Archive - Feb 2009 - Story

With Traxis' results of -31% in 2008 and -5.71% in January, one would allege that Mr Biggs is merely an expert in leveraged piggybacking to a bull market.

Aleris, which filed for bankruptcy a week ago and had a $1.575 billion DIP in place, has seen the DIP get hammered in the secondary market to a low of 77 bid earlier today, after allocating yesterday. Unlike an ISDA auction, DIPs, especially purchased in the secondary market, seem a guaranteed way to part with capital in a very rapid timeframe. The incremental selling pressure on the DIP is due to numerous existing prepetition holders who subscribed in order to obtain roll up rights on their nearly worthless holdings (pre-petition loan priced at 6 today), hoping to make them less worthless.

Presumably arrested although sources are unclear... maybe arresting FBI agents were on the political contribution list and looked the other way for 30 seconds.

Smurfit Stone's CDS Auction concluded at 2pm today with a final clearing price of 8.875, a whole 100 bps over the Inside Market Midpoint of 7.875. Whoever got hit - congratulations as the bonds were bid 9.5 post auction, an 7% immediate pick up.

The fallout from Citadel's nebulous future is spreading. Russki Algo trading genius Misha Malyshev, who was classified as Citadel's Head of High-Frequency Trading, and who was responsible for some of the only profits at Citadel last year, generating 40% returns for the two funds under his control has left the firm.

Hedge Fund Alert reports that, as expected, more large hedge funds are following Ken Griffin's example and are reversing the course on suspending redemptions. Some of the larger names that are starting to let investors get their much needed if significantly reduced cash are Fortress, Threadneedle and Tudor.

As the Dow drops below the so called November test, Hogan's bottom etc., Nouriel is stoking the fire:

PRU stock getting hammered after Fitch had some choice words for the insurer.

The Center for Responsive Politics has come out with an insightful list, disclosing Stanford's campaign contributions which shockingly demonstrates that R. Allen Stanford was president Obama's third largest donor.

Turns out Stanford was a big Democrat, giving almost a million to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Other politicians have benefited from Stanford's fraud inspired generosity over the years:
Bill Nelson, Florida Democrat: $45,900

Is the president watching?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEZB4taSEoA&hl=en&fs=1]

Or Geithner and 51,999 (we jest Timmmmay). The U.S. government has filed suit in Miami alleging that U.S. customers have failed to pay taxes on 32,000 cash accounts and 20,000 securities accounts, which held $14.8 billion of assets in the mid-2000s, according to a Justice department statement.

No major surprises in SSCC's ISDA CDS and LCDS auctions. Creditex has determined the inside market mid-point for CDS at 7.875% while the LCDS mid is 68.5. Both points are consistent with recent trading levels of 68-70 for the loans and 7.75 - 9 for the bonds.

Net sell interest into determination of the final price is $128.675 million for the bonds and $40 million for the loans.

Final auction results will be made available around 2 pm and we will give you the full lowdown.

Vincent Montagna, who ran hedge-fund Tiburon Partners from 1998 to 2002 before being charged by the SEC for defrauding 70 investors out of $10 million, pled guilty to securities fraud, investment advisor fraud and wire fraud, and who was sentenced to 40 months in jail, is scheduled to start serv

After seemingly endless years of wrangling back and forth, Einhorn has finally been vindicated: Allied Capital announced in an 8K today that it was notified by its lenders of a default in its credit fa

Technically he said "probably not" kinda like Iraq "probably has" weapons of mass destruction.

Someone quickly find the private jet departure logs from Antigua into Mexico over the past 3 days.