SEC to Supervise Hedge Fund Industry - New York Times

Can you tell I read the NY Times today? SEC to Supervise Hedge Fund Industry - New York Times: "Today some 7,000 hedge funds in the United States command an estimated $750 billion to $1 trillion in assets and leave a wide footprint in the financial markets, as they are believed to account for as much as 20 percent of all U.S. stock trading. They're about to be brought under new supervision by

10 Enron Players: Where They Landed After the Fall - New York Times

With the Key Lay trial beginning this week, the NY Times has a very cool article on where the other major players are today:10 Enron Players: Where They Landed After the Fall - New York Times: "Some have moved on to other jobs and new chapters in their lives, while others continue to spend their days mired in their legal fights.Here are 10 of the major figures and where they are now."

Multiple roles: IPO firm and Investment Banker

What a great article for a corporate or an institutions class! Not only is Weisel playing the lead in their own IPO, but also you get a chance to see a secondary offering as CALPERS is selling a portion of their stake. Latest News and Financial Information | Reuters.com: "While San Francisco-based Weisel is taking a risk in pricing its own IPO, it's not breaking new ground. Goldman Sachs, among

New blogging network for personal finance

From their press release:"Five of the top Internet personal finance bloggers today announced they have banded together to create a first-of-its-kind personal finance blog network designed to put personal finance wisdom, best practices and commentary just a mouse click away. The new network, with headquarters online at www.moneyblognetwork.com beginning today, will be composed of the following

Pay Me Later: Inside Debt and its Role in Managerial Compensation by Rangarajan Sundaram, David Yermack

Gee, why hadn't I thought of that?! This is a cool one!SSRN-Pay Me Later: Inside Debt and its Role in Managerial Compensation by Rangarajan Sundaram, David Yermack: "CEOs with high debt-based incentives manage their firms conservatively to reduce default risk; and that pension plan compensation strongly influences patterns of CEO turnover and CEO cash compensation."The authors make an inmportant

SEC approves NASDAQ's Exchange application

Latest News and Financial Information | Reuters.com: "The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday approved the long-delayed application of the Nasdaq Stock Market (NDAQ.O: Quote, Profile, Research) to become a registered securities exchange.Under consideration since 2001, the Nasdaq's application is key to its gaining full independence from regulatory organization NASD and competing on

Don't Sweat the Inverted Yield Curve: No One Really Knows What It Means - Knowledge@Wharton

Yield curves (the graph of yield on a class of bonds to their time to matuiry) are usually upwards sloping. That is, you generally get a higher rate the longer you go out in time.However, that is not always the case. Indeed, if you watch the living yield curve, you see that occasionally the yield curve is flat, and at other times (such as now) it is inverted with longer term rates being lower

SSRN – AFA 2006 Boston Meetings

SSRN – AFA 2006 Boston MeetingsWell I missed the meetings by being in Mississippi, but that does not mean we can't go through some of the more interesting papers that were presented there. Look for reviews over the next few weeks. :)

The Home Court Advantage in International Corporate Litigation by Utpal Bhattacharya, Neal Galpin, Bruce Haslem

The Home Court Advantage in International Corporate Litigation by Utpal Bhattacharya, Neal Galpin, Bruce Haslem: "The Home Court Advantage in International Corporate Litigation"What is the source of "home teams" doing better? One source is possibly that in the event of a court case, domestic courts are more likely to side with firms from the home country. That is the main finding of Bhattacharya,

Financial Rounds: Options Markets For Tickets

WHAT A GREAT POST! I will be using this one in class. No question. From the "unknown professor" at Financial Rounds. Financial Rounds: Options Markets For Tickets: "Options Markets For TicketsYesterday I wrote that Tickets Are Like IPOs. Now I find out that tickets are optionable. So, like George Costanza, it seems that my two worlds are colliding. Here's an interesting application of markets

Does location matter?

Yep, it's note making time again! I was just looking for papers on Market efficiency and the lack thereof and stumbled upon this:Short version: Stocks that have headquarters in the same area tend to have higher correlations even though the location apparently (and this is crucial) have no impact on cash flow correlations.In their words: "Moreover, stocks of companies that change their

Hedge Funds With Losing Records to Liquidate - New York Times

Hedge Funds With Losing Records to Liquidate - New York Times: "Hedge Funds With Losing Records to Liquidate "A perfect example of survivorship bias in funds. Hedge funds that are unsucessful are being closed, so when people use only existing firms to measure performance, there is a tendency to overestimate actual returns since we are missing the lower tail of the distribution.

IBM is next major firm to drop defined benefit plans

Firms dropping defined benefit pension plans in favor of defined contribution plans is barely news, but I included this just because this article shows how much it expects to save which will make good class discussions.Bloomberg.com: U.S.: "International Business Machines Corp., the world's biggest computer company,will cut its U.S. pension plans to help save as much as $3 billion in the nextfour

Wisdom of Crowds on TV

Hi everyone, just got back from another volunteer trip in Mississippi. There is MUCH MUCH MUCH work to do, Many areas look as if they have not been touched. Check out the randomtopics2 blog for what the trip was like.I also got an email from Chris Masse saying that "this coming Sunday, January 8, 2006 —sorry, I don't know at what time exactly. That's about 5 million viewers. James Surowiecki and