"Do you know where I am?"

"It's three in the morning," croaks Son, his voice raspy from sleep.

"I make it ... twenty-two minutes after three ... London time." Dad is calm, his voice commanding. His accent hints of a childhood down south. He is standing outside on the street...

The other day I was meeting with a book club, and a woman asked me, "How do you write oh-sh** moments? You know what I mean. When a character suddenly realizes everything is about to hit the fan."

"It helps if you've lived through thousands of them."

I know I...

1. Lemming portfolio theory. The consensus is always wrong. Facebook is a media love orgy right now.

2. Private valuations are opinion, not science. A few years ago, the Winklevoss twins used Microsoft's $15 billion valuation to settle their lawsuit. Meanwhile, Facebook's board appraised the company...

After returning from three strip malls, Phoebe Jenkins kicked off her shoes first thing. Right there in front of the kitchen sink. She was exhausted from the holiday crowds — all the pushing and shoving, the occasional hip check or two. Her swollen dogs were screaming for...

With the Dow trading over 10,700 again, the crisis of 2008 is growing long of tooth. Investors are growing short of memory. And many hedgies, who shuttered their funds due to performance, are making a comeback.

Here's an example of what the The New York Times had to say in...

I've been thinking about the "Giving Pledge," a campaign championed by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. They're asking fellow members of the uber rich to pledge 50+ percent of their fortunes to charities--more money to philanthropy and less to family. Among the billionaires who have taken the "pledge" are Larry...

Yesterday, Goldman Sachs settled fraud charges associated with Abacus CDOs for $550 million. Not surprisingly, the settlement excluded Fabrice P. Tourre, who will no doubt be hung out to dry as the Tourre de Toxic winds to a close.

Personally, I think the government just got...

Andy Warhol is on my mind, specifically his famous quote:

In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.

It's too bad Warhol isn't around today. I'd like to read his updates on Twitter or Facebook. I bet we'd see quirky videos, like the one of him eating a...

I just returned from Nino's in Manhattan, where the authors of The Club No One Wanted to Join gathered to discuss their book. They are a group of twenty-nine investors in Madoff's Ponzi scheme. Their book describes the change in their lives since the shattering confession on December...

In today's New York Times, Andrew Sorkin describes the sweetheart taxes for hedge-fund and private-equity partners as follows:

General partners at private equity funds, who take a cut of the investment gains they earn for their investors in the form of "carried interest," have been paying federal taxes...

Recently, I described financial reform as a "petri dish" of pending legislation. The government is tackling too many issues at the same time. Without constants--we don't know how markets will react to all the moving pieces.

It gets worse. Last night The Wall Street Journal profiled...

I believe in financial reform. Let's lose synthetic CDOs, credit default swaps, and other weapons of money destruction. Let's cut the leverage and focus on systemic risks to our economic order. But let's be smart.

In the wake of last Thursday, it appears our government is tackling too many issues...

From Hill to hedge funds' hired guns

Check out today's post on Politico. The author asserts that financial reform is uneven, that pending Congressional legislation has modest impact on hedge funds.

Wall Street has taken its lumps in Washington recently and Goldman Sachs has become everyone's whipping boy,...

Is paranoia necessary to survive on Wall Street?

In one sense, Goldman Sachs is no different from other investment banks. Junior employees are expendable. Like goldfish, investment banks eat their young when brand-protection and self-interest make cannibalism seem rationale.

Smart guys, rainmakers, anybody in the trenches--they're all vulnerable. Case in...

Who hasn't seen the news? The SEC accused Goldman Sachs of fraud, alleging it misrepresented an Abacus CDO. Banks lost $1 billion on the trade. And John Paulson, one of the gods of Greenwich, pocketed that $1 billion through his fund.

Here's what I don't get:

1. Goldman made...

Michael Lewis has done it again. The Big Short is a must read, even if you don't know anything about finance. With his trademark ability to identify unlikely heroes, he chronicles the lives of people who bet against subprime mortgages. The prose are lucid. The explanations make sense. And Lewis...

Here's what happened three weeks ago to the day -- March 17, 2010. The signs were all there. I should have seen it coming. It was a Wednesday, a Worst Case Wednesday.

I landed in Amsterdam around 11 a.m., about twenty-four hours before speaking at NRC Focus' seminar...

The E.U. is getting tough with member nations according to The New York Times. Strong warnings to Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands. Get your budget deficits in order, or else ... excuse me if I don't buy it. Here are three things you must know about...

Market Defies Fear of Real Estate Bubble in China

A real estate bubble, fueled by bad loans and too much leverage, explains much of our stock market's turmoil since 2008. So today's article from The New York Times about the Chinese version, caught my attention. Here are a...

Hedge Funds Try 'Career Trade' Against Euro

Here's the deal. Hedge funds are betting the Euro will crash against major currencies. The "short-Euro" trade, however lucrative to the gods of Greenwich, raises three scary questions with one thing in common:

Nobody knows the answers.

1. What happens when...