At Bear, an Apology Is Met With Silence - NYTimes.com

At Bear, an Apology Is Met With Silence - NYTimes.com: "The tally in support of the merger was 84 percent, Bear Stearns said....Inside the building, however, the mood was somber, if not tearful...The new entity will be much leaner....bout 7,500 Bear Stearns bankers have lost their jobs, along with as many as 3,500 employees of JPMorgan.and later:"I have no anger, only regret,” Mr. Cayne said...."

Study Casts Doubt on Key Rate - WSJ.com

Interesting...Suppose you have two measures of something. One that is market driven (observable prices) whereas the other is based off reported data. Usually the two move together. However, when they diverge, someone must ask why and which is more correct.That is essentially what the WSJ did in the following article. They look at LIBOR and teh credit spread to gauge the level of uncertainity

How different cultures deal with free loaders

From the WSJ's Science Journal - WSJ.com: "In the most sweeping global study yet of cooperaton, a team of experimental economists tested university students in 15 countries to see how people contribute to joint ventures and what happens to them when they don't. The European research team discovered startling differences in how groups around the world react when punishment is handed out for

Charges of Insider Trading for a Wall Street Luminary - NYTimes.com

Charges of Insider Trading for a Wall Street Luminary - NYTimes.com: "Dr. Marshall, a retired professor at St. John’s University and a fixture on the Wall Street lecture circuit, was accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission in March of passing inside information about a multibillion-dollar corporate takeover to a professor at Pace University. The Pace professor, Alan L. Tucker, made more

Bears Last Day on Earth - Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds -- DealBook - New York Times

Bears Last Day on Earth - Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds -- DealBook - New York Times: "Bear Stearns shareholders are all but certain to approve the sale of the securities firm to JPMorgan in a vote Thursday morning. Bear will most likely be immediately merged out of existence as a public company. The Bear Stearns name will all but disappear, according to a report in Crain’s

Fear, Rumors Touched Off Fatal Run on Bear Stearns - WSJ.com

Fear, Rumors Touched Off Fatal Run on Bear Stearns - WSJ.com: "Part One: Missed Opportunities As the firm's fortunes spiraled downward, executives squabbled over raising capital and cutting its inventory of mortgages.Part Two: Run on the Bank Executives believed they were about to turn a corner, but rumors and fear sent clients, trading partners and lenders fleeing.Part Three: Deal or No Deal?

Bloomberg.com: Exclusive

Bloomberg.com: Exclusive: "Credit-default swaps are derivatives, meaning they're financial contracts that don't contain any actual assets. Their value is based on the worth of underlying loans and bonds. Swaps are similar to insurance policies -- with two key differences.Unlike with traditional insurance, no agency monitors the seller of a swap contract to be certain it has the money to cover

Yahoo Nominates Existing Board - NYTimes.com

Although the stakes are lower, this may be more exciting than the presidential election!Yahoo Nominates Existing Board - NYTimes.com: "Yahoo nominated 9 of its 10 existing directors for re-election to the company’s board on Thursday, setting the stage for a showdown with dissident shareholders at its annual shareholder meeting."

Court Upholds Tax Exemptions for Municipal Bonds - New York Times

Court Upholds Tax Exemptions for Municipal Bonds - New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Monday upheld the preferential tax break that nearly all states give their residents who invest in bonds issued by the state and its municipalities. By a vote of 7 to 2, the justices rejected the argument that a state engages in unconstitutional discrimination against interstate commerce by exempting the

Five Basics for Building a Solid Financial Future - New York Times

Five Basics for Building a Solid Financial Future - New York Times: "“In Defense of Food” that provides clarity amid the bounty of choices on supermarket shelves: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”Boiling down investing is a similar exercise: Index (mostly). Save a ton. Reallocate infrequently.Good advice.

The rise of Islamic finance | Islamic Finance and Banking

The rise of Islamic finance | Islamic Finance and Banking: "Finance that complies with Shariah, or Islamic law, is still a niche within the ethical investing niche. In all, there are at least $500bn worth of Islamic finance assets worldwide. That's not much in terms of global banking - US banks alone hold about $12.7 trillion in assets.But the industry's growth is eye-catching: Islamic banking

The story continues...Microsoft and Yahoo

From Bloomberg.com: U.S.: "Microsoft Corp., the software maker that scrapped a $47.5 billion bid for Yahoo! Inc. this month, may forge a partnership with the Internet company on search advertising to challenge Google Inc.Microsoft, which abandoned its takeover attempts May 3, said yesterday that it's exploring a transaction with Yahoo and may renew attempts to buy the entire company. The two may

Debating the CBS-CNET Deal - Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds -- DealBook - New York Times

Debating the CBS-CNET Deal - Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds -- DealBook - New York Times"CBS’s $11.50-per-share deal for CNET seems expensive by at least two measures. Its 45 percent premium is unusually high, and Mr. Bazinet of Citi calculates that the price is 18 times CNET’s projected 2008 Ebitda, above the multiples recently paid for Bankrate (12 times Ebitda) and WebMD (

Text of Icahn’s Letter to Yahoo Board - New York Times

This is good. Yet another case of "this will be used in at least some classes!"Text of Icahn’s Letter to Yahoo Board - New York Times: "It is irresponsible to hide behind management’s more than overly optimistic financial forecasts. It is unconscionable that you have not allowed your shareholders to choose to accept an offer that represented a 72% premium over Yahoo’s closing price of $19.18 on

FT Alphaville » Blog Archive » More than you (may) need to know about commodities hedging

This one will definitely be used in class. From the Financial Times. How will it be used in class? For instance, the story starts out saying more are hedging now after prices have risen (like closing the barn door after horses have escaped?). It also talks about how much and what type of hedging is currently being done. FT Alphaville » Blog Archive » More than you (may) need to know about

Foreclosures take an emotional toll on homeowners - USATODAY.com

We often talk about emotions affecting finance, this reminds us that the causation goes both ways. Folks it is just money. Definitely not worth killing yourself over as some in article have done.Foreclosures take an emotional toll on homeowners - USATODAY.com: "One in seven homeowners worry that they won't be able to make their mortgage payments on time over the next six months, according to an

Icahn Is Said to Weigh a Proxy Fight at Yahoo - New York Times

Maybe it is not over? Icahn is reported to own 50 million shares (over $1 Billion worth).Icahn Is Said to Weigh a Proxy Fight at Yahoo - New York Times: "Carl C. Icahn, the billionaire investor and activist shareholder, is considering a proxy fight for seats on the Yahoo board in hopes of pushing the company to restart talks to sell itself to Microsoft, people who have held discussions with him

Real estate market is also pretty tough to beat!

It appears beating the market in a risk adjusted basis may be almost as difficult in Real Estate as it is in the financial markets.Penn State Live - Study: Only select group of property fund managers outperform market: "...'Maintaining consistently high levels of alpha is incredibly difficult for most fund managers to achieve, however, one feature that we did note is that mangers using a value

A look at the housing crisis

NPR's This American Life: : had a very interesting audio look at what caused the problems and how the problems spread to impact investment banks and other Wall Street investors.This American Life: "A special program about the housing crisis. We explain it all to you. What does the housing crisis have to do with the collapse of the investment bank Bear Stearns? Why did banks make half-million

Jeffrey Sachs on the credit crisis, climate change and overpopulation - Telegraph

Jeffrey Sachs on the credit crisis, climate change and overpopulation - Telegraph: "Poverty and a billion starving people in Africa? Whisked away like dust. Overpopulation and water shortages? Waft, waft. Global warming and climate change? A little brush and they're gone.It would all seem rather utopian did Sachs not share that Clinton/Blair-style knack of making almost anything seem completely

Buybacks seem to deter takeovers.

Newswise Business News | Researcher Finds Good Management, Open Market Stock Buy-backs Deter Takeover Attempts: "Firms that buy their stock back on the open market are seen as more efficient and more sensitive to shareholder interests,” said Matt Billett, professor of finance in the Tippie College of Business. “It’s a sign of shareholder-friendly management.”Billett recently studied more than

Is it over? Microsoft pulls bid

From the NY Times:"Microsoft said Saturday that it was abandoning its blockbuster bid toacquire Yahoo after it raised its offer by $5 billion but Yahoo rejected it asstill too low.....“Despite our best efforts, including raising our bid by roughly $5 billion,Yahoo has not moved toward accepting our offer,” Mr. Ballmer said in astatement. “After careful consideration, we believe the economics

Higher Offer by Microsoft Brings Yahoo to Table - New York Times

Higher Offer by Microsoft Brings Yahoo to Table - New York Times: "According to the people involved in the talks, Microsoft suggested it was willing to pay more than $33 a share. Yahoo is still holding out for at least $37 a share, these people said. These people were not authorized to speak publicly because the negotiations were confidential."Will it work? Who knows, but the article does

Junk Bonds, Mortgages and Milken - New York Times

There is almost no chance of me not posting an article on Milken. While far from perfect, the US economy still owes him a large debt for his role in the creation of active public debt markets for low and unrated firms. What it did was to help force management to look out for shareholders, else face the consequences of a possible takeover.Junk Bonds, Mortgages and Milken - New York Times: "

The Midas of Misery

Whether you call them value investors, or contrarians, vultures, or just good opportunists, some people do make money (and lots of it) in down times.The Midas of Misery: "Falcone is a Midas of Misery. With $19 billion—nearly 760 times the grubstake he started out with seven years ago—he is snapping up troubled assets in bankruptcy, shorting distressed bonds, and using huge stock positions to