Five Things You Must Know About the Fed - TheStreet.com University - The Finance Professor - BAC - C

Taking or teaching a Money and Banking course? Or just interested in learning more about how the Fed works, the Street.com's new site has a nice review of what the role of the Fed now is.Five Things You Must Know About the Fed - TheStreet.com University: "The Fed is responsible for much more than determining the fed funds rates. According to the Fed's own publication entitled The Federal Reserve

SSRN-Motivating Innovation by Gustavo Manso

I was actually looking for another paper by Manso on step up bonds when I found this one. It is pretty cool and very intuitive (you can't punish failures if you want people to take chances). SSRN-Motivating Innovation by Gustavo Manso: "...incentive schemes that motivate exploration are fundamentally different from standard pay-for-performance incentive schemes used to induce effort. The optimal

Shorting Cramer - Barron's Online

You all know my take on Cramer--he is a really smart guy and great marketer, but whether he can beat the market or not is very much in doubt. (And please do not tell me he did and therefore he can--past performance does not guarantee future performance...survivorship bias....etc.)But that said, many people do think the world of him so I was especially interested when a former student texted me

Really it's ok, everyone is doing it

Top four banks tap Fed discount window - Yahoo! News: "Citigroup , Bank of America and other top banks took the rare step of borrowing $2 billion from the U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday, in a bid to reassure markets and remove the stigma associated with getting financing from the central bank.... Borrowing money directly from the Fed has historically been seen as a sign of weakness, but Bank

20 timeless money rules - Be humble (1) - Money Magazine

These are good.20 timeless money rules - Money Magazine: "Money Magazine collected the best advice from some of the smartest investors (and other people) who have ever lived."

U of R remembers one of its teachers

More on the sad and tragic death of Mike Barclay:www.whec.com - U of R remembers one of its teachers: "Barclay came to the University of Rochester fresh out of Stanford University in 1985. We learned he was one of the world's top financial economists and finance professors. He'd won eleven teaching awards. Ranked by Business Week magazine as one of the top 12 professors in the United States. His

Dell, Admitting Managers Inflated Sales Reports, Will Restate Income - New York Times

Dell, Admitting Managers Inflated Sales Reports, Will Restate Income - New York Times: "The senior management of Dell regularly falsified quarterly returns from 2003 through 2006 to create the appearance that the company had met sales targets, the computer maker disclosed Thursday. The accounting misconduct also resulted in inflated earnings, so the company will restate its net income for the

The profession lost one of my favorite professors today

A friend just emailed me with the horrible news that Michael Barclay was killed today in a plane crash. I took him for several classes and can say he was one of my favorite teachers I ever had. From the Rochester Business Journal: "Michael Barclay, a member of the Simon Graduate School of Business finance faculty at the University of Rochester for more than two decades, died Thursday in a

Adelphia's Rigases Report to Prison - Forbes.com

Adelphia's Rigases Report to Prison - Forbes.com: "After fighting one of the nation's largest corporate fraud cases, former Adelphia Communications executives John and Timothy Rigas reported Monday to a federal prison in North Carolina. Adelphia founder John Rigas and his son Tim, the company's former chief financial officer, were convicted in 2004 on multiple charges of securities fraud,

A look at Bear and Goldman

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide: "When Bear Stearns's two funds, High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies and High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage, nosedived in June, the company tried to forestall a total collapse by halting withdrawals and unloading securities to meet lenders' demand for more collateral. That strategy failed, and Bear Stearns was forced to bail out one of the funds

The Insiders Aren’t So Bearish, After All - New York Times

The Insiders Aren’t So Bearish, After All - New York Times: "Professor Seyhun argues, insider sales need to be weighed according to whether they occur immediately after the exercise of an option. In unpublished research, he has done just that. And he has taken into account other factors he has found to be important in interpreting insider behavior. These include the type of insider who made the

Deloitte to Pay $167.5M in Adelphia Case - Auditing - CFO.com

Deloitte to Pay $167.5M in Adelphia Case - Auditing - CFO.com: "Deloitte & Touche has agreed to pay $167.5 million to settle a case with a trust that was formed after Adelphia Communications Corp. collapsed in 2002. The news comes just as former Adelphia CFO Timothy Rigas and his father, Adelphia founder John Rigas, head to federal prison."

Is it spreading?

I feel like I did when SARS was the big scare or watching Bird Flue outbreaks? I guess that is why they call it contagion!BNP Paribas Freezes 3 Funds - New York Times: "France's biggest listed bank, BNP Paribas , froze 1.6 billion euros ($2.2 billion) worth of funds on Thursday, citing the U.S. subprime mortgage sector woes that have rattled financial markets worldwide.The frozen funds amount to

Is Cramer right? Yes and no

While his rampage was funny, was Cramer's message correct? Is there a liquidity problem? Is it getting worse?I obviously do not know (and as Cramer points out Academics don't know things like this), but did have a few people contact me about it and there is some evidence that things are getting bad, but not Armageddon bad as Cramer claimed).But here are some articles that suggest things are at

S&P Launches U.S. Commercial Real Estate Indices Developed with Schwab

Worried about a lack of liquidity impacting real estate? Once again financial innovation allows a way of hedging this risk. S&P Launches U.S. Commercial Real Estate Indices Developed with Schwab: "Expanding its widely followed suite of investable real estate indices, Standard & Poor's announced today the launch of the S&P/GRA Commercial Real Estate Indices (SPCREX). The indices measure the

Bankdating leads to conviction

NY Times:"Jurors in Federal District Court in San Francisco convicted the former chief executive of Brocade Communications Systems, Gregory L. Reyes, 44, on 10 counts of conspiracy and fraud.The verdict ended a five-week trial in which Mr. Reyes was accused of intentionally changing the grant dates for hundreds of stock option awards without disclosing the move to investors."As a Met's fan, the

SSRN-Has New York Become Less Competitive in Global Markets? Evaluating Foreign Listing Choices over Time by Craig Doidge, George Karolyi, René Stulz

NY still has it! That is the conclusion of a new working paper by Doidge, Karolyi, and Stulz. They find that while fewer firms are cross listing on the NYSE, it is not due to increased regulation.SSRN-Has New York Become Less Competitive in Global Markets? Evaluating Foreign Listing Choices over Time by Craig Doidge, George Karolyi, René Stulz:From the abstract:"This decline in cross-listings

Catching up, Looking around.

Yeah it is time to try to clear my desktop again, so here are some of the interesting articles I have been meaning to mention:From the NY Times DealBook:A "Jerk Premium"?"Daniel Gross of Slate has an additional theory: Part of the price — possibly as much as a billion dollars, he estimates — was simply the amount that Mr. Murdoch had to pay to compensate for his off-putting reputation. Mr. Gross’

Money: The Dollar's Depths, Explained - US News and World Report

USNews and World Report has an interesting "interview" with Columbia Business School Finance ProfessorRobert Hodrick on the dollar and forex. Money: The Dollar's Depths, Explained - US News and World Report: "...the U.S. current account deficit is about $800 billion a year, which means every business day we buy in excess of $3 billion of foreign goods and services more than foreigners buy here.US

Free Money Finance: Warren Buffet Recommends Index Funds

Free Money Finance does its normal wonderful job on commenting on Buffet's comments on Index funds!Free Money Finance: Warren Buffet Recommends Index FundsBTW in this Buffet is also saying that Hedge Funds are not all they are cracked up to be either.

More fall out from Bear Stearns

Bear Stearns preparing to oust president: WSJ | News | Market News | Reuters: "Bear Stearns Cos....whose shares slumped on Friday, is preparing to oust Warren Spector, one of its two presidents and its co-chief operating officer, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday."

How Murdoch will act at the Wall Street Journal from Greenslade

I love reading the Wall Street Journal. Thus, it has been with largely silent concern that I have watched from a far the takeover by Robert Murdoch. Of course Murdoch has no incentive to ruin the paper, but my worry is that rather than ruin it, he will change it. Make it more mainstream etc. (even more than a liberal-conservative worry, I can see the paper being "dumbed down" to sell more

Higher Deductibles Sting Homeowners - MarketWatch

While the person who sent this to me wanted me to criticize it, I can not find anything wrong with it. Indeed it seems a good way to keep premiums down.Higher Deductibles Sting Homeowners - MarketWatch: "...more insurers change how they calculate deductibles, especially for damage caused by windstorms and other natural events. The newer method of figuring deductibles is based on a percentage of

What’s My House Worth? And Now? - New York Times

Info overload? What’s My House Worth? And Now? - New York Times: "In June, for instance, more than 39 million people visited the 20 most popular real estate Web sites, a 22.4 percent increase in visitors over the same period in the previous year, according to Nielsen/NetRatings Inc. Not only that, but a lot of those people are becoming addicted. At Zillow.com, for instance, 44 percent of the site