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markets
by leon on January 1, 2009
I know this is risky after the last post, but what the hell. What can we expect in 2009. The truth is, no-one really knows. Still, there are some forecasts worth looking at.A sobering prediction from...
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risk
by leon on January 1, 2009
So 2008 is over. And good riddance too. If ever there was a year that deserved to be consigned to flames and forgotten about, this was the year.No one would have expected a year where company share p...
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markets
by leon on December 31, 2008
Around this time every year, everyone rolls out their list of winners and losers for the last 12 months. There are lists everywhere but the best I've seen is from the Houston Chronicle's Lore...
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markets
by leon on December 30, 2008
With the United States government once more getting the taxpayers to bail out a hopeless business, this time announcing it would pump $6 billion into GMAC Financial Services, including $1 billion for...
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Compliance
by leon on December 29, 2008
The new world order with regulation is now emerging.Gone are the days when the so-called "free market" was the only game in town. We are now seeing a reappraisal of the "free markets&q...
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corporate crime
by leon on December 29, 2008
The legal fallout over Bernard Madoff has taken a New turn with a judge ruling that Madoff must provide a list of all investments, lines of credit, loans, business interests, brokerage accounts, and ...
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markets
by leon on December 26, 2008
With more companies filing for bankruptcy, we can expect to see the stronger players making acquisitions. The downturn will unleash Pacman-style corporate activity.PricewaterhouseCoopers has forecast...
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markets
by leon on December 26, 2008
Despite the car executives, the corporate jet market is still booming, reports Associated Press with financial firms that received billions in bailout dollars still owning and operating fleets. But, ...
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regulators
by leon on December 25, 2008
Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox has defended his regime in a way that would just leave the public gob-smacked.The culture of slack oversight allowed US financial instituti...
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strategy
by leon on December 25, 2008
Traditionally, software and PC sell like hot cakes over Christmas. But with the United States in recession and growing job losses, holiday sales are projected to plummet big time and retailers are di...
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litigation
by leon on December 25, 2008
It had to happen. Bernard Madoff's $50 billion Ponzi scheme is turning into a lawyers' picnic with the lawsuits rolling in.First, we have reports that a New York woman, Phyllis Molchatsky, is...
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markets
by leon on December 23, 2008
Just finished reading Niall Ferguson's book The Ascent of Money and it's a fascinating read.Ferguson makes the point that money has been a key driving force behind progress, from ancient Meso...
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corporate crime
by leon on December 23, 2008
Yesterday, I did a blog entry on how the Madoff scandal had out accountants in the gun. The view now is that no-one could have pulled off a scam as big as this, and kept it going for so long, without...
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regulators
by leon on December 22, 2008
The shock waves set off by Bernard Madoff's $50 billion scam continue to reverberate with reports that the FBI is now diverting agents from its counter-terrorism divisions to focus on Madoff'...
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markets
by leon on December 22, 2008
How bad is the meltdown? There are dire predictions from Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez, the Governor of the Bank of Spain. He says it's the worst since the Great Depression of 1929. "The la...
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regulators
by leon on December 20, 2008
The Securities and Exchanges Commission has had quite a shellacking over the last week over its ineptitude and turning a blind eye to Bernard Madoff's scam.An Office of Inspector General (OIG) re...
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markets
by leon on December 20, 2008
Back in October, I did a blog entry looking at how long the recession would last. Some predicted it would one years, others were saying it could take as many as five. The bottom line is no-one knows....
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Information About
, litigation
by leon on December 20, 2008
Already the signs aren't looking good, and accountants should start to worry.With the credit crisis, the number of securities class actions has nearly doubled this year, according to NERA Econom...
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regulators
by leon on December 20, 2008
US automakers will finally get a $17.4 billion announced by the White House, reports The Wall Street Journal.This rescue might well create more problems down the track. Certainly, it's no guarant...
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corporate crime
by leon on December 18, 2008
With Bernie Madoff avoiding jail and instead getting house arrest in his $7 million apartment, The Wall Street Journal tells us that the Securities and Exchange Commission had him cold on multiple vi...
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Ethics
by leon on December 18, 2008
Goldman Sachs has reported its first ever quarterly loss of $2.1 billion since it went public in 1999. This is the firm that raised an extra $20.7 billion by selling $10 billion of equity to the US G...
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regulators
by leon on December 17, 2008
The Securities and Exchange has switched into damage control mode with SEC chairman Christopher Cox announcing an in-house investigation into why it did not detect the $50 billion fraud case sooner.C...
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regulators
by leon on December 17, 2008
There are two remarkable things about the Fed's decision today to cut interest rates to virtually zero. The first point is that it is bringing the US to Japan's zero interest rate policies. T...
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markets
by leon on December 17, 2008
No-one is immune from the credit crunch. Not even Queen Elizabeth.Richard Kay at the Daily Mail reports that she has cut back on the traditional Christmas presents for staff at Buck House. This year,...
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corporate crime
by leon on December 16, 2008
Is Bernard Madoff a sign of things to come? Will there be more like him? Is Madoff's $50 billion fraud a sign of things to come?These are valid questions because Madoff was the product of a dysfu...
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litigation
by leon on December 16, 2008
In a 5 to 4 decision, the US Supreme Court has opened the door to a flood of lawsuits against tobacco companies with a ruling that smokers can sue over the way they promote light and low tar brands. ...
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strategy
by leon on December 15, 2008
The Big Three might be sweating blood over whether the Bush administration bails them out or not, but there is a story that's fart broader than the managerial incompetence of US automakers. The b...
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regulators
by leon on December 15, 2008
Over the weekend, I did a blog entry condemning the Securities and Exchange Commission for ignoring the warnings it was receiving about swindler Bernard Madoff.Now Bloomberg reports that the SEC neve...
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risk
by leon on December 15, 2008
More signs of the US economy on the skids with the latest data showing that bankruptcy filings are climbing and are likely to reach one million by the end of December.According to the figures, more t...
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risk
by leon on December 14, 2008
The tales of woe and the list of Bernard Madoff's victims continue to grow. Associated Press reports that the list includes former Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman Braman, New York Mets owner Fre...
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corporate crime
by leon on December 13, 2008
The extraordinary $50 billion fraud and Ponzi scheme that Wall Street legend Bernard Madoff is accused of is bad enough. But what is more remarkable are the questions about federal regulators. Why wa...
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markets
by leon on December 12, 2008
Global PR honcho Mark Penn, who has advised the Clintons and Tony Blair, has a piece in The Wall Street Journal talking about what's supposedly the latest rage: mattress stuffing. According to Pe...
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Ethics
by leon on December 12, 2008
Fell out of my seat when I read the LA Times piece about a memo sent to Bush cabinet members and top officials at a loss to explain what Bush's eight years in the White House had achieved.The so-...
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strategy
by leon on December 11, 2008
Not quite sure what this one says about the FBI, or for that matter Lehman Brothers, with FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III announcing that it had hired an ex-IT executive at failed investment bank...
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risk
by leon on December 11, 2008
Worrying figures with China's annual inflation rate falling to 2.4% in November. It's the lowest rate of increase in almost two years. In the year to February 2008, it was 8.7% which means ba...
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Ethics
by leon on December 11, 2008
Which country pays the biggest bribes?It's Russia, followed by China, Mexico and India, according to the latest Transparency International Bribe Payers' Index.According to the index, Belgian ...
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markets
by leon on December 11, 2008
China's economic slowdown continues and that spells trouble for the global economy."Things are not so good. November figures will come out soon, and industrial growth will be something aroun...
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markets
by leon on December 9, 2008
It's bad enough that Japan, the world's second largest economy, has entered recession. But now we have reports that the numbers are even worse than we thought.Last month, the figures showed J...
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Accounting
by leon on December 9, 2008
The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has put auditors on notice. in the wake of the economic meltdown, they need to exercise extreme scepticism.The PCAOB has put out a report telling auditor...
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risk
by leon on December 8, 2008
The role of the dysfunctional US housing market is one of the fascinating parts of this global meltdown. What is it about the US that created the meltdown? What are the unique features of that market...
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corporate governance
by leon on December 8, 2008
Last week, I did a blog entry condemning Robert Rubin's self serving claim that Citigroup's woes had absolutely nothing to do with its board directors. Not their fault at all, he said, especi...
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strategy
by leon on December 7, 2008
So Barack Obama has pledged to spend up to $700 billion creating 2.5 million jobs in the biggest public works construction program for more than 50 years. The question is will it work?It will undoubt...
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markets
by leon on December 6, 2008
The US housing market continues to go from catastrophic to worse, with delinquency rate for Mortgage loans, 90 days overdue, has hit record levels, according to the latest figures from the Mortgage B...
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markets
by leon on December 5, 2008
Banks around tbe world are slashing interest rates to contain the global recession. The Bank of England has gone for a full percentage point cut, Sweden has slashed by 1.75% and New Zealand by 1.5%. ...
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Ethics
by leon on December 5, 2008
The KBR scandals just don't stop.One year after the company was implicated in the rape of KBR employee employee Jamie Leigh Jones , it's been hit with a new lawsuit from another former employ...
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strategy
by leon on December 5, 2008
Chastened by the public uproar, the chief executives of the Big Three automakers have pledged to earn $1 A year in salary to keep their companies in business. It's a good symbol designed to gener...
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markets
by leon on December 4, 2008
Things have not been looking good for Donald Trump lately. The credit crunch and the real estate slump have hurt him badly with reports that his a 62-storey skyscraper in Dubai has been put on hold, ...
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strategy
by leon on December 3, 2008
The automakers want more taxpayers' money. Now they're asking for $38 billion, not $25 billion and have presented plans, detailed by Forbes, with GM cutting its stable of brands from eight to...
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regulators
by leon on December 3, 2008
The Government Accountability Office has raised questions about the transparency of the US Government's $700 billion rescue package for profligate banks.In its report, the GAO says nobody really ...
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strategy
by leon on December 3, 2008
US automakers are finishing their restructuring plans as part of their pitch for the the $25 billion in emergency funding but the reality is these companies are losing so much money that it won't...
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markets
by leon on December 3, 2008
It's a bit like saying you have just realised that you can't drive to work because your car was smashed up a few weeks ago. That's my reaction to the National Bureau of Economic Research ...
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Information About
, markets
by leon on December 1, 2008
Have just finished reading Robert Shiller's The Subprime Solution which offers plenty of food for thought. Provocative and unsettling stuff.Shiller argues that the the impact of the US housing b...
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risk
by leon on December 1, 2008
Of all the disgraceful moments following the implosion of Citigroup, this Wall Street Journal interview with Citigroup director and Bill Clinton's former Treasury honcho Robert Rubin probably tak...
