Magnetar

Magnetar's Rap Sheet

ProPublica | Cora Currier | Posted 05.17.2012

The hedge fund Magnetar helped create billions of dollars' worth of risky deals called collateralized debt obligations, many of which failed spectacul...

FCIC Report Misses Central Issue: Why Was There Demand for Bad Mortgage Loans?

Thomas Adams and Yves Smith | Posted 05.25.2011

Thomas Adams and Yves Smith

It is remarkable that the FCIC, with its access to industry figures and its subpoena powers, was unable to refine this sort of analysis together to give a clear picture of what was actually happening in the CDO market.

New York Times Muffs Merrill/Magnetar Piece (Corrected and Updated)

Thomas Adams and Yves Smith | Posted 05.25.2011

Thomas Adams and Yves Smith

Louise Story has penned what presents itself as an important story at the New York Times, one that charges Merrill Lynch with misrepresenting the size...

Financial Reform: Who's the Fox in the Henhouse?

Norb Vonnegut | Posted 05.25.2011

Norb Vonnegut

What's worse -- alleged fraud by an investment bank or unchecked profiteering by hedge funds using toxic securities?

Misadventures in Collateralized Debt Obligations

nytimes.com | NELSON D. SCHWARTZ and ERIC DASH | Posted 05.25.2011

But now, after so much financial pain, Wall Street is nervously tallying the potential legal costs from its misadventures in collateralized debt obli...

Paulson Confronts Goldman Fallout

Wall Street Journal | GREGORY ZUCKERMAN and JENNY STRASBURG | Posted 05.25.2011

John Paulson hasn't been accused of any wrongdoing. But the hedge-fund billionaire has gone on the offensive to reassure investors that his huge firm ...

Jason Linkins

Goldman Sachs Fraud Suit: The Populist Veneer

HuffingtonPost.com | Jason Linkins | Posted 05.25.2011

It seems to be pretty clear that the White House is constructing a big pageant play with noble heroes and wicked villains. And at the end of the day, something called "reform" gets passed and nobody asks, "Well, will this work?" Will this SEC suit be the thing that defangs the great vampire squid? I wouldn't count on it.

Do Business Schools See Why CDOs Are Compared to "Springtime for Hitler"?

David Fiderer | Posted 05.25.2011

David Fiderer

New reporting offers hard evidence that Magnetar, a hedge fund group based in Chicago, had designed a series of subprime mezzanine CDOs that were all but guaranteed to fail.

A Hedge Fund Show Tune: Ditty Lampoons Magnetar's 'Betting Against The American Dream' (VIDEO)

Posted 05.25.2011

As part of their segment this week on the hedge fund Magnetar, This American Life and Planet Money asked Broadway composer Robert Lopez to write a sho...

Magnetar How One Hedge Fund Helped Keep the Bubble Going

ProPublica | Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein | Posted 05.25.2011

Several journalists have alluded to the Magnetar Trade in recent years, but until now none has assembled a full narrative. Yves Smith, a prominent fin...

ProPublica's (and NY Times') "Untold" Magnetar Story Creates Excuses for Wall Street and Washington

Janet Tavakoli | Posted 05.25.2011

Janet Tavakoli

Contrary to recent reports, Magnetar wasn't a previously unknown hedge fund, it did not create the synthetic CDO structure, and the magnitude of its role in the subprime crisis has been overblown.