And you are here why?

Historically, there is a certain way that IPOs are run by the Underwriters.  Without going into too much detail (or, in fact, any detail at all), The undewriters collect around 7% of the total proceeds in fees The big-wigs at the company do a 'roadshow', where they basically talk about how everything is spiffy, life is good, blah, blah, blah The company IPOs, everybody gets a bunch of money, and everybody is happy. The problem with the Facebook IPO is that, well, its Facebook , i.e., everybody already knows who they are, everybody already knows that the IPO is going to be a biggie, and except for bragging rights, there is really no point behind either the underwriting process or the roadshow. Well, thats not really accurate.  The actual minutiae of the under-writing process needs to happen, and the SEC required roadshows need to occur, but as far as Facebook is concerned, they are only doing the de minimus necessary to comply with the rules and regulat...

Bloomberg has a long , and only slightly snide take on the $200K is not wealthy trope making the rounds.  The focus of this piece is, however, those unfortunates in the Financial Sector who have had their bonuses cut, and are consequently up shit creek.   Its absolutely heart-wrenching - take the case of Schiff, a marketing director His family rents the lower duplex of a brownstone in Cobble Hill, where his two children share a room. His 10-year- old daughter is a student at $32,000-a-year Poly Prep Country Day School in   Brooklyn . His son, 7, will apply in a few years. He wants ... “a room for each kid, three bedrooms, maybe four,” he said. “Imagine four bedrooms. You have the luxury of a guest room, how crazy is that?” The family rents a three-bedroom summer house in Connecticut and will go there again this year for one month instead of four. Schiff said he brings home less than $200,000 after taxes, health-insurance and 401(k) contributions. “I woul...

Or, should that be Not Doing the Right Thing? A true story from The Reformed Broker ... Ext: Glass office building in January of 2009 Cut to interior of regional branch office of a national brokerage firm, flatscreen TVs line the walls while cubicles are festooned with copies of Tony Robbins books and golf course calendars. Branch Manager:   “Hey Dan*, when you get a moment I just need to sit with you your team for our annual review” Dan:   “I got some time, let’s go through it now if you want…” BM:   “Okay great, so first of all, how did things go with your clients last year?  I know it was the worst year for the markets since the crash of ’29 so…” Dan:   “Actually, we did really well, in April right after Bear Stearns went down we got out of most of the individual common stocks, we did some covered calls to hedge the ones we couldn’t get out of outright.  Most of the money went into Treasurys, we did some gold as well. BM:   “Wow, ...

From the co-heads of Themis Trading, via The Big Picture, comes this great post on why trading on Wall-Street trading is not what you think it is (and certainly not what it used to be) Congratulations on your IPO filing. We understand that you are faced with a difficult decision soon on where to list your stock. [...] We hate to break the bad news to you but the fact is, in today’s market, it doesn’t matter where you list. Your stock is about to become one of the biggest casino chips on Wall Street. Ever hear the terms rebate arbitrage or latency arbitrage? Ever hear of colocation? Do you know what an exchange private data feed is? How about an actionable IOI or a dark pool? We bet you have probably never heard of these terms (maybe you have been too busy coding lately or ducking those Winklevoss twins). These terms are really what stock trading is all about nowadays. Your stock will now be traded by high frequency traders who have an average holding period of 22 second...

I'm still trying to figure out the gory details of Crash 6.0 (otherwise known as The Crash Of 2008).  Its been a bunch-a years since those inglorious days, and there still isn't all that much clarity around why  it happened. I, on the other hand, have had a minor ephipany, to wit,   too many people were playing Poker, but acted like they were making Chocolate Croissants . Huh? Work with me here, as I walk you through this The Poker Game Ten of you oh-so-smart types get together to play poker. Each of you comes to the table with $1000. Lets just say that, due to either skill, luck, stacked decks - or a combination thereof - Jane walks off with $10,000. This is a classic - and highly facetious - example of what is called a zero sum game . Jane may have made a proft of $9K, but each of the rest of you not-so-smart (or no-so-lucky) types posted a loss of $1K. In short, the total amount of money that the ten of you have remains at $10K - admittedly all with J...