UBS, the feds are now going after individual bankers with criminal charges.
6) Bugatti's $1.4 Million, 800-hp Sedan A Hybrid?! (Yahoo! Autos) - Now this is one bad ass grocery-getter. A 4-door with a big trunk and 800 horsepower? Sick. They're even going to offer a hybrid model with an electric-only range of...wait for it...wait for it... 25 miles. Greenpeace be damned.
7) The Bordeaux Bubble (Planet Money) - While we're on the subject of luxury goods, this story hits a little closer to home for me. Bordeaux futures are on the rise in a big way, with some bottles fetching thousands of dollars before the wine is even in the barrel. Interesting side note: Galeries Lafayette across town has bottles on the shelf that go as high as €17,000 ($24,000 USD). How bummed would you be if bumped one of those off the shelf?
8) What Your "Drink" Says About You On a Date (Zagat) - While we're on the subject of booze (we were, weren't we?), I thought I'd share this handy guide to what your drink says about you to the opposite sex. In a nutshell? Best to play it safe and drink whiskey neat.
9) Q & A With Union Square’s Fred Wilson and Lending Club CEO Renaud Laplanche (Forbes) - We have a bunch of Lending Club investors here on WSO, and you'll all be pleased to know that Fred Wilson (@fredwilson) has seen the value and committed to late-stage venture funding of $25 million, valuing Lending Club at $275 million - up from just $80 million last year. P2P lending is definitely a wave of the future.
10) When Reality-TV Fame Runs Dry (Daily Beast) - If we can veer into the realm of salacious gossip for just a minute, this is a refreshingly honest interview with former The Hills stars Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag. Before you jump all over me about the irrelevance of these two famewhores to the world of Wall Street, I think their story is illustrative of the point that it is all so easy to lose. These two were bona-fide multi-millionaires and now they're F.A.B. (flat-ass broke) and living in a garage. I find those kinds of reversals of fortune fascinating. Sue me.
After yesterday, and going into today's non-farm payroll numbers (and the fact that it's a Friday in August), there can really only be one Video of the Week. Let's be careful out there, kids.
Jay-Sean-feat-Lil-Wayne/Down
Baby (OUR ECONOMY) are you down down down down down, Down, down, Even if the sky is falling down, Down, down
The right music to start friday morning
Bordeaux wines have been skyrocketing for a while because the Chinese are snatching them up like crazy, without a clue of what they're buying
You mean Château Lafite-Rothschild...
Good stuff, Eddie, as always. Been a pretty dramatic week, no?
I think the next WSO Happy Hour will have to be especially over the top to make up for yesterday...can't wait to see what's going to happen today.
4-door bugatii, new car for hedge fund soccer moms?
Just returned from my summer mini-internship in Shanghai. Bordeaux wine are being sold in convenience stores there....
Just returned from my summer mini-internship in Shanghai. Bordeaux wine are being sold in convenience stores there....
Why does it feel like like the foreign banks (Barclays, UBS, RBS, Credit Suisse) are just constantly laying off people lately? Is this just perception, or is this actually happening? Barclays in particular just seems to be all over the place laying people off.
Shitty times... and what's worse is that most of these guys are turning a consistent profit now as well!
Autem ducimus sed quia. A dicta unde autem blanditiis provident dolor. In ut eius dolores.
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