Reminds me of a WB quote: "It's only when the tide goes out that you learn who's been swimming naked." Real estate, banks, and autos are not coming back anytime soon. Wonder what other turds we're gonna find flopping about on the beach ...
Any chance we can move Wall Street to Guantanamo Bay? Blagojevich hand me thinking politicians were reestablishing their preeminence in greed and sleaze, but Madoff proves that Wall Street cannot be topped in terms of sheer audacity. $14B for Detroit is gonna seem like tip money compared to what could be unfolding
A couple of years ago I read about Fairfield's Sentry "Split Strike Conversion" trading approach and was intrigued by the low volatility returns. I tried backtesting and understand the strategy, but I couldn't. It just didn't make any sense to me. Long a basket of stocks and short the synthetic (split strike) underlying is not an edge. 92% positive months, outperforming LIBOR 550 bps over the last 10 years... I thought these guys know something I don't. Here's a WSJ article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122903010173099377-email.html 10% every year after fees with a "strategy" that has zero edge? It sounded too good to be true I guess. Attachment: 3x leveraged investment product in Fairfield Sentry LTD offered by a Swiss private bank. Equity looks like a completely smooth curve.
Questions were raised about the Madoff hedge fund steady returns way back in May, 2001. http://nakedshorts.typepad.com/nakedshorts/2008/12/if-it-sounds-too-good-to-be-true.html
Gotta love it . I can't stop laughing about this story ! At least the guy is finally being honest about it almost in an unapologetic way : "It was all a big lie !" "A giant Ponzy scheme !" "We lost 50 bln " LOL so funny ! Keeping that lie going for so long must have been as hard as making the money he claimed he was making !
Out of more than $17bn in assets under management by Mr Madoffâs firm at the start of 2008, essentially all the assets appear to be missing, the SEC alleged. here is the SEC charge sheet: http://www.ft.com/cms/14bdd77c-c7e7-11dd-b611-000077b07658.pdf when the tide goes out....