Embattled investment bank Jefferies reported stronger-than-expected earnings and a slimmed-down balance sheet, confounding critics and sending the firm’s shares on a surge. The news marks a victory for the firm’s management and vindicates its strategy of aggressive communication during a crisis, as the firm sought to dispel rumors about its trading exposure and liquidity. Of […]
New York’s Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday (12/20) that private parties can pursue claims under the Martin Act – New York’s anti-fraud statute that was used by Eliot Spitzer nearly a decade ago to bring Wall Street to heel. News reports were brief, but the ruling is sure to arouse concern at the large banks, […]
Court Upholds Europe’s Plan to Charge Airlines for Carbon Emissions http://s.nyt.com/u/8xsl
There are many tributes today to Christopher Hitchens, and they’re packed with links to his many writings and interviews – one of the hallmarks of the public intellectual in the modern age. Vanity Fair, where Hitchens was a contributing editor, has a short remembrance and a collection of Hitchens’s video appearances. In the video below, […]
Were it not for the missing customer funds, the collapse of MF Global would be hailed as an example of how well the financial system worked. That’s a very big “if,” of course, and the loss of customer funds is a scandal all its own. But the market worked – and that’s an important lesson. […]
It’s impossible to read about the demise of MF Global and not think about Refco, the futures brokerage that collapsed in scandal in 2005 and whose remains were later bought by MF Global. Like Marley’s ghost, the weaknesses that played a part in Refco’s downfall returned to haunt MF Global. Refco’s problems came to light […]
Prominent hedge-fund manager Leon Cooperman wrote a widely distributed letter to President Obama this week in which he decried the President’s role in framing the national economic debate in “class warfare” terms. Cooperman’s words are remarkably similar to those of another pubic figure who warned a President about the risks stemming from a bruising policy […]
Tom Glocer today became the latest CEO to be fired, in a year that has seen a score of corporate chiefs get the boot. Glocer, who has led Thomson Reuters since 2001, lost the confidence of the Thomson family, the company’s largest shareholder. Although billed as a retirement, it’s clear that Glocer was forced out […]
I happened to be reading Malcom Gladwell’s excellent book, Outliers, just as MF Global was collapsing, and I came across Gladwell’s discussion about another kind of crash – those involving airplanes. Gladwell offers an interesting observation about the causes of air disasters that could apply to the failures at financial firms, like MF Global, or […]
Sure, the positive comments today from Meredith Whitney helped, but give Jefferies (NYSE: JEF) credit for handling its communications well in a very challenging environment. At one point the stock was down 20 percent as rumors swirled about the firm’s exposure to European sovereign debt and a downgrade by Egan-Jones. By day’s end, however, the […]