SmartBlogs for SIFMA SmartBrief
End of the Negative Saving Rate Era?
Wall Street Journal/Real Time Economics, The | 5 hours 27 minutes ago
Most economists say the personal saving rate, which has been falling for decades, will finally rebound in 2009. (See related story.) The annual personal saving rate (effectively, income minus spending) averaged around 10% during the early 1980s, when the economy was in a severe double-dip recession. It then began to fall steadily, even as the economy weathered two more recessions, averaging about 7% around the time of the 1990-91 recession, then falling below 2% for the first time in 2001. It...
Pre- and Post-Bush: More Things Change, More They Stay the Same
Wall Street Journal/Washington Wire, The | 8 hours 52 minutes ago
Sara Murray reports on politics. Attitudes about the state of the country — and specifically the economy — have taken a dive during the eight years of President Bush’s administration, but core beliefs have largely stayed the same, according to a new Pew Research Center study. Just 13% of people said they were satisfied with the way things are going in the U.S., compared to 55% in 2000. Similarly only 7% said economic conditions are good or excellent compared to 46% eight y...
Ron Paul Finally Gets His Due
Wall Street Journal/Washington Wire, The | 9 hours 23 minutes ago
Susan Davis reports on politics. For much of the 2008 campaign, Texas lawmaker and Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul and his supporters served as a thorn in the side or a punching bag for the mainstream GOP establishment. Yet today, the six men vying to run the Republican National Committee praised the grassroots enthusiasm Paul tapped into during his campaign and discussed how they would like to capture that enthusiasm to expand the party’s appeal. "Ron Paul certainly brou...
Obama Seeks Middle Ground With Republicans on Economic Package
Wall Street Journal/Washington Wire, The | 9 hours 29 minutes ago
Naftali Bendavid reports on Congress. President-elect Barack Obama, coming to Capitol Hill today for the first time since his election, went out of his way to reach out to Republicans, and they seemed to respond in kind. After separate meetings with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, Obama met with a bipartisan group of 10 lawmakers. Obama told the participants the economy was bad and getting worse and that the two parties needed to wor...
Gasparino Sees Tarnish for Dimon's Image
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 10 hours 47 minutes ago
Has the financial news media's love affair with JPMorgan Chase's chief executive, Jamie Dimon, come to an end? Charles Gasparino, CNBC's on-air editor, wrote on The Daily Beast on Monday that Mr. Dimon's polished image as the new "King of Wall Street" may start to tarnish quickly as his banking company gets set to report [...]
Prosecutor Wants Madoff Jailed Without Bail
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 11 hours 40 minutes ago
An assistant United States attorney argued Monday that the disgraced financier Bernard L. Madoff violated his bail conditions by mailing about $1 million worth of jewelry and other assets to relatives. The prosecutor, Marc Litt, wants Mr. Madoff jailed without bail. Mr. Litt made the request to revoke Mr. Madoff's bail at a hearing in federal [...]
The Fed s Outspoken Critic
Wall Street Journal/Real Time Economics, The | 12 hours 7 minutes ago
Stanford Professor John Taylor has coined a new, unflattering term to describe the Federal Reserve’s approach to managing the financial crisis: “Mondustrial Policy.” Mr. Taylor, a former Bush administration official who was once considered a possible successor to former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, has instead emerged as an outspoken critic of the Fed. At this year’s annual meeting of the American Economic Association, the right-leaning economist keeps popping up on pa...
S.E.C. Answers Critics of Fair-Value Accounting
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 12 hours 17 minutes ago
For those on Wall Street who hope that 2009 will bring some relief from mark-to-market accounting rules, the Securities and Exchange Commission had some glum tidings last week.
Meg Whitman Considering Run for California Governor
Wall Street Journal/Washington Wire, The | 12 hours 52 minutes ago
Ellen Byron reports on government. Meg Whitman stepped down from the boards of Procter & Gamble Co., eBay Inc. and Dreamworks Animation SKG Inc. effective Dec. 31, her spokesman said. The move is another signal that Whitman is seriously considering a run for governor of California, a person familiar with the matter said, adding that an announcement could come in the next four to six weeks. Whitman's spokesman, Henry Gomez, declined to comment on her political ambitions, saying she step...
Live-Blogging the House Hearing on Madoff
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 13 hours 26 minutes ago
It's time for the politicians in Washington to see if they can find the answers to how the disgraced money manager Bernard L. Madoff was able to hide his purported $50 billion Ponzi scheme from the nation's financial regulators for three decades. Members of a subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee plan to [...]
State Sales-Tax Cuts Get Another Look
Wall Street Journal/Real Time Economics, The | 13 hours 33 minutes ago
Among the different policy prescriptions economists are batting about at the American Economic Association in San Francisco, one that’s been causing a buzz is cutting states’ sales taxes. Husband-and-wife team Robert Hall of Stanford and Susan Woodward of Sandhill Econometrics have been touting the idea, but it’s gathered other adherents, including Princeton’s Alan Blinder. The idea, in a nutshell, is to cut sales taxes and then compensate states for their lost revenue...
Court Rejects Coleman Bid on Absentees
RealClearPolitics Blog, The | 13 hours 34 minutes ago
The Minnesota State Supreme Court has rejected the Coleman campaign's bid to have hundreds of rejected absentee ballots included in the Senate recount, the Minneapolis Star reports. The decision clears the way for Al Franken to be certified the winner by the state canvassing board. The Coleman campaign issued the following statement on the court decision [...]
Economists React: Construction Slowdown Still to Come
Wall Street Journal/Real Time Economics, The | 14 hours 18 minutes ago
Spending on U.S. construction projects is holding up better than expected, thanks to spending on office buildings, lodging and power plants, but is likely to falter in the coming months. U.S. construction spending fell at a seasonally adjusted 0.6% annual rate in November to $1.078 trillion, the Commerce Department said Monday, following a revised October decline of 0.4% that was smaller than originally reported. Below, economists react. The November construction spending report showed that n...
Controversial Heating Oil Program Put on Hold
Wall Street Journal/Washington Wire, The | 14 hours 24 minutes ago
Joseph P. Kennedy II, chairman of Citizens Energy, said the nonprofit has suspended its heating-oil program for low-income households because Citgo Petroleum, the Texas unit of Venezuela's national oil company, is rethinking "all of its social programs." The program has stirred up controversy since it was launched in 2005 because Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has frequently lobbed verbal assaults on Washington, including calling President George W. Bush "the devil" in a 2006 U.N. speech &...
Kennedy's Favorable Rating Takes a Hit
RealClearPolitics Blog, The | 14 hours 24 minutes ago
PPP is out with a new poll showing that 44% of people now have a less favorable opinion of Caroline Kennedy than they did before she first offered herself up for consideration for the vacated Senate seat in New York. Thirty-three percent say their opinion of Kennedy hasn't changed, and 23% say they now have [...]
GMAC's Sweet Government Ride
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 14 hours 24 minutes ago
The federal bailout of GMAC was never going to be pretty, but there are a number of aspects of this latest government action that taxpayers may find particularly irksome, The Deal Professor writes.
Madoff Trustee Mails Out 8,000 Claims Forms
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 14 hours 42 minutes ago
The court-appointed trustee overseeing Bernard L. Madoff's firm has sent out more than 8,000 claims forms to its customers as they seek to recover collectively billions of dollars from the money manager's alleged Ponzi scheme.
2008 in Deals: The Final Tally
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 15 hours 18 minutes ago
. The final numbers from Dealogic show that the combined volume of global mergers and acquisitions announced in 2008 came in at $3.3 trillion. That is down 28 percent from the record total of 2007, but still the fourth-highest yearly total on record.
Obama Names Four DoJ Nominees
RealClearPolitics Blog, The | 16 hours 33 minutes ago
President-elect Obama announced four new nominees for posts in the Department of Justice: David Ogden, for Deputy Attorney General; Elena Kagan, for Solicitor General; Tom Perrelli, for Associate Attorney General; and Dawn Johnsen, for Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel. "These individuals bring the integrity, depth of experience and tenacity that the Department [...]
Bush Family Cat Will Be Greatly Missed
Wall Street Journal/Washington Wire, The | 16 hours 48 minutes ago
John D. McKinnon reports on the White House. The Bush family announced this morning that their 18-year-old cat died over the weekend at the White House. The cause was kidney failure. The black cat, known by various names during her long life India, Willie, and Kitty "was a beloved member of the Bush family for almost two decades," and "will be greatly missed," First Lady Laura Bush’s office said in the statement. During the Bush presidency, the cat was inevitably upstaged by the fa...
Political Perceptions: Obama Arrives, Bearing Tax Cuts
Wall Street Journal/Washington Wire, The | 16 hours 55 minutes ago
President-elect Obama has arrived in Washington carrying plans for a giant tax cut $310 billion worth for "businesses and middle-class workers," says Mike Allen of Politico. The revelation about the tax-cut portion of the Obama stimulus package, Allen writes, "is part of an intricately orchestrated rollout of the plan that includes an appearance by Obama on Capitol Hill on Monday and a major speech about the economy later in the week. Obama plans to ask Congress for a stimulus package of $675...
Och-Ziff's Assets Fell by $5.5 Billion
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 17 hours 34 minutes ago
Like many once-proud hedge-fund firms, Och-Ziff Capital ended 2008 on a humble note, with its assets under management declining by $5.5 billion.
Borders Shuffles Management as Sales Fall
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 17 hours 42 minutes ago
Borders Group said Monday that it has shaken up its top management, as well as a double-digit drop in holiday sales from a year ago and a potential delisting from the New York Stock Exchange.
Gallup: Bush Ratings 'Middle Of The Pack'
RealClearPolitics Blog, The | 17 hours 57 minutes ago
President Bush's approval ratings over the last eight years have been characterized by "extreme highs and lows," according to Gallup. "His record 90% approval rating early in his presidency following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks stands in stark contrast to his sub-30% approval ratings during most of his final year in office, which rank among [...]
NuCO 2 Acquires nexAir's Bulk Drink Carbonation Business
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 18 hours 35 minutes ago
NuCO 2, a supplier of systems for carbonating beverages owned by private equity firm Aurora Capital, said on Monday that it has acquired the bulk of the beverage carbonation business of nexAir.
Housing Market Might Not Bottom Until 2010, Report Says
Wall Street Journal/Real Time Economics, The | 19 hours 6 minutes ago
Economists Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard and Carmen Reinhart of the University of Maryland have a particularly grim view of the economic outlook. In a fascinating new paper that Mr. Rogoff presented this weekend at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association, they offered some sobering details on what has happened to other countries in the aftermath of severe financial panics like the one the U.S. is now experiencing. Their bottom line: If history is any guide, the housing market mi...
K.K.R. Hires Qantas Chairman as Senior Adviser
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 19 hours 6 minutes ago
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts said Monday that it has hired the chairman of Australian airline Qantas as a senior adviser to help bolster the private equity firm's operations in that country.
A New Year's Roundup, and What's Ahead
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 19 hours 12 minutes ago
Happy New Year. It was a long, tough 2008, and we hope you got some well-deserved time off over the past week or two to rest up for what is likely to continue to be another rough couple of months (if not longer, if you believe Nouriel Rabini). Talk of the financial crisis and the [...]
Austria Appoints Overseer at Bank in Madoff Case
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 19 hours 56 minutes ago
The management of Bank Medici, the small Austrian merchant bank that emerged as one of the largest victims of the Bernard L. Madoff scandal, resigned on Friday, making room for a government-appointed accountant to temporarily take over day-to-day operations, The New York Times's Julia Werdigier reported. The chief executive, Peter Scheithauer, who joined the bank only [...]
The End of the Financial World as We Know It
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 20 hours 8 minutes ago
As the New Year begins, Wall Street has a a brief chance to cure itself of the madness that led to the collapse of our financial system and which has inspired not merely a national but a global crisis of confidence, Michael Lewis and David Einhorn write in The New York Times. Mr. Lewis, a contributing [...]
Wall Street's Era of Risk Mismanagement
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 20 hours 14 minutes ago
Could the fantastically complex mathematical risk models investment banks rely on have helped prevent the financial crisis if only Wall Street paid better attention to them? Or did Wall Street's reliance on them help lead us into the abyss? In an extensive article in The New York Times Magazine, Joe Nocera tackles the questions surrounding these [...]
In Silicon Valley, V.C.'s Focus on the Short Term
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 20 hours 14 minutes ago
Venture capitalists make their fortunes, or lose them, on the strength of their predictions. As they hunt for barely hatched ideas and nurture them with money and advice, they are hoping that the new idea grows into the next Google. On Sand Hill Road, the wide boulevard in Menlo Park, Calif. where investors study ideas in [...]
Madoff Paraphernalia, of All Sorts, Landing on eBay
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 20 hours 22 minutes ago
People actually are making money from Bernard L. Madoff - by selling items on eBay. Mr. Madoff, who was arrested last month after being accused of losing as much as $50 billion of investors' money in a Ponzi scheme, put the firm's name on everything from T-shirts to beach towels, tote bags and umbrellas. Now, those [...]
Pfizer Said to Be on the Lookout for Takeover Targets
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 20 hours 22 minutes ago
Pfizer, the world's biggest pharmaceutical group, is open to to doing some dealmaking, The Financial Times reported. "The real goal is to grow revenues . . . We are open to opportunities and constantly looking at those which are big, small and inbetween," Pfizer's chief executive, Jeff Kindler, told the newspaper. The Financial Times noted that while [...]
Former Bankers Turn to a Creative Plan B
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 20 hours 28 minutes ago
Michael Terry led a double life for many years, The New York Times's Hannah Selison says. "During the day I worked at Morgan Stanley as an executive director, overseeing a group that raised money for hedge funds," he told The Times, "and at night I performed in comedy shows." Then, last February, his company announced a round [...]
Obama Takeover Augurs Financial Regulator Shakeup
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 20 hours 28 minutes ago
President-elect Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress will take over the government this month with big plans to overhaul U.S. financial regulation and a surge of momentum behind them, Reuters writes. From the mortgage meltdown to the Bernard Madoff scandal, the financial system is in crisis. Critics are hammering the federal bureaucrats who are supposed to [...]
Office Demand Is Down, and So Are the Deals
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 20 hours 28 minutes ago
By most accounts, the commercial property market reached its pinnacle in early 2007 with the Blackstone Group's acquisition of Equity Office Properties Trust and its prized cache of more than 500 office buildings. The $39 billion deal was the largest of a spate of mergers and acquisitions. Back then, trophy towers were a hot commodity for [...]
Simons Said to Waive Fees for Renaissance Fund
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 20 hours 28 minutes ago
For the new year, James Simons is reportedly giving his investors a break - a $30 million break. According to The Wall Street Journal, a multibillion-dollar hedge fund run by Mr. Simons's Renaissance Technologies has waived all its management fees for 2009. Mr. Simons recently told investors in his year-old futures fund, Renaissance Institutional Futures, that he [...]
Regulators Said to Probe Madoff Eight Times Over 16 Years
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 20 hours 28 minutes ago
Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities was examined at least eight times in 16 years by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulators, who often came armed with suspicions, The Wall Street Journal reported. S.E.C. officials followed up on emails from a New York hedge fund that described Bernard Madoff's business practices as "highly unusual," [...]
Global Markets Move Higher
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 20 hours 34 minutes ago
Global stocks were mostly higher Monday, adding to their New Year gains for a second session, The New York Times's David Jolly reported. In early European trading, the Dow Jones Euro Stoxx 50 index, a barometer of euro zone blue chips, gained 0.6 percent, while the FTSE 100 index in London rose 0.5 percent. The CAC [...]
Universal Sells Studio for $150 Million
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 20 hours 34 minutes ago
In a deal that signifies further reordering in Hollywood's specialty movie business, the Universal Pictures unit of General Electric completed its sale of Rogue Pictures, a maker and distributor of lower-cost films, to Relativity Media for about $150 million, The New York Times's Michael Cieply reported. The deal closed quietly just before Christmas and was disclosed [...]
Man of Contradictions, Accused in a Scheme
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 20 hours 34 minutes ago
He has no real address. He has no real job. His cellphone comes back to the Harvard Club and the address on his driver's license is a defunct post office box in Florida. Yet last year he traveled to Qatar and Dubai and before that he visited Canada several times. He went to Switzerland in 2005 [...]
It's A New Year. Is The Worst Over?
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 20 hours 34 minutes ago
Investors begin the first full week of 2009 trading on Monday with one question in mind: Is the worst over? Given that a 38 percent loss on the broad U.S. S&P 500 stock index last year was actually one of the better performances on stock markets, it is hard for some investors to imagine otherwise, Reuters [...]
Dubai Developer Says Options Include I.P.O.
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 20 hours 42 minutes ago
The developer of palm-shaped islands off Dubai's coast said Sunday it is considering selling shares to the public, but didn't say how soon. Nakheel made the comments in response to questions about a published report that it is working with investment bank JPMorgan Chase on a plan to possibly float its shares in London and Dubai [...]
Resurrecting the WB as a Web Contender
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 20 hours 42 minutes ago
With more than 186 million Web sites on the Internet today, according to the research firm Netcraft, it's no easy task to start a new one that users are going to find and keep coming back to. But, The New York Times's John Consoli writes, when the Warner Brothers Television Group opened TheWB.com on Aug. 27, [...]
Waterford Wedgwood Calls in Administrators
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 20 hours 48 minutes ago
Waterford Wedgwood said Monday that its British operations are being placed in administration and a receiver has been appointed for its Irish businesses after it failed to secure new financing. David Carson of Deloitte was appointed receiver to the company and certain of its Irish subsidiaries, and Angus Martin, Neville Kahn, Nick Dargan and Dominic Wong [...]
LyondellBasell May Seek Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 20 hours 48 minutes ago
LyondellBasell Industries, a chemicals maker controlled by the investor Len Blavatnik, may file for bankruptcy as a way to restructure debt that financed its $12.7 billion merger a year ago. The company hired an executive to oversee a restructuring in case it seeks court protection and said its private equity owners had denied a request for [...]
Asian Markets Gain
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 20 hours 48 minutes ago
Asian stock markets rose strongly Monday, with benchmarks in Tokyo and Shanghai gaining more than 2 percent, as last week's rally on Wall Street buoyed investor hopes for 2009. The session was the year's first for a number of Asian countries, including Japan, where markets were still closed Friday, and trading volumes were higher across the [...]
GMAC and G.M. Alter Finance Agreement
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 20 hours 54 minutes ago
GMAC, the auto lending giant partly owned by Cerberus Capital Management, will no longer have exclusive rights to provide low-interest loans to people who buy General Motors vehicles, and it will stop financing leases under a complex deal to get federal aid for the troubled lender. GMAC disclosed the terms of the deal in a filing [...]
Investors to Buy IndyMac for $13.9 Billion
New York Times/Dealbook, The | 20 hours 54 minutes ago
A seven-member group of investors has formed to buy the remnants of a failed lender, IndyMac Bank, for $13.9 billion, federal regulators confirmed Friday. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said a holding company led by Steven T. Mnuchin, co-chief executive of the private equity company Dune Capital Management, had agreed to buy IndyMac in a deal [...]
What are SmartBlogs?
SmartBrief's simple blog reader, designed for the busy executive, does the work so you don't have to. "SmartBlogs" delivers in real time the influential voices of must-read industry bloggers, hand-selected and maintained by our expert editors. Be sure to bookmark this page and visit often.
Selected blogs for this industry includes:
AAO Weblog
The AAO Weblog is a blog by Jack Ciesielski, dealing with current accounting topics related to investment and finance.
RealClearPolitics Blog, The
News, opinion, and commentary on the political issues of the day
Wall Street Journal/Real Time Economics, The
Economic insight and analysis from The Wall Street Journal.
Wall Street Journal/Washington Wire, The
Political Insight and Analysis From The Wall Street Journal's Capital Bureau