savageinfidel

Iran's nuclear program seems to making a lot of news lately. Israel is strongly considering preemptive strikes on Iran, claiming that Iran is closer to obtaining a nuclear weapon than most countries think. The United States is not pushing towards war as much but will still support Israel in its efforts. Even more frustrating for Iran is that more sanctions seem to be piling up on them. What does this mean for Iran? They will buy more wheat. Traders have been watching Iran's wheat imports closely, and they have seen a robust increase in recent imports. Iran has been stockpiling tons of wheat from the US, Brazil, Kazakhstan, and India in what seems to be in preparation for more sanctions which will prevent access to wheat and possible war. Access to wheat is vital for the nation, as it prevent spikes in the cost of bread. This move can be seen as a preparation for war. Stockpiling more wheat than necessary means that Iran does not see these tensions dying down. Instead they see ...

BATS Global Markets, the Kansas based alternative trading platform planned its IPO for last Friday. BATS is the third largest trading platform in the US behind the NASDAQ Euronext and NYSE OMX Group accounting for 10.3% of equity trading in the US. However, their IPO went horribly wrong. Due to a software bug, BATS internal systems failed which affected trades of stocks with tickers ranging from A to BF. Investors, realizing what was going on decided to sell their allotment of BATS shares, further placing downward pressure on the new stock. Within a span of 3 seconds, the stock fell from trading at $15.25 to 3 cents. BATS thought about restarting their IPO in the afternoon, but feared it would fall below $16 threshold which is lower bound of their prospective offering. Instead they decided against it since investors could sue the company for not adequately marketing the risks associated with the firm and its business if the stock tanked again. The good news out of the whole fia...

With Apple’s stock recently touching $600 per share and posting gains in approach of 50% through 2012 alone, investors are beginning to wonder if the Cupertino based tech behemoth can keep its stock price soaring. Just last week, after sitting on its $98 billion “war chest” for some time, Apple announced plans to issue a $2.65 dividend and to repurchase $10 billion worth of shares. By market capitalization, Apple has become the largest company in the world, and it has a lot to show for it. Markedly, Apple’s record sales seem to continue indefinitely. Soon after its announcement earlier this year, the third generation of the iPad tablet sold more than 3,000,000 units over its first weekend available. Additionally, the firm had reported nearly doubled revenue of $46.3 billion for its holiday quarter. Record numbers like the previous are what keep both institutional and individual investors excited about Apple’s potential growth. Moreover, updates to the Mac, the Apple TV and the iPhone a...

Professor Series: Aswath Damodaran - Valuation Date: Tuesday, March 27th, 2012 Time: 12:30 pm - 1:45 pm Location: Tisch 201 Come and check out the next in our Professor Series as Professor Aswath Damodaran discusses Valuation. Professor Damodaran is one of the most highly regarded faculty at Stern. He teaches two classes at the MBA level, so this is a great chance to get a glimpse of what goes on in his highly regarded lectures. Professor Damodaran also teaches Valuation workshops to many of the Wall Street banks analyst classes, so this is one event you don't want to miss! Margin Call: Screening Date: Wednesday, March 28th, 2012 Time: 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm Location: Tisch UC-01 For those who have yet to see it, we will be showing a screening of Margin Call this Wednesday. Next week we will be bringing in J.C. Chandor, director of the film, for a Q&A session. Even if you have seen it, this will be a good refresher. Popcorn will be served! Professor Series: Thomas Cooley,...

About three weeks ago (3/6/12), I included the following story in an entry in this blog: “I immediately walked to my study and sent an email to one of my students. ‘You made a D on your first test in my class. Since then, I have not noticed one iota of improvement. None. You are not one bit better prepared for my class. You are not trying any harder as far as I can see. I can only surmise that your primary goal is to make a D in my class.’ “The next day in class that student was clearly better prepared. Not sure how long it will last but it was nice to see him more engaged.” I basically confronted the student directly for not making changes in his attitude toward my class. I cared enough about him as a person to be confrontational. He may well have thought I hated him but, in truth, if I had not cared about him as a person, I would not have wasted my time. He made a D on the first test of the semester and seemed ready to make a D on the second test. Rather than f...

Myanmar, one of two Asian countries (along with North Korea) that have not yet opened up its banking industry to foreign firms, could open its market as late as the year 2015. The Myanmarian government has lately been executing several attempts of reform: the first national election in 20 years was held in 2010; the country has recently begun to use ATMs; it hopes to adopt a new foreign-investment law soon. But the country's financial system is still rudimentary in international standards. Only a few people use credit cards, a confusing multiple-exchange-rate system is used, and the central bank is too weak to sustain itself. I believe that with multiple reforms such as employing a single-exchange-rate system and amending its banking laws, allowing foreign banks to operate in the country can uplift the Myanmarian financial system. I suspect the process to be competitive and chaotic, as attacking an opening market is always in the interest of business, not to mention the acquisition...

Robert Zoellick’s five year term as head of the World Bank comes to a conclusion this June as expected and nominations are coming in for who is to be the new leader. The debate for who should replace Zoellick is heating up as of late as developing nations are poised to mount another challenge on the U.S.-EU hold over the position. While it has been clear that the U.S. has significant influence over who is elected, President Barack Obama made a smart decision today to counter criticisms by nominating the prestigious Jim Young Kim of Dartmouth College to be the successor. Kim is a global health expert and has put years of effort into aiding developing nations. He recently launched an initiated to assist over 3 million patients suffering from aids in African countries. It is rare to see a non-politician or financial expert nominated but Obama believes that “It’s time for a developmental professional to lead the world’s largest developmental agency.” It i...

It seems that the crude oil market is destined to be the market of this year. Since NATO's proposal of a series of actions against Iran's nuclear experiment carried out later last year, the issue considering oil price has never lost the attention of mainstream media. We've already seen that in last two months shot up over nearly 20 percent as EU announced its freezing of various transactions with Iran among its members. Iranian governors counterattacked immediately by cutting its oil supply to Britain and France and threatned further ban on oil exports to other "unfriendly" European countries. And this morning the oil price spiked on global market to $108.25 (the three-week high) but soon pulled back. Some experts anticipated that Iran's oil export might drop by 300,000 barrels per day this month. This little variation may not be quite considerable yet it is delivering out some messages. Recently Iranian government stated publicly a breakthrough on producing ...

Hedge funds spend endless time and money strategizing and actively managing portfolios to get the highest return for their investors, who in turn pay them a 2% management and 20% performance fee. Hedge fund of funds spend even more resources on top of that on manager selection and other things. But is all their effort really worth it? Perhaps not. Back in 2008 Warren Buffet made a bet with Ted Seides and Jeffrey Tarrant of Protégé Partners LLC, a fund of hedge funds. He bet that funds that invest in hedge funds couldn’t beat the stock market over 10 years. The Protégé co-founders took him on and made an index of five hedge fund of funds to put up against Vanguard’s low-cost Admiral mutual fund, which tracks the S&P 500. For those of us looking to start investing our own money into these kinds of funds within the next 5-10 years, this may be a worthwhile bet to follow until its conclusion on December 31 st , 2017. Protégé’s reasoning was that hedge funds’ ability to hold securities ...

Turns out investors need Apple’s money more than Tim Cook after all. In a press conference Tuesday morning, Apple announced its first dividend since 1995 and will pay shareholders $2.65 per share in the coming quarter. This is approximately equivalent to a 1.8% dividend yield, slightly lower than the 2.1% average for the S&P500. In conjunction with a $10bn share buyback program, the company expects to return $45bn in the next three years. This makes it the largest annual dividend payer in the S&P500 after AT&T, which expects to pay close to $10bn in the year. Apple’s near $100bn war-chest is a relic of its leaner days in the mid-90’s, when it is said to have been 90 days from bankruptcy and had to get support from Microsoft in form of platform development support and a $150mn infusion. Since then, Steve Jobs had been running the company with tight purse strings despite the enormous and stable cash flow in recent years. Indeed, his biography included comments indicating he...

Professor Series: Thomas Sargent, Nobel Laureate Date: Tuesday, March 20th, 2012 Time: 12:30 pm - 1:45 pm Location: Tisch 201 **Please note the room change!** Join Finance Society and EHS this week as we host Stern's very own Professor Thomas Sargent. He will discuss elements of his Nobel prize winning work and how it links to current events unfolding in the world today, with a focus on the European sovereign debt crisis. His presentation will also expand on an article he authored in the Wall Street Journal entitled "An American History Lesson for Europe." This is one event you don't want to miss! Citi Summer Analyst Panel Date: Thursday, March 22nd, 2012 Time: 12:30 pm - 1:45 pm Location: Tisch 200 Join the Finance Society this Thursday, March 22nd, as we invite a panel of Summer Analysts from Citi Group to speak about the "Life of an Analyst." For Juniors who have a summer internship in the Financial Services Industry, this will be a great ...

The hottest talk on the Street lately is unsurprisingly the blast that Greg Smith, the London-based executive, released through an op-ed column of the New York Times upon his departing Goldman Sachs. With an explicit title, “Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs,” Smith shines light onto his 12-year experience with the firm to debunk the crooked morals of the famous investment bank. In the article, Smith laments the leeching nature that Goldman has developed over several years, as current business is primarily conducted to make money. With meetings that discuss mainly the amount of money earned off of clients, or “muppets,” as managing directors sometimes call them, Goldman Sachs has exhibited a profit-driven aspect sometimes at the expense of client needs. Such loss of Goldman’s original culture – the spirit of achievement, humility, diligence – is what is driving Smith to leave the firm. The article made quite an impact; not long after its release, the article caused the firm t...

Before I ever started this blog, I wrote a short little teaching book titled “Tips and Thoughts on Improving the Teaching Process in College--A Personal Diary.” I wanted to push myself to think about teaching and I wanted to encourage other folks to think about teaching. The book was a bit of work but it seemed like everyone would benefit. When finished, I put it up on web at https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~jhoyle/ and forgot about it. However, the book got a very nice review in The Chronicle of Higher Education and people started sending me questions or suggestions. For a while, I got emails from teachers around the world. What fun. Eventually, I wanted to add to those original essays. I had more thoughts on teaching. Plus, I missed the writing. But, instead of starting a second book, I created this blog which has allowed me to stretch out the thinking and writing process indefinitely. A couple of weeks ago I was chatting with a former student of mine who has g...

The Eurozone Debt Crisis has been around the news for a long time, and yesterday (Friday, March 9) there was a new progress: Greece sealed a historic € 206 bn ( USD266 bn) debt restructuring deal. Over 83% private sector bond holders in Greece agreed to change their bonds to new ones at less than half their value in order to prevent a disorderly default. Once the collective action clauses (clauses that allow decisions made by majority of creditors to be binding for all creditors) are added into the bond contracts, the response rate will be increased to 95.7%, which means Greece could lower the negativities in the debt-swap plan. This restructuring is the largest sovereign-debt default in history and is the first one in Western Europe in half a century. While it is an integral part of a second, € 130 bn bailout loan for Greece, it will trigger pay outs for CDS (credit-default swaps, contracts that pay off if creditors suffer default). In any case, this I believe this debt exchang...

For the first time in US history, a US official is filing corporate espionage charges against a foreign state-owned company. The two company involved in this legal scandal are Dupont, a US company, and Pangang Group, a Chinese company. The story involves an obscure chemical and an almost obsolete technology that DuPont has wanted to keep secret for years. The two employees of DuPont alleged of stealing the technology and selling it to the Chinese company are pledging not guilty of the charges. The FBI didn’t really find evidence for the case until one agent, who understood Chinese, caught a conversation between the Ms. Christina Leiws and her husband. The agent then followed Ms. Leiws and eventually found a safe deposit box containing files of a decade long documented plot for stealing DuPont’s technology. I think the fact that Pangang Group is a state-owned company adds another level of complexity to the story. Though the intent of espionage for Pangang Group may be purely for corpor...

On Tuesday, the Dow dropped 1.57%, its first significant loss in 2012. While it was widely expected by analysts that the huge gains to start 2012 would slow down because stocks were overbought, the true culprit was Greece. Fears of a possible default in Greece brought the market to a halt, lowering the three major indices by over one percent each. A Greek default could cause over one trillion euros of damage to Europe. In addition to Greece, both China and Brazil showed slowing growth that added to the fears of the global economy. Because of these global issues, the dollar gained and the euro/dollar dropped to 1.3115. The last time the Dow dropped over 200 points was on November 23, ending a run of over three months without a major loss. Also, the S&P 500 dropped over one percent for the first time since December. The markets have started off hot in 2012, but fears in Europe and in the global economy as a whole finally took precedence over Wall Street optimism. Only time w...

The 82nd Geneva Motor Show opened its doors today for the press, while the public can only start entering on the 8th. The Geneva Motor Show is one of the many annual auto shows where carmakers from around the world can show off new designs, models, and technologies for the cars of tomorrow. This is a great marketing scheme on the carmakers end because their new cars will receive much hype, especially the ones that are due to be released soon, like the new Mercedes Benz A-Class line or the new Audi A3. What's important about these annual shows is that carmakers, although hurt from the recession, are still heavily investing in new technologies for their cars in order to make their cars more efficient and advanced, thus benefiting all types of technology sectors. For example, Apple's stock price went up today, after Mercedes announced that its new A-Class line was fully integrated with Apple's Siri technology. Vincent Tang

My wife often watches “Morning Joe” on cable television as she gets ready for the new day. It is a group of people who discuss and debate politics and the world in general each morning. Last week, I wandered through and the people on the show that morning were discussing education. Just as I passed by, one person asserted: “We all know how to get great education: Demand Excellence and Expect Excellence.” Demand Excellence and Expect Excellence. Hmm, sounds good. I wonder how many of us really do that? Do we really demand excellence from our students? Really? In fact, do we really demand excellence from ourselves? Or, maybe, they are just two sides to the same coin. RESPONSE ONE TO MORNING JOE: After hearing the commentator, I immediately walked to my study and sent an email to one of my students. “You made a D on your first test in my class. Since then, I have not noticed one iota of improvement. None. You are not one bit better prepared for my class. ...

Last Thursday, we had the pleasure of inviting in David Becker, from Inner Circle Sports, to discuss his career path and some of the things that differentiate sports investment banking from standard investment banking. The event was co-sponsored with STEBA, and we had an attendance of over 90 students! Smit Purohit and Kunal Agrawal, two E-Committee members, began the event by presenting our weekly market update and discussing some of the recent headlines in the financial world. Mr. Becker then took over to introduce the firm, and discuss the basics of sports investment banking. Above, you can see him discussing the various valuation methods used in investment banking, and then narrowing down to the ones that apply specifically to sports teams. The discussion then turned to some recent activity in the space including the restructuring of the LA Dodgers, as well as Inner Circle's recent work with FC Liverpool. This week we're going to switch the focus by beginning our Professor ...

Professor Series: Robert Whitelaw Chair of the Finance Department Date: Thursday, March 8th, 2012 Time: 12:30 pm - 1:45 pm Location: Tisch 200 Come and check out the first in our Professor Series as Professor Robert Whitelaw discusses his latest research topic, Exchange Rates. This will also be a great opportunity for those of you who are taking FFM next semester as Professor Whitelaw is the chair of the Finance Department and one of the main FFM professors!

(Photo of Richard Parsons, current chairman of Citigroup) Citigroup announced yesterday that its current chairman Richard Parsons will be stepping down at Citi’s shareholder meeting in April. As part of a pre-existing succession plan, Michael E. O’Neill, former chief executive of the Bank of Hawaii Corp., will succeed Parsons as the head of Citigroup. Parsons, 63, became chairman of Citi since 2009 and played an important role in leading the firm’s recovery coming out of the crisis. Previously, he had been on the board for over a decade and a half and took over the chairman position shortly after a $45 billion bailout by the U.S. government. Parsons is known for his political connections and close relationships with officials, according to Mike Mayo, the author of “Exile on Wall Street”, who thinks that this change will be good for Citigroup. Parsons was quoted earlier saying that “Citi still faces a challenging environment, as do all the large banks, but the crisis is behi...

In what will surely be the year of the Internet IPOs, another Web 2.0 offering debuted on Friday. Yelp, the go-to site for local business reviews and advertisements initially priced its shares at $15—above its initial $12-14 filing range. At opening, it jumped up to 73% and is currently priced at $24.43 (roughly 63% up). While it may have a smaller valuation at $1.6 billion than other Internet companies, it does seem a little expensive (as much as I love Yelp). Keep in mind that Yelp lost $16.7 million last year. Another important fact to consider is how saturated its market is becoming. Yelp will need to compete with Open Table and Groupon as well as upcoming web companies Angie’s List, LivingSocial and Google’s Zagat. These competitors are well-equipped to take on Yelp in the reviews and local business deals arenas. Of course it is too early to tell how the stock price will change in the coming weeks. I believe that Yelp does stand a good chance against its competitors but it w...