When I worked for the Stock Exchange in the 80's it liked to be known as the International Stock Exchange. Nobody ever knew what you were talking about if you said you were calling from the ISE, but that's what it said on the letterhead and our cards. The whole house of cards was sent flying by the disaster that was TAURUS, an absurd project into ( Read more... )

The CS/Tremont Hedge Fund index is always worth a read. Take a look at this analysis of the performance of Global Macro Funds.

Basically whatever chart you look at you will find that from about the end of 2002 Hedge funds have underperformed non-geared investments in SP500 or the DJ Word Index, in dollar terms.

I think David Brief is onto ( Read more... )

What everyone knows about private equity is that there is an obscene amount of money to be made out of it. What I had not appreciated is that a takeover by a private equity house, especially for a public company, is something that the MD may welcome wholeheartedly, compared, say to a takeover bid from a rival.

The key is that the MD, if he plays ( Read more... )

Why is the dollar so high? The simple answer is that demand for it is high. People need to borrow money to buy dollars, and dollar-denominated assets, so they do so by borrowing yen when they then exchange for dollars. Their funding cost is then the short-term Yen interest rate (near enough zero) plus the extent to which the Yen appreciates against ( Read more... )