The SIPA

New rankings show that Delaware is a better place to hide money than Switzerland. While this may come as a surprise to most Americans, financial sector analyst Heather Lowe says that it is not a surprise to the world’s criminals. Question: Would that be in, uh, Dollars? Spin, spin spin… Watch Video…

The greatest transfer of wealth in history is old news – but now that baby Boomer recipients are beginning to retire, on the heels of the meltdown, how will this affect the industry? Changing client investment parameters are leaving some firms scrambling to adapt. The aftershocks of the Financial crisis are reverberating in portfolio allocation, [...]

Do nothing, get what you deserve. Timothy Geithner, in his infinite wisdom, has said that he will regulate salaries at US financial institutions by placing caps on the amount that can be earned. He also says that he has the legal authority to do so. I’m calling BS. While I may rant and rave that there [...]

Linked Articles: “Was FINRA A Madoff Investor” (the SIPA) “FINRA Oversees Auction Rate Arbitrations After Exiting Market” (Bloomberg) FINRA is currently processing 344 investor arbitration cases over losses generated by the complete collapse of the Auction Rate Bond market. But FINRA itself actually had owned some $862 Million of the toxic assets prior to the [...]

In the wake of Madoff and other frauds, the SEC warned on March 9 that “the staff has determined that, in order to perform a valid verification of Assets, the staff must request independent confirmation of investor assets from various third parties” including your clients themselves. We can only imagine just how reassuring a call [...]

I’m gonna start by saying that I am totally outraged the Bernie Madoff gets to go straight to jail without a long tedious exposure at trial, and I think it stinks to high heaven. And I’ve had a real difficulty understanding why auditor after auditor found nothing awry at Madoff, when a 7th grader would [...]

Bernard Madoff. The ultimate zinger. Just say the words: Bernard Madoff -the whole room goes deathly silent. What can one say? What the hell was he thinking? At a moment when the entire world is looking for a reason to trust the US financial system, in rides Bernie Madoff. Former Chairman of the Nasdaq. Treasurer [...]

“Gold, Schmold – Who cares, you can’t take it with you.” It’s no secret that the layoffs have begun in earnest at broker dealers, advisories, hedge funds, etc. With over 1,000,000 jibs lost in the US this year, wall street has been hit with a disproportionate number of layoffs – some 100,000 announced in the [...]

In several articles earlier this year, we broached the unthinkable: that the End Of FINRA was potentially at hand. Since then, we have seen much in the way of de-facto re-organization, with the Bulge Bracket firms – such as they still exist – coming under direct control of the Treasury. Ironically, what this means is [...]

My how things have changed. Goldman announced today that it is “mulling over” the idea of creating an Internet bank. Unsatisfied with investment capital alone, the humble folks at GS now want access to the everday cash of tom and jane. \ “This move is pretty much the polar opposite of what you think about [...]

On November 15, leaders of 20 nations will convene to create a framework for stabilizing and rebuilding the world financial markets. The meeting is being called Bretton Woods II, after the historic meeting that set the stage for dollar hegemony after WWII. While the meeting is set to review and determine such things as the [...]

With the ban on short expired today, the market may be in for yet another wild ride as the market expresses it’s faith in the recent bailout in dollar terms. According to an article by Kevin McCoy in USA Today, here’s how some well known folks weighed in: Richard Baker, president of the Managed Funds [...]

So it looks like come hell or highwater, this bill is gonna pass see bill here today. Okay, so where does that leave us? Better than Monday, i should think. Some of the more offensive parts of the bill were removed, and plenty O’ Pork was thrown in to incentivize. All can claim Victory. And [...]

The full danger of Reactionary Regulation is unknown. While we may, in the US, see a proliferation of smaller firms that step up to fill the void in capital formation – and with this a downscaling of the project financing and credit in general, as the process becomes, for small scale projects at least, increasingly local [...]

In the aftermath of Enron came SarBox,  arguably the most destructive regulatory reform to hit capital formation in a generation. Post 911 we saw an emotional Congress rush to judgement. Who can calculate the half life of the damage done both domestically and abroad by this rush to judgement? And now, we’ve got a bill that’s [...]

There’s no place like home… Truly the unimaginable has happened. The Fed has spent a trillion dollars in bailouts in the last week alone, and wall streets’ Wizards decisionmaking has been exposed as bankrupt and full of artifice,  and the old regulatory matrix may be headed the way of the dodo. But what does this mean to [...]