The more I practice the luckier I get...
I saw this week that a chap by the name of John Meriwether, a bell-weather name of the hedge fund world, is about to embark upon his 3rd attempt at running a hedge fund. Incredible really. This guy's "ability" required the Federal Reserve to establish the entire precedent of "too big to fail" in 1998, when they were forced to rescue his first hedge fund, Long Term Capital Management (and the banks that lent to it). He then had another cut at punting other people's money, which ended 3 months ago - investors in JWM Partners were handed back 56% of their initial investment. And now, like a Phoenix from the flames, he's back again with the collection bowl out raising money for a 3rd fund. The

The 20 year plan...
There is an amusing TV advert for Walls sausages doing the rounds at the moment, that as a recent entrant into the world of parenthood and the ensuing sleepless nights, has struck a chord. The advert shows 2 scenes; the birth of a child and, secondly, the departure of said child from home 20-odd years later. The tagline for the sausage company is: "Wall's sausages: we only select the best bits". A bit harsh maybe, but with a 3-month old son, who's lovely, but at the same time a 20 odd year financial liability, I can get the gist. I've been doing some thinking of late about what sort of assets will have value over that sort of timeframe. In trying to select the best bits, there's not a lot t

Party Pooping...
The IMF this week said that they think that the world's banks are still yet to acknowledge over half of the losses that they projected in April this year. Their projected figure was $2,800bn back then, and in their latest financial stability report that figure remains their expectation. So far during the financial crisis the world's banks have acknowledged $1,300bn of writedowns, leaving another $1,500bn of losses to be accounted for - if the IMF are to be believed. At the same time, one of the main topics of regulatory discussion is how insufficient bank capital was under the old regime, and how it needs to be greater in future. Basically regulators want banks to be better capi

Congrats to the Koni Kats...
I read an article this week about a group of four teenagers from Co. Wicklow in Ireland, who were crowned world champions in a global science competition. The "Koni Kats" team from St. David's Secondary School in Greystones took the top honours at the fifth Formula One Schools Technology Challenge World Championships in London. At an awards ceremony attended by Lewis Hamilton and a large VIP entourage from Formula One, the students were presented with the Bernie Ecclestone World Championship Trophy and Automotive and Motorsport Engineering scholarships to the University of London. Thirty one teams from 20 countries were vying for the title, with students using generic software to design, bu

All things tend to entropy...
Entropy - A thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system's thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work, often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system. A year has passed since Lehman Brothers, my former employer, passed into the annals of the has-beens. This week has seen plenty of media commentary looking into the lasting impact of that moment on 15th September 2008 when all the avenues of potential rescue had been exhausted, including a final desperate phone call from a relative of George W. Bush who worked for the bank, and Lehman declared itself bankrupt. I'm currently reading a book called "A Colossal Failure