Wall Street

Morgan Stanley buying Smith Barney from Citibank: Why?

January 10, 2009

In this podcast, Tom Mullooly discusses several reasons why Citibank would consider selling Smith Barney, to their competitor, Morgan Stanley. There are several reasons why Citibank may be considering this transaction, including: Citibank simply needs the money Volume is down, and projected to stay down in stocks and products Margins are down The new product [...]

Read the full article →

SIPC and Bernard Madoff

December 19, 2008

Is the SIPC responsible for helping Madoff clients? The Securities Investor Protection Corporation (also known as SIPC) maintains a special reserve fund — authorized by Congress — to help investors who had accounts and brokerage firms that failed. Technically, when a brokerage firm fails, and owes customers cash and securities that are missing from customer [...]

Read the full article →

Made Off Theft (Madoff)

December 19, 2008

The federal, state and local governments are co–losers with Madoff investors. Lots of questions are starting to surface regarding Bernard Madoff, and the scam that he’s been running — apparently, for years. I’m starting to read questions like “not charging an advisory fee, only working for the commissions…isn’t that a conflict of interest?” Of course [...]

Read the full article →

Bernard Madoff: Made off with the money

December 13, 2008

Former NASDAQ chairman Bernard Madoff disclosed this week that the investment advisory firm he has run (aside from his market making business) was, in fact a fraud.  It’s unknown exactly how much money has been lost, but it appears to be somewhere between $17 billion and $50 billion. By comparison, think about the money being [...]

Read the full article →

Nationalizing banks: why this will work

October 11, 2008

The Treasury announced they will begin to inject capital (money) into banks, under terms created under the bailout bill.  This article will try to walk through, in English, what this all means. As part of the bailout bill (or TARP: troubled asset recovery plan), one provision that was mostly overlooked during the congressional hearings and [...]

Read the full article →

Mark to the Market: what is it?

October 2, 2008

Quick history lesson: Mark-to-the-Market was a practice originally begun by futures and commodity traders in the 19th century.  Essentially, mark-to-the-market means your holdings must be “priced” every night…at the price they can be sold at. For years, many bank and investment companies carried investments at cost, or even sometimes at the face value.  This never [...]

Read the full article →

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac…not dead…yet?

September 27, 2008

A client called me today, curious about buying shares of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  He said, “I’m sitting at home, watching the stock market channel and I’m amazed.  I am seeing all of the shares of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac changing hands.  The stock prices are so cheap.  But, Tom, I thought these [...]

Read the full article →

Who’ll Save Lehman?

September 13, 2008

That was the headline I found over at CBS Marketwatch.  As usual, the news media is whipping (anyone who will read) into a frenzy about Lehman Brothers.  More news may be forthcoming about Lehman — between the time I finish writing this and the time you read this. I have no idea what’s going to [...]

Read the full article →

You read your monthly statements… don’t you?

August 30, 2008

Pretty sad story reported recently…but sad, as in pathetic. Guy Wyser-Pratte, who is known on Wall Street as a shareholder activist and runs a $500 million hedge fund, recently reported that the private banking operation of J.P. Morgan Chase had “somehow” allowed many small electronic transfers out of his personal account, over a period of [...]

Read the full article →

Auction Rate Preferred: the bail-out

August 9, 2008

In one of my most recent posts I discussed the “ready to explode” product issued by brokerage firms called “auction rate preferred securities.” Well, that didn’t take long. In this past week UBS (the parent company of PaineWebber), announced they are spending $19 billion (yes, billion with a B) to buy back auction rate preferred [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →